John Kerry

It's all but over, according to the Obama campaign.

"We can see the finish line," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe on a conference call just now. Plouffe said the net of last night's primaries was 13 delegates in the candidate's favor, making Obama's advantage "the biggest it has been in the entire race." Plouffe said that the campaign had also been "making great progress in the superdelegate world."

He then introduced the campaign's top supporters, each carrying a nail to hammer into Clinton's coffin.

John Kerry said, "In my judgment, last night, Barack Obama took a giant and decisive step towards the nomination." He added, "He clearly did more than he had to and she did not achieve what she had to."

He argued that Obama scored impressive results "despite the toughest weeks of his campaign and the most thorough testing that could be imagined," and said, "If it hadn't been for Republicans taking Democratic ballots," at the bidding of Rush Limbaugh he would have won Indiana too. "There is no masquerade now."  read more »

Sen. McCain may have called his wife the c-word in 1992 after she suggested he might be balding. To her credit, she wasn't exactly wrong. [NY Daily News]

Recently rehabilitated Kirsten Dunst was spotted dining with co-star Ryan Gosling at Freeman's restaurant on the Lower East Side on Saturday. [P6]  read more »

Charlie Rangel, a major supporter of Hillary Clinton, is joining Chuck Schumer and a growing number of superdelegates who think the Democratic nominee should reflect the popular vote, not the will of the superdelegates.

From Newsday:  read more »

It's easy to view John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama skeptically. After all, no one voting in any upcoming Democratic primary is going to pause in the voting booth and think, "Gee, if Obama is good enough for John Kerry, he's good enough for me."  read more »

In a lengthy interview with George Stephanopoulos that aired on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Fred Thompson became the latest endangered presidential candidate to invoke John Kerry’s name.

Asked what kind of showing he will need to make in Iowa, where he now hovers around 10 percent in polls, Mr. Thompson replied, “It’s hard to say. But I’m planning on doing well. I think John Kerry had about nine percent at this stage of the game and went on to win. So, you know, Iowa changes sometimes in a very short order.”  read more »

Call it a case of right message, wrong messenger.

Attacked by Mitt Romney for his lax record on illegal immigration as mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani returned fire on Wednesday, charging that as Governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney “did very little about (immigration) until the last day or two he was in office—and it never had any impact.”

Rudy is absolutely correct.  read more »

On Sunday, the idea that Kerry ever considered using McCain as a running-mate seemed laughable.  read more »

The Arizona Senator wants to do what his fellow veteran did in 2004—up to a point.  read more »

Richard Nixon had a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War in 1968, and apparently John Kerry had one of his own for the Iraq War in 2004.  read more »

Some other interesting bits from my interview with New School president and former Senator Bob Kerrey that didn't make it into  today's paper... 

Kerrey, a Democrat, thinks that the Virginia Tech shootings do not directly raise the question of gun control, but rather of mental health on American campuses.

"This is a largely a university problem, not a gun control problem," he said. "This is the issue of in loco parentis. We have a significant fraction of undergraduate students who are going into universities and colleges across the country who have mental health problems. Maybe one out of five that are on medication of some kind."

He said that the widespread policy of keeping of students' health problems confidential from their parents should be revisited.

"All of us in higher education are really having second thoughts about this because that's the real question," Kerrey said. "This is really about how you govern higher education. I do not think gun control is the first issue."

On the suddenly news-y topic of gay marriage, Kerrey explained how he thinks Democrats should frame the issue, and used the John Kerry 2004 campaign as an illustration of how they shouldn't. 

"I think John missed an opportunity," Kerrey said. "A woman asked him do you think people are born gay or straight, and John didn't answer that question and that it is the most important question."

Kerrey said the lesson about the gay marriage debate is that Democrats need to engage social conservatives on their ground by a clear moral argument.

"I would recommend that a candidate answer the question saying, 'Look, I think God puts people on earth gay and straight.' I would start with that. It's a religious belief."  read more »

’04 Nominee Should Have Whacked Swift Boaters; Says He May Run ‘Someday.’  read more »

Al Sharpton really enjoys making candidates beg for his endorsement.   And yet they come.  read more »

Hillary Clinton picked up the guy who ran John Kerry's New Hampshire operation.

