Really, how does she do it? Here's Kirsten Gillibrand, fresh off stomping Harold Ford, currently eating fake CPA Joe DioGuardi for breakfast in the New York Senate race, and she still has time to do her job, raise boatloads of cash, campaign across the state, and impress the jaded hedonists at Vogue.

As the crowd files out of the barn, I express admiration to one of the senator’s aides for his boss’s ability to charm a roomful of Republicans, and he says, “She can do the same thing on derivatives, comfortably rapping about financial markets. She walks into these huge churches in Brooklyn and Queens and starts talking about the asthma rates and the environmental-justice movement. It’s just her comfort level with so many subjects.” This reminds me of something Tina Brown, the editor in chief of The Daily Beast, told me: “People underestimate how smart Senator Gillibrand is. I hosted a dinner for her to meet a number of CEOs and media figures, and in conversation she was brilliant in her analysis of the economic meltdown. And she is an amazing fund-raiser . . . an unstoppable machine when she works the room.”

I'm not a big fan of David Paterson, walking embodiment that he is of why New Yorkers hold our state government in contempt. But if he's treated more kindly by history than he perhaps deserves, it will be because his choice to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat was nothing short of inspired.

Gillibrand in front of the U.S. Capitol. Michael Kors coat and dress. Miriam Haskell earrings.
Sittings Editor: Alexandra Kotur.
Photographed by Norman Jean Roy, Image © by Vogue,