Spin Cycle

Nassau County’s Joseph Hand says he has decided against trying to challenge incumbent Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington) in a primary for a seat that county Republicans would love to win back.

“I considered it, I threw a trial balloon, and I was getting set,” Hand said, but he had a talk with Queens party activist James Wrynn, who persuaded him otherwise “for the good fo the party and the sake of the Senate.” He said he may look toward a future run for the county Legislature.
Hand mustered 42 percent against former Sen. Michael Balboni in 2006.

Still no official word on whether Republican Barbara Donno will be nominated to face Johnson in the general election.

On the heels of Rick Brand's story today on the movement to run Democratic Brookhaven Supervisor Brian Foley for the Senate seat long occupied by Republican Ceasar Trunzo, there are reports here and here of how would-be contender Jimmy Dahroug and a Democratic fundraiser are responding (fundraiser graphic via the TU's Liu).

One question raised in this Boston Globe piece is whether independents and Republicans who vote in the Indiana primary would take Rush Limbaugh's advice and get behind Hillary Clinton to extend Democratic chaos, in the name of defying anticipated 'monitoring' by party officials.

Of course, when it comes to credit, the disc jockey may have been running to the front of an already-existing parade. Here in New York, it's more often the Republicans who talk about averting suspected fraud and Democrats who squawk in turn about suspected suppression.

But that's just how the conversation goes around these parts, and today Indiana and North Carolina occupy center-stage. Numbers may tell...

Dan Janison

If Nassau Legis. David Mejias has interest in running for state Senate, he is going to have to wage a primary.

Jay Jacobs, Nassau Democratic chairman, said the party will be giving the nomination to Kristen McElroy, 38, a Garden City attorney and mother of three, making her first run to take on Republican State Senate veteran Kemp Hannon (left).

Mejias, moved into the Hannon’s district to qualify to run, was snubbed for the party’s nod after he angered Jacobs when he balked at backing a pay raise for county lawmakers.

Mejias, reached Friday, said that he will not challenge for the nomination, will support the party’s candidate and will “focus 100 percent on the Nassau Legislature.”

The party will also name Hofstra University ethics professor Roy Simon, 58, of West Hempstead to take on State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre).

The Democrats' convention is scheduled for May 29 at the Cradle of Aviation in Garden City.

Rick Brand

More than a century ago, Justice John Marshall Harlan became the U.S. Supreme Court’s “great dissenter.” Last week, in a much more modest forum, rookie Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington) did a lot of dissenting — though any claim to greatness will be subject to debate.

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith chose Johnson last year for the 15-member local-efficiency commission to explore merging special tax districts and other government entities. In its 71-page report, endorsing “big changes” and issued last week, Johnson’s name appeared in footnotes as objecting or abstaining on no less than a dozen of the panel’s 33 recommendations. That’s more than any other member, including Nassau Comptroller Howard Weitzman, who objected to seven.

“I have to be frank,” Johnson says. “There are several flaws in commission’s final report that I think, as my dissents showed, cannot be overlooked.”

He said there was “almost no analysis of the cost savings of any of the initiatives,” and little recognition of differing government structures by region.

That said, Johnson also cited bills he has introduced to help change special-district arrangements for the better.

The report shows that Johnson, Weitzman and three elected upstaters opposed steps bulleted by the commission toward countywide management of fire protection services. Another member, Assemb. Sam Hoyt (D — Buffalo) told Newsday’s Liz Moore: “Frankly, I think there are too many elected officials who simply pander to the fire departments and the volunteer firefighters.”

Johnson treads warily on local turf; Long Island Republicans would love to win back his seat in November. Most objections scattered through the reform report came from the panel’s 6 elected officials. One exception: Chairman Stan Lundine, the former lieutenant governor, joined Johnson, Weitzman and ex-Troy Mayor Mark Pattison objecting to a proposal in the report to make government and school-district employees pay at least 10 percent for individual health coverage, and 25 percent for dependents.

For the full report, click here. Note: Harlan's famous dissent was in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the majority of the court upheld racial segregation as constitutional under the concept of "separate but equal." More here.

Dan Janison

Gov. David A. Paterson struck a blow for free speech last week, signing into law a bill protecting writers from foreign libel judgments.

The measure, sponsored by State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), at left, and Assemb. Rory Lancman (D-Queens), bars state courts from enforcing the libel ruling of a foreign court unless that country has the same speech protections as the United States or better. The bill also expands a writer’s ability to have a court declare the foreign libel judgment invalid in New York.

