Top New York Democrats Split by Ford Challenge to Gillibrand

“He is not a real New Yorker,” one person who was there said. Another warned that a Ford candidacy “would only hurt the party.” Sarah Kovner, the former Clinton administration official who hosted the event and is a staunch backer of Ms. Gillibrand, was especially blunt: “We don’t need this primary,” she told Mr. Kramer, according to people who heard the conversation.

Mr. Kramer, a top fund-raiser for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in New York, stood his ground. Mr. Ford, he told guests, “is a friend, and I will be supportive of him.”

Nowhere is the intensity of the clash between Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Ford more evident than inside Manhattan’s sprawling penthouses and boardrooms, where wealthy families and titans of finance are being stroked, wooed and pressured to choose sides in what could be the marquee political battle of 2010.

Mr. Ford has given himself 30 days to decide whether to challenge Ms. Gillibrand. And that has touched off a war for the city’s richest donors, especially those on Wall Street, as both camps race to nail down financial support and demonstrate the breadth of their Rolodexes.


Read more...