With Pataki passing on a Senate run, another N.Y. Republican enters the fray

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) may have avoided a challenge from former Gov. George Pataki (R), but other Republicans aren't shying away from getting in the race.

Economist David Malpass (R) announced his run at City Hall in New York Wednesday.

From the New York Post:

<sub>[Malpass] stood with leading fiscal conservative and magazine publisher Steve Forbes and John Faso, who ran for governor in 2006 on the GOP line. Faso is close with Ed Cox, chairman of the state Republican Party.
Malpass charged Gillibrand and fellow N.Y. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer are ignoring New Yorkers' needs.

Malpass - a Republican who worked for President Reagan, the elder President George Bush and Rudy Giuliani in his 2008 presidential bid - said Gillibrand and Schumer are not sticking up for Wall Street firms in the current debate over financial regulation in Washington. He also criticized them for failing to stand up for Israel or challenge earlier plans to hold a Sept. 11 terror trial in downtown Manhattan.

"They're really in lockstep with the Washington agenda and not the New York agenda," Malpass said on the steps of City Hall.

He also criticized Gillibrand for funding the embattled ACORN.</sub>