Spin Cycle

Peace talks among Islip Republicans broke down over the weekend.

Those who want state Sen. Caesar Trunzo, 81, to step down as party leader and concentrate on his re-election were miffed that the Brentwood Republican was not ready to go.

The party faction headed by John Schettino and Philip Goglas were scheduled to hold another meeting Monday night at the East End Republican Club in Sayville where those involved in the town's five GOP clubs were to convene to plot their next step.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Just as Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer failed to lift excessive second-floor "security" restrictions at the Capitol despite a promise to do otherwise, the GOP state Senate seems to have lost the support suddenly sprouted for citizens' liberties just a few months ago when Majority Leader Joseph Bruno saw his own being violated.

One subplot: During a debate on a labor bill last evening, the continual tension between Long Island's sole Democratic senator, Craig Johnson, and Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and company apparently came to the fore again.

Coincidentally, with Skelos accusing Democrats of taping proceedings for political purposes, a Times Union reporter was ordered by the ever-officious sergeant-at-arms staff to shut off her recorder despite policy allowing such photography. Her narrative is posted here. Hey -- Remember Bill O'Reilly going nuts on the Obama guy for blocking his cameraman's shot?

Dan Janison

State Sen. Craig Johnson's office has been advertising its success — in tandem with Assembly members Charles Lavine (left) and Michelle Schimel (right) — in getting what is called “bullet aid” for schools within his 7th senatorial district. It works like this: Many of Johnson's districts, such as Great Neck and Port Washington, are located along the affluent Gold Coast and were subject this year to aid cuts ($171,000 for Great Neck; $50,000 for Port Washington). Johnson, a Democrat, would not have access to the Senate's Republican majority for redress. So he collaborated instead with the Assembly's Democratic majority where they approved special grants to those districts as bullet aid -- along the lines of member items ($200,000 for Great Neck; $50,000 for Port Washington).

John Hildebrand

Suffolk Conservatives officials expect as many as 500 to show up for their spring fundraiser tonight at Venetian Yacht Club in Babylon, honoring Long Island's eight Republican state senators as well as two leading Democrats: Islip Supervisor Philip Nolan and the legislature's Presiding Officer William Lindsay.

For the second year in a row the event is likely to overshadow the county Republican fundraiser held last week, in part because the minor party attracts officials and candidates from both major parties as well as their own members. Suffolk GOP chairman Harry Withers said his event drew 200, and raised aobut $30,000, but some set the number who showed at below 100. Conservative officials, citing the sagging economy, are predicting they will raise about $80,000 at the $300 per head event; last year, the minor party brought in $100,000.

Beforehand, party officials will gather with GOP congressional nominee Lee Zeldin and black conservative cable commentator Mychal Massie, the party's "man of the year" designee.

Rick Brand

The six-member State Investigation Commission, probing earlier probes of the disgraced Eliot Spitzer’s Choppergate farce, is supposed to include no more than three members of the same political party. But ex-Gov. George Pataki was able to appoint his longtime aide, Republican John Cahill, to the panel because Alfred Lerner, a longtime Republican, re-registered as an unaffiliated voter. So the real mix is 4-2 Republican.

Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s report on Choppergate last summer didn’t make the SIC’s publicized critique list. But the SIC would seem likely to chat with the Cuomo team once it hears outgoing Spitzer Inspector General Kristine Hamann’s story about how her probe was supposed to link up with his. Stay tuned.

Dan Janison

As a man of so much spite and so little irony, Eliot Spitzer could scarcely have guessed that his clearest economic legacy as governor would consist of turning himself into a public-works project for government investigators.

Now a gaggle of paid inquisitors from a half-dozen public agencies is rushing in to carry off trophies and teach lessons from the downfall of the Sheriff of State Street. Even an investigation of three other investigations has been announced — by the state Investigation Commission, a model of bureaucratic survival first created to take on organized crime in the 1950s.

The bipartisan panel has set its sights on the performance of the Albany County district attorney, the state inspector general — who quit yesterday — and the state Commission on Public Integrity — and their roles in probing the Spitzer farce known as Choppergate.

This scope of SIC interest happens to fall on executive offices occupied by one-time Spitzer allies and appointees. In this uber-prober role, the panel bears the clear stamp of Albany’s waxing power center, the legislature, whose leaders appoint four of the commission’s six members. These include three former assemblymen and a former counsel to state Sen. Cesar Trunzo (R-Brentwood). There’s a businessman who once was New York Mayor John V. Lindsay’s campaign manager and then his deputy mayor, as well as a former top aide to Gov. George Pataki.

So Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno — who got to choose two of the three Republican members......