The legislation stems from the case of author Rachel Ehrenfeld of Manhattan, who lost a libel suit brought in a British court by Saudi banker Khalid bin Mahfouz. In her book, “Funding Evil,” she alleged that he financed terrorist Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

Paterson said, “New Yorkers must be able to speak out on issues of public concern without living in fear that they will be sued outside the United States under legal standards inconsistent with our First Amendment.”

Skelos agreed, adding, “the truth is a critically-important component of the war on terror.”

James T. Madore

In his keynote remarks to state Democratic committee members today, Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington), at right in photo, underscored the importance of the state Senate races in New York to his party's efforts to gain ground in the US House of Representatives.

If Democrats take the Senate, they will have an upper hand in the redistricting of Congressional seats to come in 2012, when the state is expected to lose one or two seats overall. He said there is more unified purpose between the Democratic Congressional effort and the state and highlighted the issue of homeless veterans.

Delivering the address at the end of a full session in Saratoga -- he acknowledged missing some votes in Washington -- Israel was among the bigger features of a spring meeting that drew neither Gov. David Paterson nor Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. In a bit of role reversal, Paterson was in Washington D.C. meeting with state representatives.

Dan Janison

In the ever-dizzying process of delegate assignment, the state Democrats in Saratoga today added 85 to the 156 total that was decided proportionally at the polls on Feb. 5.

The state will have 281 overall, and those acted on today include 4 unpledged at-large -- AG Andrew Cuomo, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, C. Virginia Fields and Carmen Arroyo, all currently Clinton supporters who are "free to vote their conscience" at the Denver convention in August, which will of course depend on circumstances then. (Obama's camp today announced that 3 Obama supporters from Illinois had, likewise, been chosen today as "add on" superdelegates from that state).

There are also pledged pary leaders and elected officials -- 30 of them -- and pledged at-large delegates, totalling 51. In all, the delegation is decided with consideration to national rules that include affirmative action by race, gender, age, veteran status, etc.

In working this out, Suffolk's Barry McCoy has been tracking the numbers and pointing out that geographically, Long Island gets short-changed -- with heavy representation from New York City.In terms of Clinton-Obama, it's all supposed to come out as closely as possible to proportional to the state's primary vote.

Dan Janison

Judge for yourself whether this new Democratic verbal tack makes any sense.

The rationale for keeping the state Senate in the control of the Republicans next fall is the patently American goal of checks and balances. In NYS, the offices of the governor, the comptroller, the attorney general and the state Assembly are all Democratic territory these days. So the GOP majority is supposedly a check on that concentration of party power.

But at today's spring business meeting of the state Democratic committee, chairwoman June O'Neill and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) countered from the podium that the Senate has been uninterruptedly in Republican hands for more than 40 years, and so with so many challenges ahead the people should "try" a Democratic Senate "for two years," with the implicit message that they go back if they don't like it. O'Neill even led a quick chant of "Give us Two!"

Smith said afterward that GOP control has really lasted more like 70 years -- since the last, tumultuous Democratic tenure was very brief in the mid-1960's.

"We've had people make us believe we were separate states," said Smith. "The 62 Senators all have good ideas...it's one New York." Both Smith and O'Neill tied the Democratic rationale to dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Dan Janison

Some lawmakers, including seven GOP Assembly members from Long Island, have been calling for a slice in New York's tax on gasoline to give strapped motorists a break as prices soar.

But a skeptical State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli seemed to reach for the brake when asked about such proposals last night at the Saratoga Hilton -- where he had just delivered welcoming remarks for a reception of the spring business meeting of the state Democratic committee.

"The problem is, can you replace the state revenues?" DiNapoli told Newsday. "If it were to trigger mid-year budget cuts, it would not seem like the smartest thing to do." Generally, it is a matter on which the federal government should begin to focus, said DiNapoli, who was a Democratic Assemblyman from Nassau last year before replacing the disgraced Alan Hevesi in the comptroller's post.

The ultimate benefit of a tax break on fuel has been debated of late on a national level, with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain differing with Barack Obama in their backing for such a break.

Dan Janison

Maybe it's what you'd expect to hear from the fan base about the Rev. Wright uproar, but state Sen. Bill Perkins from Harlem (left in recent photo) insisted last night as colleagues gathered for the statewide Democratic meeting in Saratoga: "It looks like we're moving past that issue. He'll do what it takes to continue in the fight."

