This weekend brought two reminders that what happens in politics is often, more than anything, about the past.

On Friday, Robert Reich formally endorsed Barack Obama, a decision that was greeted as noteworthy since Reich was an old Oxford chum of Bill Clinton’s and served as the 42nd president’s first labor secretary. He also scored a date with a young Hillary Rodham back in 1966, when, as the freshman class president at Dartmouth, he asked Hillary, his counterpart at Wellesley, to meet him for “a presidential summit” in Hanover. (There was no second date.)  read more »

Just days before the deadline to get federal funding for congestion pricing, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine suddenly came out loudly in opposition to the plan.

This morning, WNYC's Soterios Johnson asked Corzine if he had discussed congestion pricing with Michael Bloomberg before that time, and what led him to vocally oppose it so shortly before the deadline.

"We had long discussions with many people in the administration," Corzine said. "And I with the mayor himself, and had no conceptual difference of view with regard to congestion pricing. In fact, New Jersey drivers today are paying that $8 price to come across the George Washington Bridge or come through the tunnels. We had, I thought, an agreement that there wouldn't be any increase in congestion pricing beyond the $8, or, it would be offset by what we were already paying.  read more »

Responding to Jon Corzine's comments today indicating that he would consider switching his support to Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton if the Illinois Senator were to win the popular vote, Mark Penn said in today's Clinton conference call, "All superdelegates are going to look at this race, they are going to look at the popular vote including Michigan and Florida."

Penn's comment serves as an illustration of the increasingly selective metrics the Clinton campaign is trying to sell to superdelegates.  read more »

Understandably, commenters on Eliot Spitzer’s humiliating demise have drawn parallels to another nearby governor felled by a sex scandal, New Jersey’s Jim McGreevey. But the better comparison is between Spitzer and Jon Corzine, one of McGreevey’s successors.

Both Spitzer and Corzine followed the same basic path to their respective state capitols, outsiders who called themselves reformers and railed against business as usual to general public, while simultaneously enjoying the unflinching backing of powerful establishment forces and mighty party machines.

Both men had unusual leverage with party bosses, who quickly calculated that opposing them in party primaries would be futile and costly. Spitzer’s trump card was his priceless reputation as the “sheriff of Wall Street,” which translated into such enormous popularity with the average voter that the 2006 New York election was a coronation from the moment he entered it. And in New Jersey, Corzine had his cash, which he promised to shower on the state’s powerful Democratic organizations if they backed him in his 2005 campaign – or to use against them if they dared oppose him.  read more »

Eliot Spitzer just made his debut on a Hillary Clinton conference call just now, along with New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, to discuss economic development.

When the line was opened up for questions, the first one was directed at Spitzer, about his plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, a policy he withdrew after Clinton ran into a world of trouble for refusing to criticize it at a debate.  read more »

Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui mailed out a disturbing video to NBC News in which he says things like, "You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience."

Reactions to the late-term-partial-birth abortion ban from the 2008 candidates was quick and broke along party lines.

Hillary Clinton's favorable ratings sunk in a USA Today/Gallup survey.

John Edwards may be having lunch with Mario Cuomo today.  read more »

NJ Governor Jon Corzine broke his left leg, sternum, collarbone, six ribs and a lower vertebra in a car accident.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards declined to tell Gay City News if they support removing the ban on sodomy in the US military.  read more »

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine endorsed Hillary Clinton.

The Times editorial board had a different take, saying Spitzer "made some compromises, but in exchange he won important and fundamental changes."

So did some education advocates.

Mike Bloomberg also criticized the restrictions on charter schools.

Andrew Cuomo won a $3.27 million settlement from NYU, St. Johns and other schools stemming from their student loan programs.

$3 million went to Joe Bruno's own district.

Likely 2009 mayoral candidates test-drove their pitches on middle class issues.

Bloomberg said he'll veto the metal bat ban.

And two more victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11th were identified.

It's a little different on the state's official site: there's no link there to the comptroller's office, but you can get to the AG's office.

And in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger has links to all of California's statewide elected officials.