Spin Cycle

Oh, the wails of August.

There has been a certain coyness in the way Hillary Rodham Clinton and her top aides answer the question, “How long will this go on?” The standard line, from Clinton herself and from operative Harold Ickes, is that all will be resolved in June, shortly after the Puerto Rico primary and two-plus months before the Denver convention. Campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said last week “his gut” told him it would all be over by June.

Not all Clinton guts agree. A senior adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday -- flushed by the victory in Pennsylvania: “June? No one’s promised anybody anything. We’re going to push this ‘til August. We’re not giving up.” And, Clinton appends her call for resolving the Florida-Michigan fiasco to the end of major speeches – including her “turning the tide” remarks after she won the Pennsylvania primary. Back in February she said in Wisconsin: “I'm prepared to go the distance, that's what I've always been committed to doing, that's what I will do... The rules provide for a vote at the convention to seat contested delegations.”

Glenn Thrush

Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs and 92 party volunteers are spending four days in Scranton making calls and knocking on doors for Hillary Clinton in a last-minute push leading up to Tuesday’s Pennsylvania presidential primary.

Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) a week earlier took a busload of 50 to stump for the former First Lady in Wilkes-Barre, and earlier, acted as a surrogate for Clinton the primary state. His activities were restricted last weekend because of Passover.

And even Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy joined the fray last weekend, taking 10 volunteers in two cars for a day trip to Easton, Pa. to wave Clinton placards outside an Obama rally where for presidential contender John Kerry was speaking. “It made for a great picture,” said Levy.

“They love her in Scranton,” said Jacobs, adding that nearly 1,500 showed up for Clinton at the city’s cultural center Monday morning. “They barely let her talk.” Jacobs, who has also been to New Hampshire and Texas for Clinton, said he’ll stay until the polls close then drive home, adding: “I have to be back at work in the morning.”

Rick Brand

Move over Jesse Ventura and Curtis Sliwa. Independence Party of America chairman Frank MacKay has sent a letter to the Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul asking him to consider running on his minor party line.

MacKay is hustling to find another contender after New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg bowed out last week and has already floated Minnesota's wrestling former governor and former head of the Guardian Angels, now a radio pundit, as potential contenders.

MacKay likes Paul, he says, because the Congressman "has an underground following that's second to noine and he's a folk hero." MacKay said Paul, who was facing a Congressional primary Tuesday night, could also run for both president and Congress at the same time on Texas' "LBJ" law.

Rick Brand

Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs is jetting off at 7:15 a.m. Saturday to take two dozen party activists to Dallas to help Hillary Clinton make a stand at what could be her political Alamo — the Texas primary and caucuses on Tuesday.

“I’m spoiled,” said Jacobs before taking off Friday. “We went up to New Hampshire expecting bad results and ended up suprising everyone.”

Jacobs said that he epects his crew, paying their own way with flights, will help organize a Saturday rally, carry signs, at high visibility areas, work neighborhoods, and help getting out the vote in both the primary, carry signs at hiigh visibility areas and and the caucuses that will follow. They will fly back Wednesday.

Originally, Jacobs said hed planned to take 35 volunteers but had to cut 15 when he learned they would be doing phone work -- which they could do without traveling to Texas. “I didn’t want it to be an imposition,” he said, adding that he had to keep reconfiguring the list. “I was getting in trouble because people were offended that I did not want them to go, and some begged to make the trip.”

Even as the clock runs out on Mayor Bloomberg's presidential chances (the mayor himself said on Monday it was "getting close to being too late" for a third-party candidate to jump into the race), former Bloomberg pollster Doug Schoen (right) is keeping the White House fires burning.

The latest leap of logic came when Schoen told the New York Sun earlier this week that Ralph Nader's decision to run for president as a third-party candidate actually helps the mayor's chances because he will pull the Democratic field to the left just as presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain shifts to the right to satisfy GOP conservatives.