Cory Booker met with fund-raisers to plan an event for Hillary Barack Obama.

Former NY1 producer David Chalian is named political director of ABC News.

Scott Sala thinks I should "bother the crap" out of Andrew Cuomo until I get an interview.

New York City is run by "nanny government."

Eliot Spitzer wants background checks conducted on people bidding for the state's horseracing franchise.

Spitzer is calling individual state Senators to get them to abandon Joe Bruno.

The Drum Major Institute and President Bush agree on something.

NY Sun Politics has a Q & A with Rudy-critic George Marlin.

WSJ has emails showing that the White House sought to fire several US prosecutors before 2005.

And above is an old picture of Sheldon Silver.

-- Azi Paybarah

John Kerry was at the 92nd Street Y this week, ostensibly to talk about his new book about environme  read more »

With each week, a new parade of Presidential contenders arrives in New York for a mix of intimate, l  read more »

At an appearance yesterday evening at the 92nd Street Y to promote his new book on environmentalism, John Kerry talked about what he called the "mythology" surrounding his weak response to the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Here's part of an exchange he had with moderator Charlie Rose:

CR: "I know you don't want to redo that campaign."

JK: "Actually I do. Let's go back and recount those votes."

CR: "That is my very first question. Did you win Ohio or not?"

JK: "I don't look backwards."

But just moments later...  read more »

Senator John Kerry and his wife, Teresa, were at the 92nd Street Y last night where a packed house saw them discuss their new book about environmentalism with interviewer Charlie Rose.

Rose happily steered the conversation into politics, where John Kerry confessed to some mistakes in his 2004 race, and kept alive the possibility of running again. But at least one audience member had enough of him!

After hearing the Kerrys speak, Vivian Engstler, a retired chef from Chelsea told me she'd rather see Teresa run for president.

"Yeah, she has more cajones. She has more balls than he does." But somehow, according to Engstler, Teresa "is a nicer Hillary."

-- Azi Paybarah

Clarence Norman was convicted of larceny and coercion but cleared of five other charges.

Bill Thompson and Anthony Weiner unofficially kick off the 2009 season this April when they discuss middle class economics at a DMI forum.

Mitt Romney wants New York's money out of Iran.

Yearly Kos will have an NYC fund-raiser on March 10.

John Kerry and his wife are writing a book due out in March.

The guy who ran Kerry's fund-raising in New York is on board with Barack Obama.

Rudy Giuliani's most ambitious fund-raiser so far is planned for March 4 in Midtown. (Baseball theme!)

Giuliani Blog points to a positive a poll.

Reform NY likes the fact Andrew Cuomo hired Blair Horner.

And pictured above is a random crowd-shot from last week's NYC 4 Obama event.

-- Azi Paybarah

Robert Zimmerman, one of the last key uncommitted Democratic fund-raisers in New York, just told me has signed up with Hillary Clinton.

"We have an extraordinary field of candidates, but Hillary Clinton, without question, truly is the best candidate to bring us to victory and has the experience and knowledge to be an extraordinary president. It's a commitment from the heart and soul."

Zimmerman is a former Democratic National Committeeman who raised money for and argued the causes of Al Gore and John Kerry.

Zimmerman said he made the decision yesterday after meeting with one last candidate in the field, though he would not name that candidate.

As a notable aside, Zimmerman was long seen as a Gore loyalist, and his signing up with Clinton strongly suggests that Gore is indeed not running.

"I take Al Gore at his word," said Mr. Zimmerman.

He added, "With the nomination literally a year away, it was critical to make the decision now. The 2008 Presidential race is upon us. And we have to be ready."

--Jason Horowitz

Hillary Clinton's recent proclamations on Iraq -- calling for caps on troops levels, but not advocating cutting funds for the war -- may not have gone far enough to satisfy the Democrat's out-of-Iraq base, but they seems to have met with approval from the foreign policy establishment.

