Add another high-profile politician to the list of people who don't want to run for governor: Senator Hillary Clinton's spokesman Howard Wolfson tells the NY Times rumors of a gubernatorial future are "ridiculous...There are no circumstances under which Senator Clinton will run for governor." Last month, Newsweek reported some Democrats were "floating a consolation prize"--being Governor of NY--to Clinton. Add to that the possibility of Rudy Giuliani running and you've got grade-A wishful thinking! While......

Photo of Spitzer and Sen. Schumer, by aboutmattlaw at flickr Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has emerged from his upstate seclusion and now has his nose back to the grindstone--this time in the private sector. There was no need to polish his resumé, however, as his new boss is his father. Bernard Spitzer, who is 83 years old and suffering from Alzheimer's, amassed a half-billion dollar real estate and money management empire during......

Perhaps realizing he's best received as a leader in a time of crisis and disarray--and no stranger to cheating on his wife while in public office--former Mayor Rudy Giuliani may offer himself as a candidate for governor in the case Governor David Paterson has to step down. Paterson was ushered abruptly into office after revelations of Eliot Spitzer's consorting with literal, rather than political and figurative, whores. In his first two weeks in office, Paterson......

Jim Knipfel is a Wisconsin native who arrived in New York City many years ago via a stint in Philadelphia. Knipfel has a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, which is a degenerative disease that leads to blindness. He's been writing a weekly column, Slackjaw, for more than a decade. Originally published in the New York Press, it can now be found online every Sunday at electronpress.com. In addition to his column, Knipfel has written a number......

Former NJ Governor James McGreevey confirmed that he, his now ex-wife and a former aide had threesomes together. McGreevey sent an e-mail to the Associated Press, "This happened, this happened in the past, and now we need to move on with our lives." Yesterday, former aide Teddy Pedersen, 29, claimed that he, McGreevey and Dina Matos had threesomes together when the couple was dating (McGreevey was mayor of Woodbridge, NJ at the time) up until......

Just because Mayor Bloomberg has denied running for governor in 2010 doesn't mean it has to be true! The Sun's Davidson Goldin thinks that for Bloomberg, "Running for governor is likely, and becoming more so." Why? Well, though the mayor and Governor Spitzer have tried to be cooperative, Albany is involved in many plans the Mayor has a stake in, such as congestion pricing, OTB, and the Javits Center, not to mention Moynihan Station and......

Thank you, NY Times, for updating us on the activities of George Elmer Pataki. Although Pataki has been out of politics, he still spent $1.4 million from his political action committee on "Broadway theater tickets, gatherings at the Yale Club and payments to political loyalists and advisers." Now, Pataki's PAC was formed in Virginia, which has, according to the NY Times, "no limits on contributions" and a "light regulatory touch in terms of spending." A......

Photographs of the USS New York (above) and christening (below) by Bill Haber/AP Yesterday, a christening ceremony was held in a Louisiana for the latest naval ship bearing the name USS New York. While there have been five other ships with the same name, this "amphibious transport dock ship" was named to honor the state after September 11. In 2002, Governor Pataki asked then Secretary of the Navy (now Deputy Secretary of Defense) Gordon......

Graphic explaining trend of train delays from the MTA's capital plan presentation The MTA unveiled its 2008-2013 Capital Plan, which explained almost $30 billion will be needed to improve mass transit and complete projects like the Second Avenue Subway, the East Side Access plan and more by 2030 (many of those projects will also be delayed). Though the current MTA capital plan doesn't expire until next year, the MTA presented this plan because the......

Ralph Nader will be making another third-party bid for the Presidency in the 2008 election. The consumer advocate - and bane of many Democrats - made the announcement this morning on Meet the Press. Nader emphasized most Americans still are disenchanted with both the Democratic and Republican parties. At his exploratory site, which he established last month, he said both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in thrall to corporate interests. Nader, who ran for......

The NY State Legislature has long been considered the most dysfunctional state government in the country, and NY Sun has a great article giving weight to that statement: "The Empire State's Legislature employs more people than any other state legislature in the nation." Well, all that dysfunction has to be enabled from someone - or many someones! According to the most recent data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, the NY State Assembly and......

Mayor Bloomberg spoke out about the unofficial results from NYC's primary night undercounted votes in 78 districts. These districts' unofficial results raised eyebrows because no votes at all were recorded Barack Obama. Bloomberg said, "This is just an outrage," and decried the Board of Elections for being a "partisan patronage organization": "What they do is hire on the basis of politics, and obviously the people that they have aren't as competent as you would like,......

The Wisconsin, Washington and Hawaii primaries have been going on today, and while John McCain is expected to further solidify his presumptive nomination, the Democratic race is tight as ever, with a Gallup pole now showing Clinton closing the gap on Obama after his string of eight straight victories. What’s passing for campaign news at the moment is a teapot tempest stirred up by the Clinton team, accusing Obama of plagiarizing Governor Deval Patrick......

Governor Spitzer is facing opposition in his attempt to snuff out any Javits Center expansion by selling land surrounding the center to fill budget gaps. The administration still plans to renovate the convention center, but it will result in far less space than what was originally envisioned for the expansion, which would have cost between $1.8 billion and $3 billion. Senator Charles Schumer, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn oppose the land......