That, according to Schoen, leaves "a huge void in the middle" for someone like the mayor.
In other words, in the great tradition of Monty Python: "I'm not dead yet!..."

Next up: Doug Schoen's post-inauguration analysis of how the swearing-in of a new president leaves all kinds of room for a Bloomberg candidacy.

Karla Schuster

In an interview on SIRIUS radio's "Make It Plain" with host Mark Thompson, one of Malcolm X's daughters, Malaak Shabazz, declared her support for Barack Obama -- calling him and his wife Michelle the "present-day" version of her father and her mother Betty Shabazz.

The interview was held at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center located in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, where Malcolm X was fatally shot in 1965 after his falling out with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Mohammed.

Below is a partial transcript as released:

Dan Janison

Even Janet Huckabee (left) was in the news yesterday, despite her preacher husband's status as Hucka-been.

She raised a few eyebrows by attending a middleweight prize fight last weekend in Las Vegas - Sin City itself - to root for fellow Arkansan Jermain Taylor and, with the explanation that the other places were booked, staying over at the Hooters Casino Hotel.

At certain moments it seems as if the partners of the presidential candidates count more than the candidates.

This is truly the Year of the Spouse. Nobody would know it better than Janet Huckabee, Cindy McCain, Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton.

Just what do we seek in a White House spouse? "The problem is, we don't really know what we want," said Myra Gutin, a professor of communications at Rider University in Lawrenceville N.J., who wrote a book, "The President's Partner: The First Lady in the 20th Century."

Cindy McCain, 53, the wife of Republican front-runner John McCain, became yesterday's spouse-in-the-spotlight, rushing to his side...

Dan Janison

One day after stirring up a mini-tempest for saying that the movement around her husband's presidential run made her proud of her country for the first time in her adult life, Michelle Obama did a short bit of explaining in Rhode Island today, as described by the Associated Press here.

Asked by WJAR-TV if she would like to clarify her comment, Obama replied that she has been struck by the number of people going to rallies and watching debates -- and said: "What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud in how Americans are engaging in the political process...For the first time in my lifetime, I’m seeing people rolling up their sleeves in a way that I haven’t seen and really trying to figure this out — and that’s the source of pride that I was talking about." She said she "absolutely" has been proud of her country and that she and her husband would not be where they are now if not for the possibilities of America, which is a variation on the statement that the campaign issued on Tuesday.

This is a course correction of a few degrees. She did not plunge into explaining the political frustration she said on Monday that she's felt in recent years. Obama fans have said they knew what she was talking about, but conservative voices have described her statements as "aggrieved" and worthy of further questioning.

See a CNN story on her comments here. Related video from her speech in Rhode Island is below.

Dan Janison

Here's one thing you should know watching the election returns tonight: Wisconsin's politics are notoriously unpredictable.

The state tends to swing wildly among liberal and conservative, sending to Congress the body's first openly lesbian woman (Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison) and the man who, among other things, introduced the Patriot Act and proposed criminal penalties for anyone who helps illegal immigrants (Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls).

The state has an open primary. All voters choose between voting in Republican or Democratic races. There are no significant statewide or local races on the ballot.

Barack Obama figures to do well in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Congressional districts. The 1st sits along the Illinois border in the state's southeast corner. Parts of that district are in the Chicago TV market, which ought to help him. The 2nd encompasses liberal Madison - Baldwin's district, though she endorsed and has campaigned for Clinton. The 3rd is Rep. Ron Kind's (D-La Crosse) reliably liberal district and the 4th is Milwaukee, home to virtually all of the state's African-American population and the state's first black member of Congress, Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee).

Hillary Rodham Clinton has the advantage in the 5th, 6th and 8th districts. Each is predominately white - though the 8th has a sizable Native Americans and Hmong populations. The 5th, Sensenbrenner's district, has a significant Hispanic population in Waukesha , though the city's mayor has endorsed Obama. The 6th, in the Fox Valley, is likewise very conservative. The question there will be how many conservative voters vote on the Democratic side of the ballot, and for whom they vote.