"It's getting toward the finish line," he said. "The mathematics suggest he's unbeatable," Perkins said -- unless "the new math" from the Clinton camp regarding delegates somehow comes to be believed. Indiana? "I think he'll win -- we'll have gotten past this latest episode" and the economy and foreign policy will take center stage, Perkins predicted.

Clinton supporters in the reception room at the Saratoga Hilton -- and of course there were many -- weren't buying it, of course. One well-placed Clinton operative, who declined to comment, merely smiled, without even acknowledging it had been a good week for their candidate.

Dan Janison

State Democrats will honor the late Martha Tun-Hsu McCoy at their state meeting in Saratoga today with a resolution remembering her as one who made the "tireless fight for democracy and justice."

June O'Neill, state Democratic chairwoman, will read the resolution for McCoy, who was assistant secretary of the 446-member state committee for more than two decades and was a delegate to four national conventions. Her huband Barry McCoy, a veteran state committee member and physics professor at Stony Brook University, will also make remarks.

McCoy died while vacationing in Peru with her husband last month.

Rick Brand

For some legislative leaders, it’s life on the edge.

The U.S. Senate is just barely Democratic. The New York state Senate is Republican, by a very slim margin.

In this same mode, you have the Nassau Legislature, where in early 2006, what was formally a 10-9 Democratic majority broke down in a rebellion against Presiding Officer Judy Jacobs.

Now PO Diane Yatauro has problems of her own — by the name of Democrat David Mejias, as recorded in this space in recent weeks by Bill Murphy and Celeste Hadrick. The Farmingdale lawmaker has been showing an independent streak that’s working against the herding instincts of leadership.

Who knows — there might be some rank-breaking on the GOP side too. Still, it all makes Suffolk PO Bill Lindsay look like he’s got it easy at an 11-7 majority (with the 11 including two WFP members who caucus with the Dems).

UPDATE: Meantime we have this announcement from Mejias -- click "continued" bar for its full text.

Will the 1960’s — or the American reaction to it — ever end?

There are those who say the final year of World War II was not 1945 but 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved. The Cold War was the next phase of the conflict in Europe, goes the thinking.

So by the same reasoning we’ve still got a few years left before the tumult of the late 1960’s will have run its full half-century course.

The GOP candidate for president was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The friction over race and rights plays itself out within the Democratic Party — with special scenes scripted in Chicago.

To make it more explicit, the former Weatherman, Bill Ayers, becomes a target for political association with Barack Obama — by a candidate whose presidential husband pardoned a couple of psycho-60’s nostalgists.

Flag pins or anti-war marches — take your pick. Big differences: Now you can buy the pins on e-bay, watch the demos on YouTube. Bigger difference: There’s no draft, at least not yet.

Call them parochial, but some of the region’s big-name Democratic pros are struck by the similarity between their party’s ongoing presidential drama and your classic super-charged New York primary.

“It’s very much like a New York Democratic primary,” says city consultant Henry Sheinkopf. “The thrills, the spills, the ups and the downs, the obsession with minutiae. The comparisons from reporters, in which even the slightest language change creates a news story. And, the obsession of reporters and candidates with ethnic groupings and racial activity.
“This one’s got everything!”

Fernando Ferrer, who ran for New York City mayor in 2001 and 2005, says, “I feel like I’ve seen this movie.” What he says saddens him is “the silly obsessing around the smallest and most insignificant of details.”

His campaign three years ago even saw a molehill get front-page treatment — that his Web site erred on where he attended school. So the former Bronx borough president says he was especially irritated when Sen. Barack Obama was challenged in a debate over ditching his flag pin — by a moderator who didn’t wear one either.

Mark Green, the 2001 mayoral nominee, finds a “superficial similarity, but ultimately a difference.” He sees “two credible progressive Democrats, one of whom happens to be white and one who happens to be minority.” But he predicts the second-place finisher will solidly back the winner against Republican Sen. John McCain.

Fran Reiter, a one-time Liberal Party leader and a Hillary Clinton backer, says in a New York primary, “we’re our own worst enemies...In the old days, with more machine-type politics, you avoided these situations because the party leaders basically made these decisions for you.”

Just like this year’s national contest, some New York races “seem like an endless campaign,” adds Queens consultant Evan Stavisky.

Jef Pollock, a Democratic consultant, says “there’s no doubt the tone is harshening” in the national contest. “Race was always going to be part of this debate. But we’re not even close to a New York-style bruise just yet — which is good.”

Dan Janison

The Suffolk Water Authority’s outside public-relations contract has gone from a firm headed by the sons of Angie Carpenter, Suffolk’s Republican treasurer, to another where one partner is Democratic National Committee member and party heavyweight Robert Zimmerman.