"Democrats and a number of moderate Republicans are looking for a way to coral Bush because they fear the guy is out of control - that is his new strategy isn't new and that he is going, at great cost to the country, turn the problem over to the next president," said Les Gelb, the former president of the Council of Foreign Relations. "They are looking for a way to cap this all, that's not unreasonable at all. This to me it is better than passing legislation cutting off funding. It's not political feasible and it's the wrong thing to do when you have soldiers in the field."

Clinton has said she will not cut funding to American troops, which will inoculate from at least one of the lines of attack that sunk John Kerry in 2004. But it also endears her to the more muscular wing of the multilateralist, Bush-skeptic foreign policy establishment.

"I'd characterize her as being almost 100 percent critical of how Bush is handling it, against a timetable, but for a troop reduction and diplomacy."

-- Jason Horowitz

William Samuels, Democratic donor, semi-retired businessman and son of three-time gubernatorial cand  read more »

John Kerry is uncertain about 2008.

Republican consultants open up a firm in DC "just in time for subpoena season." Moody's gives the Hudson Yards bond an A3 rating.

Barack Obama actually helps Hillary's chances.

Tom Vilsack talks about 2008.

The Post General Election Campaign Finance reports are in for Jeanine Pirro, John Faso, indicted Bronx state Senator Efrain Gonzalez, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Spitzer's filing - sent out just as reporters go to deadline - is here.

And above is Hillary Clinton from an event uptown when all she was thinking about was 2006.

--Azi Paybarah

Hillary Clinton spent heavily on her shoo-in campaign and now has about as much money left in the bank as candidates like John Kerry and Evan Bayh.

Clinton gave $1,000 to help Long Island Republican Peter King's challenger. The more conservatives get to know Rudy Giuliani's record, the more they'll like him, says John Podhoretz.

The Times wonders if the Democrats can ever win the south.

With a new Democratic majority taking over congress in January, some industries have to find new friends on Capitol Hill.

Eliot Spitzer and his aides won't say how much money the governor-elect will steer to city schools in light of yesterday's court decision lowering state mandated aid to city schools.

Fred Dicker reports that Governor Pataki rejected a plan to raise pay for state lawmakers in exchange for raising the cap on charter schools.

The Sun is less pessimistic about the deal's chances.

Andrew Cuomo's transition team comes together.

Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a $30 million plan to renovate parts of the South Bronx.

Errol Louis debunks some eminent domain figures.

Easing residency requirements on some municipal jobs raises concerns with a few city lawmakers and labor leaders.

And pollingreport.com has a list of every poll result they gathered for the midterm election.

--Azi Paybarah

Surprise!

Hillary is still the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination in 2008, according to this CNN poll.

Hillary is at 33%, with Barack Obama at 15%, John Edwards and Al Gore both at 14%, and John Kerry somewhere around 7%.

The poll included Democrats and independents "who lean to the Democratic Party."

-- Azi Paybarah

If Rumsfeld's resignation was in the playbook, presumably under Hail Mary Pass, then why didn't they call the play two weeks back when it could actually have done some good politically and maybe saved Lincoln Chafee et al? Paralysis at the controls. The failure would seem to underscore the general theme: these boys are in denial, and unable to come to terms with what a hash they've made of things. Here and in Iraq. W is presumably in a back hallway, praying to an oil painting.

Not that the Dems have any answers. The Fire Rumsfeld option always amounted to a form of ass-covering. Schumer and Hillary and John Kerry encouraged this fiasco. (Arguing that it could have been done better is Titanic-deck-chair-rearrangement. 500,000 troops or 250,000, disbanded army or not—imagine how you would respond to someone invading your country.)

Returns are now streaming in from Kentucky and Indiana, each home to several bellwether House races. With the caveat that we have no idea where in the district these numbers are coming from, the initial numbers from Kentucky's 3rd District spell trouble for the GOP. With 37 percent reporting:

John Yarmuth (Dem) 51% Anne Northup (Rep) 48%

Northup is a fifth-term incumbent who has had close calls before and John Kerry did win this district by a sliver in 2004, but a GOP loss here would probably signal a very big national Democratic wave. Yarmuth, who edits an alt-weekly newspaper, is seen as a very flawed candidate - someone Northup would handily beat if the national climate hadn't made the contest competitive.