The 7th district, encompassing northwest Wisconsin and the part of the state locals call "Up North," figures to go for Obama but could go for Clinton. The local Congressman, the very liberal Dave Obey (D-Wausau) endorsed Obama, but the electorate is overwhelmingly white and blue-collar.

And, add this: In a past life, this blogger covered countless local government meetings in the Milwaukee suburbs. The sharpest put-down aldermen and political gadflies threw at each other was to say someone was "just like Hillary" or "acting like the Clintons." There is a deep well of dislike for Clinton, rational or not. But many of these conservative voters would like nothing more than to throw a monkey wrench into the Democratic primaries and some may vote for Clinton in an effort to do so.

-- Reid J. Epstein

While it is not snowing today in Milwaukee, there is plenty on the ground for voters to contend with. Add the 9-degree weather and it is not a pleasant day to be outside. Fortunately Badger Staters are typically hearty types and usually vote in good numbers. Cindy Kilkenny sends these photos from snowy Brookfield, an upscale suburb 15 miles west of downtown Milwaukee.

Delivering pizza to poll-workers at Swanson Elementary School

Snowed in at the Brookfield Safety Building

Thirty-two years ago, an Oklahoma senator named Fred Harris ran for a second time in the Democratic primaries, offering himself as a liberal-left alternative to Jimmy Carter, the eventual winner. He ran on a message of economic populism, which is the theme of this day, on the verge of the primary in economically-battered Wisconsin.

Harris these days is a super-delegate in the Obama camp and a professor in New Mexico. A couple of months ago he bemoaned the changes in the primary process that was supposed to end Feb. 5 -- a process that did seem to favor better-financed players as he described. But the Super Tuesday firewall has since burned, and now we are in the uncharted waters of a tough race. For an excerpt of Harris' December interview, with the Center for Public Integrity, hit the 'continue' bar and the full text is here. It is worth relating if only because he once played something akin to the John Edwards role.

Dan Janison

Our friend Cindy Kilkenny in Wisconsin brings us this photo from outside John McCain's morning rally in Brookfield. Apparently Ron Paul's found a way to spend the millions he's raised -- interrupting the call-and-response at McCain rallies!

She also has a grisly reminder: The McCain event is in the same hotel ballroom as one of the worst mass killings in the state's history.

In Albany tonight, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), a supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, issued a passionate call for Democratic Party unity, saying "the people’s will is what’s going to prevail at the convention and not people who decide what the people’s will is."

Speaking at the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators' annual conference, Rangel said the party’s superdelegates shouldn’t decide whether Clinton or Barack Obama’s name will appear on the November ballot for president. Rangel also warned against party bickering, which could hand the White House to Republican John McCain.

"That’s going to be our job to make certain that this great opportunity is not taken away from us because of differences," the congressman told more than 1,000 people packed into the Albany convention center. "Not to allow them [Republicans] to snatch this away from us."

Rangel didn’t mention Clinton or Obama by name but made his opposition to superdelegates clear. "It’s the people [who are] going to govern who selects our next candidate and not superdelegates."

Speaking to reporters later, Rangel said it wasn’t clear which candidate would get a majority of the superdelegate votes so "it’s time that they get their act together now." He suggested a meeting of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton and Obama. "We should make certain that they [the candidates] don’t hurt each other and decide how they are going to resolve it," Rangel added.

Earlier, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Clinton superdelegate, downplayed the delegates’ role, saying the nomination likely would be decided in future primaries. "The likelihood is there will be a nominee," he told reporters after speaking to the conference.

James T. Madore

Given the season it may be a good time for our public officials, if they're not too busy running for office, to start writing sequels to their earlier literary efforts. Some possible examples:

Hillary Clinton could update her book "Living History" with a new volume, "Becoming History."

