Senator Gillibrand's campaign to win over the left-leaning Democratic primary electorate continues unabated. See her endorsement by Howard Dean, datelined yesterday and apparently released late in the PM.

Now-Senator Gillibrand could have been deeply politically damaged by the circumstances of her appointment; the collapse in Paterson's poll numbers dates to his mishandling of the appointment process to fill Clinton's seat. But she hasn't been, and unless Carolyn Maloney can make a case for why she'd do a better job - and why upstate's only real power player needs to be replaced by another Manhattanite - a year out, Kirsten's looking pretty good.

Some quotes, via press release, after the break.

On the public option:

Dean: If by some horrible chance the Senate passes a bill that doesn't have a public option, what's your position going to be?

Gillibrand: Well, I'm going to support a bill that has a not for profit public option. I really want to focus our time and attention on really playing hardball here. I think if it doesn't have it, it's not the kind of reform that America has asked for. So I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure there's a not for profit public option.

She then goes on to describe what she means by that, which is essentially opening up a Medicare-like plan to everyone where people pay premiums as a percentage, ie 5%, of their income.

Here's what she says about marriage equality:

I support full marriage equality. To me, it's the civil rights march of our generation. It's about equal rights, it's about equal justice and there's no reason that any family in America...You know, my family gets certain rights and privileges, a gay couple's family should also get the same rights and privileges and there's over 1,000 rights and privileges in federal and state law that would come with marriage equality.

On DOMA & DADT:

And at the federal level I'm gonna work on repealing DOMA, I'm gonna work on repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. I have a bill right now that I'm considering basically putting a moratorium on the enforcement of Don't Ask Don't Tell for the next 18 months so the administration has time to consider it, to decide if they want this to be part of their policy and for the military to come to the table and make their own assessments because all the evidence shows us our military has been denied some of our best and brightest in America because of this policy particularly in areas where w've really needed them in language translation and intelligence services. We need all of our best and brightest at the forefront of our operations to keep America safe.