Act Communications Group, headed by Richard and Robert Carpenter, has worked for the authority for a decade, and received $180,000 in the past year to create and place ads in newspapers and on radio, TV and other media, said Steve Jones, authority CEO. He said the firm netted about $22,500 from the deal after the placements.

Richard Carpenter, Act’s president, denied its hiring was political, and said he made three years of calls on authority officials before the agency turned to his company — after its ad agency “screwed up” on a newspaper ad. “Because our last name was the same as an elected official, we over-delivered on everything,” he said.

But the state comptroller rapped the authority board last year for not seeking competitive proposals. So, Jones said, the body — now 3-2 Democratic — issued a request for proposals. Zimmerman, Edelson of Great Neck was chosen in a 4-0 vote in February. Board member Patrick Halpin, former Democratic Suffolk County executive, abstained because the firm also works for Babylon’s industrial agency, which Halpin chairs. The board accepted Zimmerman’s proposal for a flat $4,000-a-month fee — less costly than those of Act and a third firm, Harrison, Leifer, DeMarco.

Zimmerman said politics played no role in their hiring and his firm already represents the Plainview and Great Neck North Water Districts as well as the Long Island Water Conference.
Jones said he evaluated both offers for the board but gave no final recommendation. Asked if politics was involved, Jones said, “I don’t know,” but then added, “I’d say not because Republicans and Democrats both voted for it.”

Rick Brand

Famous now for its stern law against renting to illegal immigrants, Hazleton, Pa. keeps making political news. Lou Barletta, GOP mayor, is running for Congress; Amber Lee Ettinger, the video world’s “Obama girl”, voted there in last week’s primary -- although the object of her crush drew a paltry 25 percent in all of Luzerne County -- and maverick Alan Keyes announced there that he’s leaving the Republican Party. Not to mention it's the hometown of also-ran Rudy Giuliani's wife Judith.

Dan Janison

With about 80 of 300 unpledged Democratic “superdelegates” serving in Congress, a pre-convention of sorts is under way below the Dome. On the Clinton team, Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) reportedly helped persuade Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), photo left, to join up — after her overwhelming win last month in Ryan’s district. These decisions tend to be intensely local, from all reports.

Dan Janison

For reasons that have become obvious, Kristine Hammann ran into serious and unexpected political troubles trying to serve in the role of Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s inspector general. She quit as Gov. David Paterson took office. Now Paterson has replaced her with Joseph Fisch, who has been a state Supreme Court justice in the criminal term in the Bronx since 2003.

Befrore that Fisch, 75, who's had a long legal career, was a justice on the state Court of Claims and serves on the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics. Capitol Confidential here recaps the political background.

Dan Janison

As expected, the Working Families Party and the Paid Family Leave Coalition were joined by the "Paid Family Leave Stork" at a news conference -- in Sen. Kemp Hannon's district -- to bring a bill mandating paid family leave to a vote.

Hannon's is one of the seats targeted by the WFP, in tandem with Democrats, for takeover on Long Island.

A measure that would mandate 12 weeks of paid leave to care for care of a newborn or sick relative was approved in the Assembly last year, including up to $170 per week from a state fund, to be paid for by a 45-cents-per-week payroll deduction. It died in the GOP-run Senate.

Dan Janison

The reported focus by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo' office has been on former state police Col. Daniel Wiese, whose kept close relations with back-to-back governors Pataki and Spitzer and now has a $180,000-a-year Power Authority job.

Now Fred Dicker writes of a private security contract through the authority that he suggests lies at the heart of suspected political surveillance of legislators. Plausible enough, in theory, but there are no specifics -- so far.

When Wiese was up for the Power Authority post in 2003, Assemb. Richard Brodsky obtained this gushing praise from then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, as the Times writes here. The same nugget brings up the mystery of exactly what Sen. Dale Volker was talking about at that hearing last week.

Dan Janison

The upcoming retirement of Judith Kaye, after 15 years as top judge on the state’s highest court, has sparked intense speculation over a successor. And a back-chamber battle for the prized appointment may be brewing.

When David Paterson became governor last month, Jonathan Lippman, at right, had widely been considered the favorite. He’s served since 1996 as the chief administrative judge running the massive court system — the longest tenure to date in the post. A Kaye appointee, he’s credited with many initiatives, including the introduction of specialty courts and rule reforms.

But state sources say Theodore T. Jones, Jr., at left, is emerging as a leading contender to succeed Kaye in leading the 7-member Court of Appeals. Jones joined the court in February of last year, an Eliot Spitzer nominee. Before that he served for many years as a state Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn.