Barack Obama could follow his "The Audacity of Hope" with the campaign-time "The Expediency of Hope."

Rudy Giuliani could offer a sequel to "Leadership" with a memoir, "But Then They Voted."

Mike Bloomberg could freshen up "Bloomberg by Bloomberg" with a new tome: "Speculation by Sheekey."

Any other literary suggestions?

Dan Janison

Non-partisan voter advocates suspect some citizens had their names erroneously dropped from the rolls during a statewide effort to cut duplication in compliance with new federal laws, thus forcing more affidavit votes. Inquiries are expected.

Dan Janison

I

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

Election officials in Nassau and Suffolk say Tuesday’s presidential primary brought out a record number of voters whose ballots may end up discarded — either because they were not registered to vote or not listed as belonging to either of the political parties holding contests.

Officials say nearly 14,000 cast votes were considered questionable. These are affidavit ballots in which the voters swear they are qualified to vote. Election records are later checked in Mineola and Yaphank to determine if the voter was in fact qualified.

Cathy Richter Geier, Suffolk's Republican commissioner, said, “It’s very confusing for the voter when they hear hear things on TV about other states and think they are entitled in any primary.”

“We had people come and say they they were Democrats because they always vote for Democrats,” said William Biamonte, Nassau's Democratic Elections commissioner. Officials say prolonged delays in an Elmont polling place resulted in part from large numbers casting affidavit ballots.

In this state, only those enrolled in a party can vote in that party’s primary. Officials do not know voters’ election histories since the ballots themselves are secret. More than a quarter of registered voters do not list a party affiliation, and they cannot vote in primaries.

In Nassau, officials said, 3,880 affidavit ballots were cast compared with 543 in 2004. In Suffolk, the number exceeded 10,000 this year. While Suffolk had no past comparison, Anita Katz, Democratic commissioner, called the number “just astronomical” — and surely a record.

Rick Brand

Alert staffers preparing interactive primary-result maps and charts for newsday.com noted several quirks. At the Oregon Middle School in Medford, for example, dropout Bill Richardson was recorded with 190 votes — meaning he’d have won that precinct. Election board officials suspect the wrong column of numbers may have been called in. Tallies will be checked when machines are re-examined and certified.

Dan Janison

Last June, John McCain bemoaned the rush by different states to move up the dates of their presidential primaries into an early Super Tuesday. "It's not good for the country for the whole nominating process to be over by the end of January or the fifth of February," he was quoted in the Arizona Republic as saying. "It's just not healthy."

McCain may hold a rosier view today, after emerging as Super Tuesday's biggest beneficiary. With Mitt Romney withdrawing, the Arizonan is poised to clinch the GOP nomination.

Last July, Terry McAuliffe, photo above, a backer of Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Democratic National Committee chairman, was quoted by The Des Moines Register saying: "It'll be over on Feb. 6. We'll have a nominee."

Today, Clinton pours millions of her own dollars into a primary fight against Barack Obama that will end, well, whenever it ends.

The lesson is threefold: Life changes quickly; somebody is always selling an iffy scenario as a sure thing; and public life in America holds deeper mystery than the shills and cheerleaders would have you believe.

Now comes talk of a contested Democratic convention in August. The chatter has sparked a cottage industry of research into presidential nominations in the 1950s that took multiple rounds of ballots. It has also brought detailed recollections in the blogosphere of the power battle at the 1976 GOP parley between President Gerald Ford and an insurgent Ronald Reagan.

Just how might a convention be "brokered" in 2008?

"How do you make buggy whips?" replies longtime political operative William Cunningham, now a lobbyist and public-relations consultant. "No one has brokered a convention in so long, I don't think anyone knows how. The Democrats nowadays will want to meet in a smoke-free back room that is visible to everyone. ... Then they'll wonder why there are no leaders like Richard Daley and Boss Tweed anymore."

The problem for Democrats ...