Tom Suozzi is backing Alan Hevesi for re-election.

John McCain endorsed Chris Callaghan.

Jonathan Miller, who wrote a story in this week's Observer about the relationships between Senator Bob Menendez and hard-line anti-Castro activists, has more here on a related group of hard-liners recently called before a grand jury in Newark. The group includes one prominent Menendez fund-raiser and an employee of another Menendez supporter who died in 2000.

Bob Corker, Menendez and Sheldon Whitehouse all have double-digit leads in their Senate races.

Aides to Tom Reynolds got tips on how to manage the Mark Foley fall out two days before the story became public, indicating, again, that the congressman's office was aware of the issue.

The state Senate Democrats are paying for only one ad this year, and it's for Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

Rudy Giuliani leads John McCain in a recent Florida poll, but trails him in another poll out in Michigan.

Greg Sargent critiques the Times' coverage of John Kerry's Iraq comment.

Another site wonders whose job sucks more: press flack for George Allen or John Kerry.

Jerry Skurnik writes about a judicial race in which "for reasons that are both too complicated and murky, there is no Democratic candidate for the other slot."

And pictured above is Borat.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

One frustration about covering Michael Bloomberg is, sometimes, his utter refusal to play along with the storyline of the day.

Today reporters tried picking his brain about Betsy Gotbaum, who recently repaid the city for four years' worth of traveling expenses, and about John Kerry's severely over-covered joke about soldiers in Iraq.

Here's what we got.

On Gotbaum:

Mayor: I don't know what she did. She should talk to her lawyers and whatever the law is she should certainly obey. But I just don¹t know. Yes, Miss?

On Kerry:

Mayor: I don't know, you know. You better ask Senator Kerry. I think our troops are out there fighting and dying for us and we owe them a great debt of gratitude. No matter what you think about the war, young men and women who are putting their lives on the line to protect the freedoms that we enjoy and we should say thank you to them and pray that they all come home safely. Thank you very much.

-- Azi Paybarah

John Sweeney's wife briefly discussed the incident in her home which led her to call 911. And Liz has the script for the new ad she's doing [added].

A Republican congressional candidate in the neighboring upstate district subsequently endorsed Sweeney's Democratic opponent, calling it an "act of conscience." That other Republican, Warren Redlich, went on to say Sweeney is "what's wrong with Washington."

Hillary Clinton said John Kerry's "botched joke" about students who don't study getting "stuck" in Iraq was inappropriate.

Some of those stuck soldiers offer their own response.

Ben explains that Freddy Ferrer joining a mostly-Republican consulting firm means "Freddy is showing about as much loyalty to his party that many of its prominent figures showed him."

Eliot Spitzer's campaign gave $250,000 to the Working Families Party.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - who doesn't have a race, does he? - received $669,116 in contributions.

Sue Kelley tries making an issue of John Hall's stock portfolio.

Early and Often notes that Alan Hevesi isn't the only one with chauffeur problems.  read more »

And pictured above is the guy driving Chris Callaghan's Tax-Less Express, pictured -- strangely enough -- between two cars from Hillary Clinton's motorcade outside the Poughkeepsie Journal.

-- Azi Paybarah

John Kerry's statement about education and military service may be a political liability to the power-lusting Dems, but journalists (most of whom vote Democratic) aren't politicians, they're the busy bees of the information age, and they should perform their jobs now: Is Kerry's statement true?

I bet it is. I am sure (without data; I see this feelingly) that the kids who are serving in Iraq are not nearly as well educated as, say, the kids who are getting internships at media companies that served the Koolaid on WMD, or serving as pages to closeted gay Republican congressmen.

It's an economic draft, stupid.

