'It's Interesting the Unelected Senator is Spending Her Time on Twittter'

I just love a good Democrat civil war, and these two seemingly are going at it daily. It's very close to getting nasty and personal. I can't wait.

An hour after tweeting her outrage at Harold Ford Jr. for dubbing her a "parakeet" of Democratic leaders, Gillibrand laced into her potential primary rival in an interview with The Post, branding him a phony and saying he's spinning a "fraud" image as a political outsider.

Gillibrand -- who has been accused of having party leaders and well-placed surrogates do her heavy hitting for her -- spoke shortly after slapping back at Ford Jr. with her "Twitter" account, saying she wouldn't let her young child name-call that way, a move that was heavily mocked by her near-opponent's team.

"I really don't know who Harold Ford thinks I am but I'm not gonna be pushed aside (by) his banker buddies," she said.

Ford had told The Post's Fred Dicker on his Talk1300am radio show on Monday that neither Gillibrand nor her political patron, Sen. Charles Schumer, is keeping New York's interests in mind, and accusing his would-be rival of being a "parakeet."

She followed up the too-cute email play with an unprompted phone call, saying, "This guy aspires to be a US senator?"

"Him calling me names doesn't hurt me but it affects New York because it distracts from issues," she added, saying, "All we know about him is his record which is abysmal for New York."

And she blasted his payroll tax-cut ideas as "a regurgitation of failed Bush" policies.

She called ideas that she's a puppet of Schumer "absurd, it's insulting, it's very far from the truth....my record, if anybody would bother to look at it, is that I fight for the poeple I represent."

She added, "The fact that he says he's an outsider is ridiculous. It's a fraud."

Ford spokesman Davidson Goldin lashed back hard, saying, Ford is someone "who will focus on creating jobs for New Yorkers, so it's no surprise the unelected senator seems so afraid of losing in an actual election.

"It's interesting the unelected senator is spending her time on Twitter rather than fighting to create jobs for New Yorkers," Goldin added.

The Ford camp appears eager to make an issue of Gillibrand's having represented the evil Big Tobacco.

"She started her career as a tobacco apologist and after being appointed senator in a backoom deal, has spent her time kowtowing to Washington insiders," he said. "She takes positions that hurt the people of New York, whether it's raising our taxes or killing jobs. And her rock bottom approval numbers prove that New Yorkers are well aware of this. Undoubtedly she is too."