Dan Janison

Here are a few sites worth watching tonight as voters and caucusers have their say in Nebraska, Washington state and Louisiana:

Omaha World-Herald's Election Page
The Seattle Times' David Postman's blog
Seattle Politicore, a caucus blog authored by University of Washington students

And here are the county-by-county results from the Kansas GOP caucuses, which Mike Huckabee won handily.

New Yorkers are expected to vote in relatively huge numbers on Tuesday, marking their biggest participation in a presidential primary in 20 years.

For the Democrats, election officials said yesterday, turnout could reach or surpass the levels of the 1988 scrum among Mike Dukakis, Jesse Jackson and Al Gore, who drew more than 1.5 million votes combined.

And that year had no Republican contest, with Vice President George H.W. Bush the insider GOP candidate. This year, Republicans choose from five candidate names, including contestants Mitt Romney and John McCain, who is now the favorite of the state’s party leadership.

“We’re preparing in a way similar to a November presidential general election,” said Steve Richman, counsel to the New York City Board of Elections. “Yes, we are anticipating heavy turnout. Because it’s both Democrats and Republicans, there is a larger portion of the eligible-voter base that can participate.”

“I’d compare this to 1988,” said Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs, who backs Hillary Rodham Clinton against Barack Obama. “It was the last time New York was in play as a state whose delegates could make a difference.”

Fellow Clinton supporter Richard Schaffer, the Suffolk Democratic chairman, concurred with the comparison, saying....

Dan Janison

From the "strange bedfellows" department: Democratic Rep. Steve Israel played host earlier this week to Suffolk Conservative Chairman Edward Walsh, who was his front-row balcony guest at Repubican President George W. Bush's last State of the Union address.

"It was like the Super Bowl of politics," said Walsh, who had a bird's eye view of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama avoiding eye contact as both presidential contenders were ushered into the chamber-- Clinton with Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) and Obama with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D- Ma.). While Suffolk Conservatives have never endorsed Israel, the minor party was instrumental in his first election because it put up its own candidate in the race rather than endorse Islip's Republican then-town clerk, Joan Johnson.

Not long after the speech, Walsh also got a call from local party members who told him he was named the state party's "Conservative of the Year," which is also known as the Daniel Mahoney Award, named for the state party's founder. Walsh will receive the award at the state party dinner in Albany in April.

New York’s top Republican, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno of upstate Brunswick, endorsed U.S. Sen. John McCain this morning in the wake of Rudy Giuliani’s poor showing in the Florida primary.

"With the results of the Florida Republican Presidential Primary now in, the field of candidates is narrowing and a leader is emerging," Bruno said. "I spoke with Rudy Giuliani this morning and he confirmed that he is dropping out of the race and will endorse Senator John McCain for President.

"Rudy Giuliani has always been a close partner with us and he received our support as New York’s favorite son. He cleaned up and redeveloped New York City. He provided exemplary leadership after the terrorist attacks of September 11th when the city, State and nation needed it most. His record was truly deserving of support," Bruno added.

The senator then said he spoke on the telephone with McCain, who asked for his support. McCain also recalled a 2006 trip he made to Rensselaer County with Bruno.

McCain "is a proven leader with an outstanding record in the U.S. Senate and as a war hero. He has the experience our nation needs in these uncertain times as we continue the war on terror abroad and seek to steady our economy at home. John McCain has shown the fortitude to withstand major challenges. He is a true reformer and has the courage of his convictions that will help him win in New York and throughout the country," Bruno said.

The state GOP is hoping McCain will draw New Yorkers to the polls in November when state senators are up for re-election. The party holds a slim two-seat majority in the Senate, its sole remaining power base in the Capitol.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady) also jumped on the McCain bandwagon, issuing an endorsement.

"He is the best choice for Republican voters and the one candidate who can unify our party and fully articulate its tradition of standing for fiscal responsibility, a strong military and a genuine commitment to returning power back to the taxpayers," Tedisco said.