Bravo John Kerry, for exposing the terrible hypocrisy of the Iraq war: the journos and thinktankers and pols who banged the drum were never at risk, and neither are their kids. Because they didn't fall off the back of the meritocracy bus. Do I hear some resentment? Yes. Jim Fallows established his reputation with a famous piece called Where Were You In the Class War, Daddy? about the class divide between those who served in Vietnam and those who protested the war in the safe streets of America. The piece appeared in the Washington Monthly, published by Charlie Peters, the former Peace Corps exec who has long called for mandatory national service. The class divide is (I bet) even wider today; including in the officer corps, where Ivy grads are (another wild wager on my part) far less likely to be found on the Tigris than their predecessors were to be found on the banks of the Mekong. E.g., John Kerry and Donald E. Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, who for whatever stupid, noble, democratic, or ambitious reason, served in that disastrous war.

Maybe we can't have the conversation for another week, while John Kerry is held in a safe house inside the green zone in D.C., but let's have it out. What's Charlie Rangel saying? Help my man out!

Sparks fly in close races over what to do in Iraq.

John Kerry responds to the White House criticism of his "botched joke" about Iraq.

The News gets a hold of a 1995 2005 police report of an incident in which Rep. John Sweeney's wife called the police to report that her husband was "knocking her around the house."

Charles Schumer and Mike Bloomberg write an op-ed [subscription] about what New York can learn from London, and say an independent firm will issue a report next month on how to lure businesses here.

After his meteoric rise in politics, Ned Lamont is once again the underdog.

Republicans are donating a lot of money to keep the state Senate out of Democratic hands.

Jeanine Pirro paid her driver $150,000 in overtime over two years.

Andrew Cuomo is endorsed by the Albany Times Union.

Alan Hevesi's lawyer said the State Ethics Commission ignored threats to the comptroller outlined in a 2003 letter from state police.

John Faso told the New York Sun he has no regrets about how his gubernatorial race is going.

-- Azi Paybarah

Ned Lamont is finding out that sometimes it pays to be the establishment candidate. In response to more attacks from Joe Lieberman's campaign depicting him as a "waffler" on Iraq, John Kerry weighed in to defend Lamont and take a shot at Lieberman.

"No matter how much Senator Lieberman pretends otherwise, as we were debating a Senate resolution to change course on Iraq, our intelligence agencies were telling this Administration that America is less safe and more endangered by terrorists because of the failed stay-the-course policies in Iraq. There's just no excuse for continuing the old line that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror when in fact we know Iraq is a recruiting poster for terrorists while the real war on terror in Afghanistan spirals downwards," Kerry said in the statement. (Full text after the jump.)

Lieberman's campaign has been staying on the offensive over Ned Lamont's Iraq proposals in hopes of neutralizing the issue that the Connecticut millionaire rode to victory in last month's primary. Earlier, the Lieberman campaign ridiculed Lamont, saying he had taken "four positions in one day on the one issue of his one-issue campaign."  read more »

According to the Lieberman campaign, Lamont said that he still backed the Kerry-Feingold plan which calls for a comprehensive exit from Iraq nine-months from now, but also said he supported a timeline of 12 months, 18 months, or the time period that the military's generals suggest. This sort of attack wouldn't hurt Lamont, of course, if this were the primary and he were only appealing to voters who wanted out of Iraq. But Lamont also needs to chase Independent voters in the general, and Lieberman is betting that they just might be uncomfortable enough with him simply to "go with who you know."

--Jason Horowitz

Joseph Lieberman's campaign is having some fun with the fact that Ned Lamont accepted $100 from a socialist group, and then decided to return it because they don't accept all PAC money.

"What are they trying to do, avoid losing the support of the Karl Marx Fan Club of America?...On several occasions, Team Lamont have denounced PACs and the corrupting influence of the lobbyists who are often behind them, which is why he says he won't take their contributions. But he makes an exception to his principled rule for PACs run by politicians...So under Ned's dubious rules, it's unethical to take lobbyist's support, unless it's funneled through John Kerry.

Team Lamont, meanwhile, just released this ad featuring people wearing their coats inside out, a symbol of how Lieberman has become a turncoat to the Democratic Party by running as an independent.