Dan Janison

Wayne Barrett argues in this piece posted on the Huff that "the fact that it was Republicans who fomented the move-up of primaries in both these states to dates out-of-line with the DNC calendar is at the heart of the matter." He delves into the local histories of the push and how it steers the Clinton-Obama race, and dissects Obama supporters' arguments that the nomination should depend on a popular vote that excludes big states. He warns that for Democrats the boondoggle could become the 2008 equivalent of what the Ralph Nader candidacy was in 2000.

On the flip side, Salon features the "Tom Tomorrow" cartoon that lampoons the Clinton delegate-count arguments -- with such rationales as "it was Backwards Day when they voted".....here.

And Glenn Greenwald does his best to dissect McCain's purported Giuliani-like "centrism," here.

Dan Janison

Mineola Mayor Jack Martins, a Republican who lives within a mile of Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, plans to challenge the six-term incumbent this fall, say high-ranking Republican officials.

Tony Santino, GOP spokesman, said Martins “has the fire in the belly” and a proven track record, and that because of his local popularity, he could well cut into McCarthy’s hometown base. “He’s the complete package and we’re delighted he’s stepped forward,” Santino said.

Martins said he is still considering it, and expects to take weeks to reach a final decision. If he runs, Martins said, he’d seek to “avoid polarization and remain above board.”

Even Republicans acknowledge Martins faces an uphill fight. McCarthy, first elected in 1996 as a champion of gun control in the aftermath of the Long Island Railroad massacre in which her husband was killed and her son wounded, has won by wide margins, and has $516,000 in her campaign coffers. Martins, mayor since 2003, suffered a major defeat two years ago when voters in a referendum rejected his bid to form a local police department. But he rebounded last March to win re-election.

“There is real dissatisfaction with Congress right now, their ratings are lower than the president,” said Rory Whelan, a GOP consultant advising Martins. Noting that the war and the trouble economy have made people uncertain, he added, “When people are unnerved they look for real leadership capability and Jack is a real leader.”

Ray Zacarro, McCarthy’s spokesman, said, “We take everything seriously, take nothing for granted, and we look for a healthy conversation on the issues.”

Rick Brand

Islip town board member Christopher Bodkin, a Republican turned Democrat, has withdrawn from the race to take on 34-year State Senate veteran Caesar Trunzo (R-Brentwood), pictured above.

“I’m out, and that is all I want to say,” said the 14-year town board member who last year defected from the Republican to Democratic.

Sources say Richard Schaffer, Suffolk Democratic chairman, asked Bodkin to withdraw about two weeks ago.

Initially, Bodkin was reluctant. But that was before the departure of Gov. Eliot Spitzer who was engineering a major push to take over the Senate. Sources say Bodkin had hoped the governor might intervene to force out Democrat Jimmy Dahroug, who has already lost twice but wants to take on Trunzo, 81, again. With Spitzer gone in scandal, those hopes were dashed.

Rick Brand

A Gaffney administration reunion?

No, not exactly, but when former Suffolk police commissioner John Gallagher shows up on Thursday as speaker for Dowling College's Distinguished Lecture series, it will reunite him for at least a day with Gaffney, now the president of the Oakdale school, and Eric Kopp, who is Gaffney's top aide as he was in the county office.

Gallagher, who for years has taught courses on comparative religion, is speaking on the impact of Islam on the rest of the world. Gallagher also speaks annually before the FBI academy in Quantico on the same subject.

Rick Brand

Sure, they were running mates. Sure, both are Democrats. Sure, they worked mostly in tandem as governor and lieutenant governor.

But it would be hard to find men with more different personal styles than Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson. It is a contrast that goes deeper than obvious facts of race and disability.

Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president who was the party's 2005 candidate for New York City mayor, knows them both.

"Monday night, I said a prayer for two guys who are friends of mine," said Ferrer, now in private life. "Both are blazingly smart, in different ways. One is impulsive, the other is thoughtful."

Paterson, says Ferrer, is "thoughtful and deliberate, and thinks things out a number of steps." As for advice, Ferrer adds, "the thing he will need to do - and it's easy to say now that I'm out of politics - is curb his natural tendency to be witty."

Say what you will now that he's done, but nobody ever accused Spitzer of being a schmoozer or a raconteur. The Albany crowd knows that in private.....

Dan Janison

Last year, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno paid Roger Stone, a Republican strategist who continually draws attention in unusual ways, to advise him on matters related to his nemesis Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Stone departed after the famous crank/threatening phone call to Spitzer's father traced to Stone's Manhattan apartment.

All along, we had heard that Bruno communications director John McArdle internally resisted the hiring of Stone in the first place. Now, Stone is slamming McArdle for the departure last week of Ed Lurie as executive director of the state Senate GOP campaign, following the big loss of an upstate seat to Democrat Darrel Aubertine in a widely-watched special election. Stone's riff is below the "continued" click.