If tapped, Jones would be the court’s first African-American chief judge.

Some suggest another name in play may be Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, an appointee of Gov. Mario Cuomo, who’s served on the court since January 1994. She’d be its first Latina chief judge.

Kaye reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 this year. A Cuomo nominee, she became the court’s first female judge in 1983. Today, four of the judges are women, two chosen by Republican Gov. George Pataki.

Court watchers note that Paterson’s counsel is James Yates, who’s served as a state Supreme Court justice — and has himself been on lists of envied eligibles for the high court.

Dan Janison

The partisan war for control of the state Senate is prompting maneuvers on several battlefields. Here is the latest news from two of them.

Local sources tell Rick Brand that Brookhaven Supervisor Brian Foley would be the state Democrats’ top choice to challenge veteran Sen. Cesar Trunzo. He has $200,000 in campaign cash on hand, but before you bet on his jumping in, be warned that Foley is considered quite cautious. There’s family history too: His father, John Foley, lost a bid to unseat Trunzo back in 1982, by 7,666 votes. Still, Senate Democrats were said to be testing Foley’s name in polls. And Foley has had a conversation about it with Bob Master, the Communication Workers of America regional legislative director who also is state co-chair of the Working Families Party, which partners with Democrats in Senate races, Brand reports.

Speaking of the WFP, the party plans starting tomorrow to target Trunzo and Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City) in an “issues” campaign, slamming the Senate GOP on paid family-leave. Which Democrat will face Hannon, though, also remains hazy. As Celeste Hadrick reported Friday on this blog, Legis. David Mejias (D-Farmingdale) agreed to rejoin the Democratic legislative caucus after talking privately with Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, with whom he’d been feuding. But sources say the Democratic organization has not reinstated its support for a Mejias race against Hannon -- whose seat seems to have been a topic of perennial discussion from the opposing party for time immemorial.

Dan Janison

The good news for Republican Congressional candidate Lee Zeldin is that he has raised $184,000 for his campaign, and a campaign finance report filed last week shows he has $70,989 cash on hand.

The bad news is that Zeldin is also showing $70,760 in unpaid loans and campaign bills — leaving him a net total of $229.

But the report, filed with the Federal Elections Commission, also has a silver lining because it lists Zeldin as getting 8 percent interest on his $44,000 personal loan he made to the campaign. The first repayment was $7,762.

Richard Schaffer, Suffolk Democrat chairman, lambasted Zeldin....

Rick Brand

All three U.S. Senators running for president have begun sticking faster than glue to an unwritten rule of the campaign trail: Gall is a virtue, and the biggest shame is being ashamed.

This cynical dictum might clash with the message of Pope Benedict XVI, who arrives today in New York. But nowhere was its force felt more than in the Democrats’ last debate before Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary.

Here stood Barack Obama, who repeatedly touts his opposition to President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, hailing the last President Bush on the 1991 Persian Gulf invasion.

When the candidates were asked how they would make use of former presidents in the White House, Obama just happened to sing the praises of the man Bill Clinton unseated. “I’m probably more likely to ask advice of the current president’s father than the president himself,” replied the change agent, “because I think that when you look back at George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy, it was a wise foreign policy.

“And how we executed the Gulf War, how we managed the transition out of the Cold War, I think, is an example of how we get bipartisan agreement.”

Oh? That might or might not sound surprising coming from a man his foes wish to paint as radical — even after he gave that hat tip to Ronald Reagan a few months back.

But you should avoid betting against Hillary Rodham Clinton in an audacity contest. She showed gumption-wrapped-in-apology during the do-or-die debate when called to account for her false story....

Dan Janison

Some viewers of last night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia were stunned that what sounded like a major new and potentially controversial foreign-policy proposal from Sen. Hillary Clinton slipped by without its being highlighted and expanded on by major news media. Sounds like grist for some followups as the week winds down.

Clinton was responding to a question from former Clinton administration flack George Stephanopolous of whether it should be U.S. policy to treat an Iranian attack on Israel "as if it were an attack on the United States."

"“Well, in fact, George, I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.”

Later in her answer she cited Saudia Arabia and Kuwait (click continued bar below for partial transcript on this question) in particular.