-- Azi Paybarah

Hillary Looking Shaky   To the Editor:    read more »

Mark Green has a new book entitled Losing Our Democracy: How Bush, the Far Right and Big Business Are Betraying Americans For Power and Profit. And even if Mark doesn't necessarily have John Kerry's endorsement in his campaign for attorney general, his book does.

However, according to Sourcebooks, Inc., his publisher:

This is not, however, just another Bush-bashing book, this is a call-to-arms to all the people in America who cherish our freedom and who are sick and tired of seeing rich, born-again, politicians line their pockets so that special interests can have whatever they want at the America people's expense. Subjects include voter suppression, religious, corporate, and legislative tyranny, so-called tort reform, the problem of purchased politicians and the far right's Stone-Age approach to race and civil rights.

It seems Mark will be taking his book campaign to the streets, starting tomorrow with a stop at the Barnes & Noble on 86th and Broadway, and then next week in Washington, DC, at the Politics and Prose bookstore.  read more »

—Nicole Brydson

It took the Republicans about three weeks to make the Democratic politicians in Washington look like  read more »

It’s true what the right-wing bloggers and bloviators say: The New York Times does indeed rese  read more »

The new web journal, The Democratic Strategist, has an interesting, data-generated take on Hillary Clinton's electibility, the subject of an editorial written this week in the Washington Post by her pollster, Mark Penn, and James Carville.

Their take is basically that her fate lies with the independents, and that she is electable, if not a clear cut favorite in a general election.

"what really matters for the electability question is how independents view her. According to a recent ABC/Washington Post poll, 48 percent of indies have a favorable opinion of her, while 46 percent view her unfavorably. (The rest are unsure.) This is remarkably close to John Kerry's 49-48 margin among independents in the 2004 election. So an initial conclusion is that with Clinton heading the Democratic ticket, we will be dealing with another nail-biter in 2008. (Of course, much depends on the Republican ticket.)

On the other hand, Clinton's favorability among Republicans - 26 percent - is significantly larger than Kerry's performance among Republicans (a whopping 6 percent). Presumably she would end up getting substantially less than a quarter of the Republican vote in 2008, but it may be that she can attract enough Republican women to improve on Kerry's performance."

- Jason Horowitz

In reading Dershowitz's rebuttal to Mearsheimer and Walt, I noticed something else he said:

"It is rightfully considered vile to suggest that American Catholic politicians such as John F. Kennedy and John Kerry owe their primary allegiance to the Vatican over the United States."

Dershowitz is saying, Don't you dare bring up Jewishness in politics. But his statement about Catholic politicians is wrong.  read more »

We interrupt our holiday hiatus to bring you this exclusive Rev. Al update:

Sharpton waded once again into the murky waters of the 11th District controversy at a private event last night, accusing David Yassky of reviving racial politics before going on to criticize Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Mark Warner for failing to prioritize the issue of poverty.

Speaking in the tony surroundings of the Princeton Club, where he addressed a meeting of New York's Oxonian Society, Sharpton restated his core position on the 11th - that Yassky has the right to run, but that the three African-American contenders should "consolidate" around one candidate.

"I think that some of what the candidate did, the white candidate, was cynical," Sharpton said.

"He did not live in the district. I think he saw an opportunity there to come in and try to get a solid vote from the white [sic] and some blacks and win. If he thought he was qualified to go to Congress, he should have ran where he lived. He moved into the district, and caused this kind of racial political revival.

"I just think we ought to be politically savvy enough not to allow the scenario that I feel [Yassky's] advisors saw become reality by having a divided black vote," he said.

During the hour-long event, Sharpton also excoriated the frontrunners for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination for what he contended was their abject failure to address the issue of poverty.

"If you listen to all the names that are out there now - Warner, Hillary, all of them - what are their programs on poverty? What are they saying about poverty? It is almost unthinkable that you would have an opposition party that has no plan to deal with poverty and [is] not even talking about it."

The last Democratic candidate for president also wound up in Sharpton's sights:

"I could not believe that after the primaries, we couldn't even get John Kerry to mention the word 'poor'," he exclaimed at one point.