UPDATE: Bruno told New York magazine that low-key gig he had with the investment company had him providing "entree" to unions....Empire Zone gives full context here.

Dan Janison

Bitter regional rivalry surfaced in last week’s special Senate race in northern New York that could set a tone in the Capitol's partisan wars. While Democrats charged that GOP state funding of Long Island’s “wealthy” school districts bleeds their own, Republicans kept more to tradition by bashing their foes as beholden to New York City.

Cathy Calhoun, a state Democratic committee official who managed the successful Darrel Aubertine campaign — thus narrowing the Senate GOP’s majority to 32-30 — hurled 11th-hour zingers about Nassau and Suffolk school money at Assemb. Will Barclay, the Republican candidate.

“I would just tell all our school officials to lock up the safe for the next few days, because the same people who have taken our school funding away for years are here to help Will Barclay,” she said in a news release.

Calhoun cited GOP Long Islanders who traveled to the snowy burgs of the 48th Senate District to help Barclay. GOP volunteer Rose Marie Walker, the Oyster Bay board member, was quoted by Newsday as saying Long Island and the 48th “share a common bond.”

“The only common bond is that we’re both paying taxes to support wealthy Long Island school districts,” retorted Calhoun — calling Walker a “card-carrying member” of Nassau’s “infamous (GOP) machine” and listing among her partisan connections that she’s the mother of Assemb. Rob Walker (R,C,I,WF – Hicksville). Calhoun quoted Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos as “gleefully” saying after last year’s budget, “What the Republican senators did was to drive aid to the suburban school districts.”

Tom Dunham, Skelos’ spokesman, on Friday said Calhoun had.....

Dan Janison

Ed Lurie, a longtime player on the Capitol scene, has quit as executive director of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, a post he has held since 1990, it was announced.

The basic "time to move on" message was released late today -- four days after the GOP lost another Senate seat to narrow its majority, held since the 1960's, to 32-30, with all state legislative seats up for election in November.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno said in his announcement that Neil Newhouse, a partner and co-founder of the Public Opinion Strategies firm, has "agreed to assist the committee on an interim basis" and "review our political operations from top to bottom."

Liz Benjamin has some more details here.

The biggest New York primary contest of its kind in decades has sent party operatives scouring results district by district for hints at what’s to come in next fall’s general election.

Numbers remain rough and unofficial, but it appears that more than 1.7 million Democrats voted in New York State’s presidential primary last week. Republican voters totalled just over 600,000, or 35 percent of Democratic turnout.

The major parties are already at war this year for control of the state Senate, where Majority Leader Joseph Bruno’s Republican conference holds a slim margin. In two weeks, there’s a special election for a vacant upstate seat, and the spin from both camps is well under way.

“The contrast between the two parties heading into November couldn't be more stark,” declared state Democratic committee spokesman Jonathan Rosen. “There is palpable excitement at the grassroots level among Democrats all over the state...The Republican party is depressed, divided and on the defensive.” State and Nassau GOP Chairman Joseph Mondello, in photo at right, who earlier pinned hopes on a Rudy Giuliani nomination, said: “With Senator McCain at the head of our ticket, Republicans in New York and across the nation can look forward to a bright future.”

By Friday, the Democratic vote was 998,749 for Hillary Clinton and 694,493 for Barack Obama. Adding in the totals for dropouts still on the ballot, turnout hit 1,715,006 or 32 percent of the official number of registered Democrats. John McCain won New York on Tuesday with more than half of the reported 607,011 GOP votes, marking an official 20 percent Republican turnout. (Turnout percentages are a bit blurry; for one thing, so-called motor-voter programs in the 1990’s signed up some who failed to vote).

Dan Janison

Hempstead Republicans are taking on Nassau Legis. Jeffrey Toback (D-Oceanside) over his vote to approve a sewer consolidation plan that calls for sewage now processed in Lawrence and Cedarhurst to be pumped to the county’s Bay Park treatment plant in his district.

At a stormy first meeting of the legislature this year, the 10-vote Democratic majority approved the plan over objections of residents from Bay Park and East Rockaway, both GOP strongholds.

Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray and Town Board member Anthony Santino wrote Toback, in photo at left, asking him to change course. They also issued a news release announcing a petition drive against the plan as well as a protest rally on March 1 at the entrance to the Bay Park plant.

“Residents of Bay Park and East Rockaway already are burdened with a large volume of sewage being pumped into their neighborhoods along with accompanying odors and health concerns,” said Murray. “Enough is enough.”

Toback responded, “It is unfortunate that Hempstead officials routinely use taxpayer funds for political purposes.” He said he had invited Murray to a briefing on the issue but had received no response.

“Our mutual constituents will be well served when their elected officials work together to build bridges rather than burn them down,” he said.

Celeste Hadrick