Ending a wild 48-hour period where Hillary Clinton left the Senate to become Secretary of State to President Obama, New York Governor David Paterson named 42-year old New York Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand of upstate Columbia County, New York as the junior senator. It was a crushing defeat for Attorney Andrew Cuomo, widely exected to be the winner of this seat after Caroline Kennedy suddenly withdrew her name from consideration 24-hours earlier.

In her thank you speech she seemed to spend a inordinate amount of time thanking the governor and the assembled politicians from the New york ongressional delegation. I wonder how the down state voters feel and why such a novice. Cuomom will just run for the seat in 2010 or… may eye the Governor’s seat as a prize. Paybacks can be tough Governor Paterson.

Kirsten Elizabeth Rutnik Gillibrand is the first female representative of the district and the first Democrat to represent the district since Edward W. Pattison left office in 1979. At 42, Gillibrand will be the youngest member of the U.S. Senate. Gillibrand is widely considered to be a moderate Democrat, appealing to Republican and conservative Democratic voters in her upstate New York district. Gillibrand was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition during her tenure in the House of Representatives.

Born into a politically connected family, Kirsten Rutnik was born and raised in Albany, New York. Her parents are Douglas P. Rutnik, aRepublican lobbyist and former attorney with the public defender’s office, and Polly Noonan Rutnik, also an attorney; they are divorced.Gillibrand’s maternal grandmother, Dorothea “Polly” Noonan (1915-2003), was a women’s rights activist who founded the Albany Democratic Women’s Club and was a confidant of Mayor Erastus Corning. ”As a 10-year-old girl,” Gillibrand later said, “I would listen to my grandmother discuss issues and she made a lasting impression on me.”

After attending Albany’s Academy of the Holy Names, she graduated in 1984 from Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, the first all-women’s high school in the United States. While there, she was an avid tennis player.

Majoring in Asian studies, she graduated from Dartmouth College magna cum laude. She received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the UCLA School of Law in 1991. She served as a law clerk on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for Judge Roger Miner.

The Empire State a;ways gives us excitement.