Some of the cyberspace reaction:

The blog of the Foreign Policy Association sees the difference between the candidates as one of more tone than substance., but says: "Phrases like 'trigger massive retaliation' — usually meant to imply the use of nuclear weapons — should probably not be used in campaign debates at all. But to use them at the same time that one is promising — irrespective of military advice — to begin a withdrawal of military forces from Iraq within 60 days of taking office, sends a mixed signal to the region that we would do well to avoid."

A Daily Kos blogger warns that further explanation is needed as to just what her plans are.

The debate host ABC Web site quotes, among others, Doug Bandow, a former special assistant to President Reagan, calling her proposal a dangerous one.

Here is a pro-Hillary, or anti-Obama, piece.

Here is a colorful anti-Hillary (and anti-Bush) rant.

Here's the top of a story filed this afternoon by Sandra Peddie and Eden Laikin:

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has revoked four lawyers’ memberships in the state pension system and canceled service credits for a fifth after determining they were not public employees, a spokeswoman said.

The lawyers are all partners in Girvin & Ferlazzo, a prominent Albany law firm. Auditors found that all five had been reported as full-time employees of the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES, located west of Albany, when the five actually had worked a total of just 196 days in the 2006-2007 school year. One lawyer, auditors said, worked only four hours.
The five were paid a total of $234,000 for the year, auditors said.

“We determined that these lawyers were inappropriately classified as employees,” said DiNapoli’s spokeswoman, Emily DeSantis.

For the rest, click here.

The Public Integrity Commission confirmed this afternoon that it received a request to review an ethical protocol drawn up to ensure there are no conflicts of interest between the jobs of Gov. David A. Paterson and his father, Basil, a prominent lawyer who represents unions of state employees.

Commission spokesman Walter Ayres said the request from Basil Paterson’s law firm, the Long Island-based Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, was received on Monday. Ayres said he didn’t know how long the review would take but said the results wouldn’t be made public.

The move comes after the governor's office indicated to Newsday last month that it would not seek an opinion from the commission on the proper line between Paterson's role and his father's. Instead, the governor's office said it would work directly with Meyer Suozzi to put in place protocols to avoid conflicts such as the elder Paterson’s sharing in Meyer Suozzi's proceeds from lobbying state government.

James T. Madore

For Long Island, one key question when it comes to this year's state Senate races is whether its communities as a whole will lose clout should the house change from GOP to Democratic.

Right now there are eight Republicans and one Democrat in the Senate delegation from Nassau and Suffolk combined. If you look at the way Democrat John Rennhack breaks out the most recent school-aid numbers here, the partisan argument could be one of current favoritism.

But there are also two houses, and the Assembly is overwhelmingly Democratic. So when it comes to regional competition for funds, there are a lot of sharp edges.

Dan Janison

Oh where have those days gone when the New York candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani -- icons of the 1990's awash in campaign cash -- looked forward to the "Super Duper Tuesday" of February, riding the logic that fundraising power equals electability?

The general public has ceased to hear from Giuliani, of course. He's been left with millions of dollars in campaign debt and insiders doubt he can raise the funds -- especially while living la vida de luxe -- unless he kicks in a significant amount of his own personal stash.

And on the other side of the would-have-been eight-years-later "rematch," here's the latest pitch from the junior New York Senator:

"I've felt such a deep connection to the people I've met in Pennsylvania, and I'm proud of the campaign we're running here. But we are still being outspent 3-to-1, and I need your help to close that gap if we want to win. "

"In the next seven days, thousands of people will be making their final decision in the Democratic primary, and we must make sure they hear our message. We can't let our voices be drowned out by the Obama campaign's limitless spending."

Alas, for that "limitless spending". How much did the former first couple recently declare they raked in since leaving the White House?

Dan Janison

It makes sense that news media outlets would cast around for fresh takes on the impact of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, but Catholics present such a diversity of electoral opinion that generalizations are too elusive to make for sweeping pieces. And after all, the fact that he is visiting nearly 7 months before Election Day puts focus on abortion and other controversies but does not change the everyday activities of the observant or the secular. A few examples of the overall effort are here, here and here.We are partial, though, to this one.

UPDATE: The alert Azi notes that Gov. Paterson will take part in festivities here this week and mentions that the gubernatorial secretary these days is Charles O'Byrne, a former priest who wrote a Playboy piece about sex in the seminary. That posting is here.

UPDATE: And if you haven't seen it, there's a lot more depth -- and knowledge -- on the politics of the papal visit on this essential blog site.

Dan Janison

When he took over the governorship after being elected in a record landslide, Eliot Spitzer brought with him a mostly insular cadre of advisers, mostly lawyers, from the state attorney general's office, under the aegis of the law-man and reformer.</