Dear Mr. Suozzi:

You probably won’t remember me, since we have met only once, at Sharpton’s MLK-day event last February. However, I have been admiring your political activities from a distance, for many years now. You have built a powerful resume. I am very impressed with you as a leader in our political party. I find you refreshing. I have even spoken to Ms. Devlin (your manager) about working with you, especially on your “fix Albany” initiative. I have spent the last year defending your potential candidacy on the blogs, and I have publicly admitted to leaning towards voting for you in the upcoming primary. I have impressed countless others to give your candidacy a serious look, and they have. Most are impressed. With all this as a backdrop I write this letter, since today the petitioning process starts. This is the time to make real hard decisions.

Saturday’s NY Times has a column by John Tierney, advocating the end of rent control. (Can’t be linked to because it’s part of the Times’ pay per view section.) 

Tuesday’s Times had letters defending rent control, the gist of the argument was spelled out in one letter – “Tell me, John Tierney, if you were an 83-year-old widow living on your Social Security in the same apartment, now rent-controlled, for 49 years, and the apartment became decontrolled, what would you do? “

I don’t think Tierney wants 83 year olds to be homeless and neither do other opponents of rent control.

The Bloomberg administration is making a pretty dumb argument when they say in Friday’s Post “that anti-terror grants may have been spread around the country for political reasons”.

If we buy that line, then isn’t Mike admitting that his strategy over the last 4 years was a failure? He’s admitting all the money he contributed or raised for various right-wing Republicans ended up not helping the City. Isn’t he saying that the warm welcome he gave the Republicans during the 2004 convention wasn’t useful? That the supposed clout that Republican Congressmen like Peter King, John Sweeney & Tom Reynolds have in DC doesn’t amount to much.

It was somewhere around this time (early June) a few years ago, while musing with a political crack head, I hinted that each new petition-drive was becoming more and more mundane. His answer felt like a bucket of cold water thrown into the sleeping face of a political addict. He told me that he looked forward to every new election-cycle with eager anticipation and excitement, since each New Year in politics, brings unique personalities, situations, events and occurrences. He was right. And although I fall off the wagon from time to time-especially when these somnambulant black electeds piss me off (which is often) – I always remember his words around this time. You see, this is when the phone starts ringing non-stop, as people recruit help or references while putting together late campaigns. This year however is slightly different. This is the year of the withdrawal(s). Lots of candidates are withdrawing, and by the end of this article you will get the inside scoop on some more withdrawals upcoming. Some may or may not surprise you.

Andrew Cuomo, in his acceptance speech, vowed to fight against bringing back the death penalty.

"We will not breathe life into the death penalty in the state of New York," Cuomo said.

I wonder what Elliot Spitzer & Shelly Silver, both of whom support capital punishment think about that.

Irish legends suggest that a leprechaun is a mischievous elf, who resembles a little old man. He possesses gold-which he hides away- and is very very lucky. Sometimes, he even touches things and they turn into gold, literally or figuratively. So looking back at Mayor Bloomberg’s personal life, his business and political career, I now posit the question: Is Mayor Bloomberg a leprechaun?

By his own admission he got lucky in business. He even admitted to skirting around the peripheries of ethics and public-safety (my words), while conducting business in the early days. This can be extrapolated from the many things written about his business conduct. Some say that brilliant people make their own luck, so maybe the guy is brilliant. And as such, he should be admired.

The well worn path to prominence in New York politics is to bestow benefits on the small number of active interests already privileged by state and local policy.  Then when “forced” to impose sacrifices on everyone else, even those comparatively worse off, blame “inevitable” circumstances, or the other political party.

It is three years until the next Mayoral election, and New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson has already lost my vote.  Lost it by saying two words I never want to hear from any elected official or aspirant:  “senior citizen.”  I don’t want to hear those words not because I have anything against senior citizens; indeed, I hope to become one myself one of these days.  It don’t want to hear them because today’s senior citizens have just about the greatest sense of entitlement, both in terms of what they are to receive and what they ought not have to pay, of any just about anybody on the planet.  And public policy, including tax policy, already benefits them to an enormous extent – especially in New York City.

On the eve of the State Democratic & Republican conventions, pundits are exclaiming that the polls predicting a decisive fight for the Republican nomination for Governor and an easy win for Eliot Spitzer among Democrats means that the GOP is doomed this year.

Without getting into whether polls this early should be believed, I’d like to look back and try to see if hard-fought Statewide Primaries for Governor or Senator have hurt, helped or made no difference to candidates.

1968 – Democrats chose Paul O’Dwyer in a 3-way Primary to face Republican Senator Jacob Javits, who did not have Primary. Javits was considered the overwhelming favorite all year and the Democratic Primary had a low-turnout and not very exciting.  Javits did win by over 1 million votes.