James T. Madore in Albany

Rudy Giuliani's last-ditch web ad that brags about the newspapers that didn't endorse him calls the Tampa Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel the "liberal newspapers," which surely must be news to the Tampa Tribune.

The Tribune is perhaps Florida's most conservative paper, having endorsed every Republican presidential candidate since 1952 -- including Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan -- with the exceptions of 1964 and 2004, when it said both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry were unacceptable.

The Orlando Sentinel and the Sun-Sentinel -- Tribune Co. papers both -- endorsed Kerry last time around, though the Sentinel backed Bush in 2000.

Ethnicity tends to get raised in a New York campaign, and here's a little cross-section of its varied pushes and pulls:

In the Bronx, a traditional center of Latino electoral life in the city, Councilman Joel Rivera, son of county Democratic chairman and Assemb. Jose Rivera, is hosting a presidential “debate watch” party Thursday for Hillary Rodham Clinton delegates.

Assemb. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan), left, a strident critic of Suffolk Executive Steve Levy on illegal immigration issues, is also on the Feb. 5 ballot to become a Clinton delegate. In Suffolk, Dominican-born Legis. Vivian Viloria-Fisher appears on Democratic ballots to be a delegate for Sen. Barack Obama....

In Brooklyn’s Borough Park, a center of Orthodox Judaism in the city, veteran Assemb. Dov Hikind (photo right) has not endorsed in the Democratic primary. He urges Clinton to support the release of life-sentenced spy Jonathan Pollard and questions Obama’s Chicago pastor praising minister Louis Farrakhan. Hikind doesn’t offer comment on the candidacy of Giuliani, who’s popular in his community, but whose mayoral aides once pushed what a jury deemed an unfounded criminal case against him...

In the Irish Voice, Niall O’Dowd warns on immigration: “Every Republican candidate with the exception of McCain has demagogued this issue to death hoping to milk votes from it. In the end, though, it may come back to haunt them.”

Dan Janison

Long Island Democratic party officials who line up with Sen. Hillary Clinton say New York voters won’t be swayed by the endorsements of Caroline Kennedy and Sen. Edward Kennedy. But local officials who support Obama called the Kennedys’ backing a coup for the campaign.

"An offspring of JFK now saying that Obama is 'like my father', that’s huge," said Islip Democratic chairman Ivan Young, referring to Caroline Kennedy’s New York Times op-ed piece, which yesterday ranked first on the newspaper’s list of most e-mailed stories. "I think anyone who was undecided, who was not sure, this lends significant credibility to his candidacy as president."

Suffolk Legis. Jon Cooper called Sen. Edward Kennedy an "icon."

"For those that were on the fence knowing that Ted Kennedy has the confidence in Barack Obama to be president, I think that that will move a lot of people into our camp," Cooper said.

But Clinton supporters said New York primary voters will base their decision on the candidates’ achievements, not the high-profile names they accrue.

"People know her," former Nassau presiding officer Judy Jacobs, referring to Clinton. "They’ve seen the work that she’s been able to do. I don’t think endorsments are going to be all that key."

Suffolk Democratic chairman Richard Shaffer agreed.

"Usually endorsements don’t mean much," he said. "It’s all about who’s delivered and Senator Clinton, on behalf of New Yorkers has done that for the past almost eight years."

Jennifer Maloney

The Clinton campaign, backed heavily by the party organization, announced today it is opening nine regional offices, each with fulltime staff, and 25 phone bank locations across the state. They include:

Nassau:
Regional HQ: Nassau County Democrat Committee
300 Garden City Plaza
Garden City

Suffolk:
Regional HQ: Brookhaven Democratic Committee
757 Horse Block Rd
Farmingville

New York City
State HQ: 420 Lexington Avenue, NYC
Suite 3030
Manhattan

Attention, all politicians: Please find a new cliché to evoke in Vegas, where the frontier aura has long given way to a sprawling, adult playground.