One audience member asked the activist whether he would be running again for the presidential nomination in 2008.

"I haven't decided," came the reply.

Sharpton, who spoke at length about how morality has come to be defined in American politics, also had harsh words about the response of some other high-profile clergymen to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

"Certainly, I thought my friend and colleague Jerry Falwell would rush to a studio and raise the moral issue of Americans dying," he said with heavy sarcasm. "Certainly Pat Robertson, who has his own network, would have cancelled programs and delayed selling bibles and prayer cloths to raise the question of people drowning in an American city.

"This kind of selective morality to me came front and center in the Katrina catastrophe."

-- Niall Stanage

Goldman Sachs has just announced that it has chosen Lloyd Blankfein to replace Hank Paulson as its new Chairman and CEO -- and from a quick scan of his political-giving history, it looks like he won't taking over his predecessor's duties as star GOP fund-raiser.

In addition to giving $3,000 to Mr. Bush's 2004 presidential opponent, John Kerry, and $1000 to his 2000 opponent, Al Gore, he has given regularly and abundantly to Democratic candidates and committees over the years. In 2004, he gave nearly $30,000 to blue state causes like Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, and the DNC. And in this cycle alone he has given $25,000 to the Chuck Schumer's Democratic Sentorial Campaign Committee.

We guess this means he isn't in any danger of being tapped for a White House post anytime soon.

-- Lizzy Ratner

You feel lost, confused, alone in the world. Everything you do ends in failure.  read more »

Here's the latest Weld video, for those of you who have four minutes and fifteen seconds to burn.

The message amounts to, "I'm a Republican -- Really!"

The soft biographical piece has Weld talking about his upbringing on Long Island and upstate, making mention of the fact that his father was a local GOP official.

The background music switches to something more up-tempo for the section of Weld-as-prosecutor, a segment that prominently features the names Reagan and Giuliani,

And, in the context of Weld's self description as a "good candidate," there's a clip of him giving the business to John Kerry in a Senate debate.

John Kerry sounded like a candidate this morning when he spoke to the National Action Network annual convention breakfast via phone (he had been scheduled to speak in person, but like New York's Senators, was stuck in DC due to the debate on the immigration reform). On Katrina:

Hurricane Katrina showed us with Mr. Brown, you know Mr. Brown--Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job, Brown. Well let me tell you, Mr. Brown is to Katrina--it's a metaphor for the whole administration--Mr. Brown is to Katrina, what this guy Paul Wolfowitz is to our troops being received in Iraq with flowers and parades; and Mr. Brown is to Katrina what Donald Rumsfeld is to decent wartime planning and leadership and making sure our troops have armor and up armored humvees; and Mr. Brown is to Katrina what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; and Mr. Brown is to Katrina what Tom Delay is to ethics; and Mr. Brown is to Katrina what George Tenet is to 'slam dunk intelligence'; and Mr. Brown is to Katrina what George Bush is to 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Wanted Dead or Alive.' This is the Katrina Administration.

Then, Kerry ended on this note:

We didn't win the presidency, nobody feels that more than I do every single day, but you know what, we won 10 million more votes then Bill Clinton won when he won re-election in 1996. We exceeded our goals in every single precinct in America and the lesson is: next time we're just going to set bigger goals. We're going to go out there and get the job done. We're going to turn this country around, win back our future, and win back what we deserve, and we're going to make this country what it can be.

—Nicole Brydson

In the morning, the New School holds a conference on "Urban Conversations: Cities at Risk" with Michael Brown, Mary Landrieu, Kathleen Blanco, Chuck Schumer and Bob Kerrey.

Then, John Kerry speaks at the National Action Network annual convention breakfast at the Sheraton.

In Queens, John Liu will be the guest ringmaster at a special performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus tomorrow at the Public Library in Flushing; and Serphin Maltese announces a $55 million State Senate appropriation to LaGuardia Community College.

In the evening, John Hall hosts a 'Take Back the House Fundraiser' with Congressman Maurice Hinchey in Kingston.

—Nicole Brydson