I just asked Representative (and Clinton superdelegate) Carolyn Maloney which is a better indicator to determine the Democratic nominee: the popular vote--which the Clinton campaign says it is winning--or the delegate count.  read more »

So there may be a little less at stake now for the officials girding for the opportunity to succeed Upper East Side-based Representative Carolyn Maloney. That unofficial mini-contest, of course, was contingent on Hillary Clinton having a chance of becoming president, and on Maloney having a chance of taking Clinton's place in the Senate.  read more »

Geraldine Ferraro, who severed her formal ties with the Hillary Clinton campaign after saying Barack Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he wasn’t black, is still a sought-after political draw in some circles.

Ferraro will be a featured guest at Carolyn Maloney’s May 12 fund-raiser at the Princeton Club.

Names on the host committee include John Catsimatidis, a likely Republican mayoral candidate, and Chung Seto, a former executive director of the state Democratic Party (who, famously, raised money for Hillary Clinton.)

The invite, passed on to me by a reader, is here:  read more »

Citizens Against Government Waste published its annual list of congressional earmarks (they actually call it the Congressional Pig Book list).

Of course, what one person calls wasteful spending, another person calls bringing home the bacon, and now that Democrats are in the majority, New York was supposed to be getting more federal money.

The state made out with a good portion, particularly in the Catskills, where Maurice Hinchey brought in $43.7 million.

Here is a list of what some members from New York, and a few from elsewhere, brought their districts, according to the list. (It's in numbers of millions):  read more »

Scott Stringer, the guy whose 2009 intentions are still not clear, is having a fund-raiser at Butter, a chic place on Lafayette Street, on January 9, according to an invitation a reader just sent me.

Tickets range from $50 to $1,000. But, according to the fund-raising email that accompanied the invitation, “Members of political clubs and students can purchase tickets at the reduced price of $45.”

Speculation as to which office he’ll seek, can be made here for free.

Also worth noting are the members of the host committee, as outlined in the email: Jennifer Cunningham, an influential advocate for 1199, Patrick Gaspard, another influential labor leader, Risa Heller and Ryan Toohey, both consultants at Global Strategies, Allen Roskoff, an outspoken gay rights activist, Maura Moynihan, daughter of the late senator, and Brice Peyre, an aide to congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.

It's worth noting that Hillary Clinton isn’t the only one trying to get squared away with Eliot Spitzer’s new license policy.

The governor’s (original) plan would have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain a driver's license, but now it's being linked to federal guidelines that will be outlined in the Real ID Act. Although Spitzer backed Real ID this week, a number of Democratic congress members from New York opposed it during a 2005 vote (which may explain why it hasn't been easy getting most of them to say anything about Spitzer's new plan).

One congressional aide was kind enough to refer me to the results of the 2005 vote on the Real ID Act.

Democrats Gary Ackerman (Queens/Nassau), Tim Bishop (Suffolk), Joe Crowley (Queens/Bronx), Eliot Engel (Bronx/Westchester), Carolyn Maloney (Manhattan/Queens), Greg Meeks (Queens), Jerry Nadler (Manhattan/Brooklyn), Charlie Rangel (Manhattan), Jose Serrano (Bronx), Ed Towns (Brooklyn), Nydia Velazquez (Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens) and Anthony Weiner (Queens/Brooklyn) all voted against it.

UPDATE: Another congressional staffer, putting this story in context, noted that every Democratic congress member in the state voted against Real ID, except for Mike McNulty, who voted for it, and Maurice Hinchey who was absent.

With the rise of Hillary Clinton's presidential prospects comes the escalating chatter about who would get to fill out the remainder of her senate term. The speculation so far has been mostly limited to half-hearted denials denials by politicians, blind quotes from supporters and tea-leaf reading by reporters.

But yesterday, I got one person to go on the record. Above is a clip of Trudy Mason, a notable character in Manhattan politics, making the case, without apology, for Representative Carolyn Maloney to get the Hillary seat.

The key message being pushed today at the state Democratic Party meeting in Garden City--onetime home of Rudy Giuliani and home to the last Republican state convention--is party unity.

Here, above, is State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who organized a lunch for convention goers, sharing a moment up on the podium with Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi.

DiNapoli lost a primary to Suozzi in the 2001 county executive’s race, but he said that the two have since mended fences, going so far as to reveal to the crowd that he had kissed his former opponent at a dinner the night before.

The crowd laughed. To prove that the story wasn't a joke, Suozzi stepped up and planted one on DiNapoli’s forehead.

Afterwards, I asked Suozzi what political significance that kiss might have for Eliot Spitzer. All he would say was, "I'm going to give him a kiss too, later."

In other news: Chuck Schumer said he still hasn't studied Eliot Spitzer's plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, while Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Joe Crowley said they support the effort.

I’m at the Garden City Hotel right now for the state Democratic Party’s fall meeting, which began with a breakfast hosted by the Nassau County Democratic Committee.

Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith livened up the crowd with some blunt, Rangel-esque words about George W. Bush: “Our president, no question, has left every child behind. Our president, no question, has lost his mind.”

Speaking after him was Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan, who spoke about health insurance and ways to solidify Democratic control of New York State.

In the middle of the room there are tables for a few presidential campaigns. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton‘s table has prime real estate, greeting visitors as they walk into the room, and Barack Obama's and Joe Biden’s tables are on either side of hers. The table for John Edwards is facing the back of the room.

Other Republicans are picking up the argument Roger Stone made to me when he refuted Democratic claim that the investigations into Eliot Spitzer are just like Whitewater.

Democratic members of congress Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney have been the latest to push the analogy, scolding the Republicans for being political and urging them to “get back to work.”

Here, Michael Brady, who used to work for the Assembly Republicans, and Michael Giuliani (no relation to Rudy), the former chief of staff to former Rep. Sue Kelly, have an article making the case that there's a certain hypocrisy in the Democrats demanding more disclosure from the White House in Washington but blocking for Spitzer in Albany. From the piece:

With House and Senate Democrats holding more than 600 oversight hearings into the Bush Administration since assuming control of Congress in January, one might assume the two veteran lawmakers were urging an end to the relentless partisan attacks on President George W. Bush.

They weren’t.

[skip]

That Nadler and Maloney were the first Democrats to come to Spitzer’s defense is rife with irony. Maloney, once dubbed a “lightweight…devoting herself to symbolic causes that have little chance of passage,” opined that “four investigations equal a four-ring political circus.” But the Manhattan Democrat is a sponsor of exactly four different House resolutions targeting the Bush Administration, including three separate bills to censure the President.

UPDATE: An aide to Carolyn Maloney sent over the following statement: "The Congresswoman issued her statement because she believes that the time and energies of the Governor and his staff should not be tied up in multiple political investigations. The State Ethics Commission has the power and independence to investigate this matter thoroughly."

UPDATE: And here's a response from Nadler's office: "The notion that one can draw a direct comparison between congress's investigations into the Bush administration and the partisan witch hunt into Governor Sptizer is laughable and absurd. It's not even apples and oranges. It's apples and automobiles.

"The so called 'investigation' led by state majority leader Bruno is redundant. The Albany District Attorney has already determined that no criminal activity occurred. More importantly, congress is acting now because for six years, the Republican-led congress failed to carry out their constitutionally mandated oversight role and a politicized Justice Department ignored and possibly helped evade the rule of law.

"In Washington, I'm working to restore checks and balances; in Albany, Mr. Bruno is engaging in a partisan sideshow."