“I guess this is how the West was won!” the hoarse-voiced New York senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said to cheers from supporters.

Actually, the race appeared to have been won not with troops and cowboys but with the help of rival factions of Nevada’s powerful unions, who divided workers between Clinton and rival Barack Obama. Many voters were gaming-industry dishwashers, cooks and cocktail servers who caucused in casino ballrooms.

And Clinton made her acceptance speech in the casino mezzanine of Planet Hollywood, above the clicks and whirrs of slot machines.

Perhaps she should have said, “Thank you, Flamingo, Thank you, Paris, Thank you, Bellaggio, Thank you, Tropicana…..”

Letta Tayler in Las Vegas

I say "Ne-vah-tuh," you say "Ne-vaa-da" let’s call the whole thing off?

Michelle Obama certainly hopes not.

While introducing her husband at a rally of University of Nevada-Reno students, the wife of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said she was glad to be there, using an out-of-stater’s pronunciation of the word "Nevada."

Folks here say it’s enough to make the locals cringe. "It’s so good to be back in Nevada, we are so happy to be here," she said.

When tittering spread through the packed gymnasium, she realized her gaffe.

"Ne-vaa-da! Ne-vaa-da ….. Ne-vaa-da, Ne-vaada….. .Ne-vaa-da!, she pleaded, good naturedly. "Oh, no, I’ve been in South Carolina too long. It’s nice to be in NE-VAA-DA!" she said, drawing friendly laughter.

"We love you," someone screamed.

"I love you too, guys," she replied.

Later in her introduction, the Princeton graduate said her background as a "kid" growing up on Chicago’s infamous Southside demonstrated the odds less privileged Americans face and overcome. "Whether I can say "Nevada" right or not," she said," I’m still a regular kid."

--Martin C. Evans

Eight years ago this week, Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered his seventh State of the-City address, marking the midpoint of his second and, by law, final term. It was laced with the usual self-congratulation, aimed in part at an audience beyond the five boroughs.

Yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered his seventh State of the City address, marking the midpoint of his second and final term. It, too, was laced with the customary self-congratulation - and aimed a bit at an audience beyond the five boroughs.

When Giuliani, Bloomberg's possible rival, spoke in City Hall on Jan. 13, 2000, he'd started running for higher office - U.S. Senate - without having announced that he was doing so. And when Bloomberg spoke at the new ice rink in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park yesterday, he, too, had started running for higher office - the presidency - without saying so.

Ballot preparations and strategies and planning have moved far enough along now that for billionaire Bloomberg the only question is whether he pulls the plug in the coming weeks on his unorthodox stealth candidacy - or embraces it in full.

All this presidential fanfare, though, hides the sobering truth of his day job: Having two years left in office means a shrinkage of municipal power and the prospect of a government adrift.

With economic storm clouds looming, Bloomberg called yesterday for sacrifices by unions. But labor leaders in the room knew full well that Bloomberg now lacks leverage. He leaves in 2009 - and the latest round of contracts is already negotiated and signed.

Key parts of his broader agenda appear doomed as well. Nobody applauded, for example, when .....

Dan Janison

With racial innuendo creeping into the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, a new poll shows Clinton gaining on Obama in South Carolina, and wide divisions between black and white voters over which candidate they prefer.

The new poll, a survey by Rasmussen Markets, shows Clinton leading Obama 40 percent to 21 percent among white South Carolinians. Obama leads Clinton by 23 points among African Americans, who make up about half of Democrats in the Palmetto State.

Overall, Obama clings to a 38-33 lead over Clinton in South Carolina, with former North Carolina Senator John Edwards trailing with 17 percent. But a week ago, Obama led Clinton by 12 percentage points. He trailed her by 10 points in November.

South Carolina, which has its Democratic primary Jan. 26, is the first state holding a party nomination contest where black voters make up a significant portion of the electorate.

(Read on after the jump)

-- Martin C. Evans