Can Anyone Say Flyspeck?

Despite being a political junkie, I tend to stay away from it here on Polis. But this is just too juicy. Jeanine Pirro, the Westchester prosecutor and moderate Republican, is quickly chewing through her 15 minutes of political fame as Hillary Clinton's opponent to represent New York in the US Senate. First, she fumbled through her announcement, shuffling for a lost page of her speech for an uncomfortably long time. Then she waffled on her position on late-term abortion, leading some observers to comment that she’s not quite ready for prime time. Now comes a scoop from New York Observer’s Politicker that she’s taken campaign donations from a company suspected of ties to the mob. After all the "girl-fight" media coverage, I'm starting to think she may not even make it through the Republican primary. It's no secret that the whole point of Pirro's candidacy is to bloody up Hillary in antiticpation of the presidential race in 2008, but with this trifecta of gaffes, it's looking like that might backfire bigtime. How much strength will Hillary actually gain just by watching Pirro spontaneously combust before managing to land a single blow?

P.S. How could I have forgotten to mention her husband? “Mr. Pirro, a powerful Republican lobbyist, served 11 months in federal prison for his conviction on tax fraud in 2000. He also fathered a child in an extramarital relationship in the 1990's.” Read the Times piece here.