Only in Albany can you be nominated to head the Public Service Commission, which oversees utilities, and start doing work for the government - while still working for a private sector energy company! The state inspector general released a report explaining how this actually happened with former PSC nominee Angela Sparks-Beddoe last year. Sparks-Beddoe was President for Energy East, a utility in Saratoga Springs, when Spitzer nominated her early last year. She was still working......

After losing by considerable margins in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia primaries to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton unveiled an ad attacking her rival yesterday. The voiceover says:Both Democratic candidates were invited to a televised debate here in Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton has said yes. Barack Obama hasn’t. Maybe he’d prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions. Like why Hillary Clinton has the only health care plan that covers every American, and the only economic......

It's a refrain that already sounds familiar and will no doubt be repeated many times more: Officials expect real estate revenues to fall, causing lots of number crunching in budgets. The NY Sun reports that the city forecasts "a 39% decline in sales volume for all commercial transactions through 2009, and the median price of those transactions is expected to decline by 32%." Since the city charges 2.6% tax of the sale price, while the......

On Wednesday, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo crashed Fashion Week when he announced an indictment against the former superintendent of the 26th Street Armory. James Jackson had solicited bribes from fashion darling Marc Jacobs (pictured), who allegedly complied in order to secure the coveted armory space for his fashion shows. The Armory is considered a "community asset" whose space is to be used by the military and public. As of Wednesday, the designer was in......

Photograph by forklift on Flickr An estimated three million people assembled along Broadway during yesterday's ticker tape parade to celebrate the Giants' 17-14 Super Bowl XLII win over the New England Patriots. After the many floats with Giants players (and cars with some dignitaries, like Governor Spitzer, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver) rolled up the Canyon of Heroes, Mayor Bloomberg presented the team with keys to the city. When David Tyree,......

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New York State Senate leader Joseph Bruno is still under FBI investigation for possibly improper ties to unions that deal with state pension agencies! In 2006, Bruno said of the FBI's look, "I have nothing to hide. They are going into background over the past five or six years," but the NY Times describes the feds' current investigation as widening. At issue are tens of millions of dollars paid by Albany labor unions in fees......

Photograph of MTA police K9 team by Diane Bondareff/AP Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced New York City will receive $153 million - up from last year's $61 million - in transit security grants. Wow - all we can do is remember Chertoff's 2005 remark, when trying discussing how security funding would be allocated, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the......

Weighing in on the modified congestion pricing plan the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission recommended, Mayor Bloomberg said:"The Commission has done a thorough and thoughtful job. They've taken testimony from hundreds of residents, community leaders and civic organizations. They've held dozens of public meetings and have analyzed mountains of data. Although the final recommendation varies from our original proposal, I accept it. "We will work with our partners in the Council and the State Legislature, and......

With Mayor Bloomberg up in Albany deriding Gov. Spitzer for bilking the city out of $500 million in promised funding, it's no wonder that the perennial call for secession has arisen. Every time NY State politics gets heated, we get to rehash the economics of NYC declaring itself independent from the state. During his NYC budget speech last week, Bloomberg pointed out (again) how NYC pays more than $11 billion in state taxes it doesn't......

Photograph of President Bush, with Vice President Dick Cheney and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in the background, delivering the State of the Union by Ron Edmonds/AP President George Bush gave his final State of the Union address, sounding positive about his leadership but also noting that there's still more to do: "From expanding opportunity to protecting our country, we have made good progress. Yet we have unfinished business before us, and the......

Governor Spitzer may have identified himself as a steamroller in his attempts to accomplish certain executive tasks, but he's got nothing on the former federal prosecutor and Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. The NY Times has a colorful profile of the the former Mayor as a man who used his offices as bludgeons, crushing anyone who crossed him. When a chauffeur called into the Mayor's weekly radio show in 1997, saying that the cops had established......

Photo via Frank Lynch's Flickr. Earlier this month we tried to look at the Triborough Bridge as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge when Governor Spitzer brought the name change up for consideration. While RFK supporters toss around the obvious "he built bridges" metaphor, The NY Times would like to point out that he also burned them. They suggest that the city stop looking for big names to attach to their structures and streets, and......

Plans to renovate Pier A, the last remaining pier on the lower west side, are staggering forward again. The Victorian-era three-story pier was built immediately after the Brooklyn Bridge, using much of the same equipment, and was once one of the city’s proudest points of entry, boasting visits from boldface names like Amelia Earhart and the Queen of England. Today it’s a dilapidated eyesore that clashes with the rest of the lavishly rehabilitated west......

Photographs of Spitzer, Sharpton, Dinkins and Bloomberg at Sharpton's National Action Network by Tina Fineberg/AP All over the city, events were held to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. One of the biggest events was the Reverend Al Sharpton's annual forum at his National Action Network in Harlem, which attracted Governor Spitzer, Senator Schumer, former Mayor Dinkins and Mayor Bloomberg. Sharpton hailed Bloomberg's efforts to make the city less racially divisive, "It is......

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg speaking, with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Governor Ed Rendell (not pictured), under Los Angeles freeways by Ann Johansson/AP It's Mike and Arnie, together again! The Time magazine co-cover pols, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, made a Los Angeles appearance with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to announce the creation of a "nonpartisan organization that will advocate for more, and smarter, federal spending on infrastructure." The Mayor and maybe......