GOP NY Senate candidate rips Gillibrand: Her ‘greatest success is self-promotion’

BY JOHN BOWDEN

A GOP candidate running against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Sunday sharply criticized the New York Democrat.

In an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York, Chele Farley attacked Gillibrand for her shifting on issues such as gun control, noting Gillibrand’s nickname during her House tenure, “Annie Oakley.”

“When she was in the House, she was known as ‘Annie Oakley,’ ” Farley said. “And now in the Senate people laugh and they call her ‘Jane Fonda.’ That’s quite a change to the left.”

“Kirsten Gillibrand’s greatest success is self-promotion, not accomplishments,” Farley continued, before pivoting to attack Gillibrand’s votes against Trump administration nominees. “She’s voted against more Trump nominees than any other senator and was the only one to vote against [Defense Secretary James] Mattis.”

Farley declared her candidacy in a video on Feb. 1, and accused Gillibrand of “grandstanding” but getting nothing done during her nine years in the Senate in a statement to the New York Daily News.

“We need to stop the grandstanding and work with both sides of the aisle to create jobs not soundbites,” Farley said. “Kirsten Gillibrand had nine years and failed.”

Farley is endorsed by the state’s former Gov. George Pataki (R), and cited the GOP tax plan’s problems for New Yorkers as one of the main reasons for her Senate run.

“The tax cuts, frankly, were a mixed bag for New Yorkers,” she said. “That’s another reason that I’m running is that … if we had a Republican senator, that there would’ve been someone there in the room who could’ve worked to change the tax plan so we didn’t lose the state and local tax deductions cold turkey.”

Gillibrand previously won reelection in 2012 with 72 percent of the vote, the highest margin for any statewide candidate that year. She has served in the Senate since her appointment to the seat in 2009 by former Gov. David Paterson (D).