Brian Ellner

The Times reports Richard Brodsky has dropped out of the race for Attorney General; Frank Gehry defends the Atlantic Yards project; and its Public Lives section features Kevin Keating, maker of the new documentary Giuliani Time.

The Sun reports on Brian Ellner's new job.

And the Post reports on the LMDC power struggle between Bloomberg and Pataki.

—Nicole Brydson

At least half of New York's political class is off atoning today. The Politicker has plenty to atone for, too, but since I'm here in the office, I hope that giving you something to chew on during a sodden and mostly silent news day will serve as penance of sorts.

In an effort to widen our group hug (and because I know you're such an affectionate bunch), I'm going to tiptoe through our neighbors' tulips for the first-ever Politicker Blog Stroll, a look at what's happening in the local political blogosphere. If you think we're missing any gems, please send them my way for future strolls. Here we go...

Over at New York Civic, Henry Stern, former Parks Commissioner, muses about life after November, sizing up the prospects for Giff, Weiner, Thompson, Carrion, and their colleagues in today's forward-looking article ("Polls Say: Stick a Fork in 2005. Let's Start to Think About 2009"). He's also just introduced a comments section; it's called "Starblog." (Would "Sparblog" have been more appropriate? Wait and see.)

This week, The Wonkster, Gotham Gazette's bloggy stepchild, has been tracking the teachers' contract debate and editorial responses to the diffused subway threat, and took time out to offer a brief - yet nostalgic - nod to the Times Square HoJo.

At Alarming News, spunky "non-liberal" Karol identifies an amusing, yet counterproductive, paradigm born of frustration with the prez (aka: May the country go to hell, so Bush can be blamed).

The folks over at The New York Connection really want to kick Brian Ellner in the tuchas. Will they post on M-Lo M-Later?

If you're sick of my bad puns and sunny nature (and have already read the comments section twice), get today's vitriol fix over at Brian Lehrer's blog. Perhaps inspired by the popularity of the scanned Miers-Bush correspondence, Brian has scanned a piece of demented hate mail for your delectation.

DMIBLog asserts a need for political leadership to reverse tuition hikes at CUNY and SUNY.

At The Daily Gotham, a local off-shoot of popular lefty blog DailyKos, Liza rallies for a unified Ferrer push and coins a new phrase that I adore: "Campaign Velveeta."

Over at the Village Voice's Power Plays blog, Jarrett Murphy suggests a last resort to give the Ferrer campaign some much-needed juice, or at least some attention. Stunts! But somehow it's hard to imagine Freddy sleeping under that bridge...

And both G.O.P. and the City and Slant Point are abuzz with backstory on a subway terror warning email, which circulated days before the official announcement. Both bloggers received the email and debunk the Daily News' "Rich Got Terror Tip" take on it; the former takes a funny and sarcastic swipe at the theory: "In other news, only the rich and powerful have been informed about a large inheritance for the taking in Nigeria."  read more »

And now my eyes are sore. So that's it for the Politicker's first Blog Stroll - thanks to everyone who has been posting on such a sleepy day.

There's a weird sensation when you've been covering a campaign for months and months, the sniping and the micro-disputes, and then suddenly the campaigns start spending real money on television and, for the purposes of winning over voters, the phony war ends and the real campaign begins. Ordinary people develop vague, one-off ideas about who the candidates that probably do a lot more to determine how they vote than even the wall-to-wall coverage of Virginia's mail bloopers.

Indeed, for all the talk of computerized targeting and Mike's fancy voter list and such, Bloomberg above all is demonstrating how traditional politics remains, at least around here. He's spending most of his money on television, mail, and the care and feeding of volunteers.

So The Politicker will be trying to keep track of what's on TV for the next couple of weeks, and we'd be grateful for links to ads, when they're available. Today, Anthony plans to release two more.

And Brian Ellner lead off the week with an ad so shocking ...that the candidate called it "shocking" when he released it early to the Times. Actually, it strikes me as the least-shocking possible combination of the handsome Ellner, nudity, gay relationships, and President Bush. I mean, if Ellner were the nude one, instant cult status in some circles would have been assured.  read more »

But never mind. You can watch the ad here.

Manhattan BP candidate Maragarita Lopez can't get a break. On Friday, she was plagued by missing matching funds. Today, the New York Post reports that her base in the gay community may be splintering in the wake of the Scientology shakeup. Assemblywoman Deborah Glick is apparently under pressure to drop her support of Lopez while, down in D.C., the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund may temper its support for Lopez by extending its embrace to include...Brian Ellner.

The story just won't die; then again, those Scientologists are big on immortality...  read more »

The same day that the Times does a story on how confusingly crowded state of the Manhattan borough president race, someone from the Brian Ellner campaign writes to say that all three candidates at last night's DFNYC debate between Ellner, Scott Stringer and Bill Perkins pledged not to challenge the petitions of any other candidates. I'll take his word for it that this stands to have some effect on the dynamics of a race with nearly a dozen contenders, if only by making it less likely that the field will thin out. As to which candidates actually benefit, I couldn't begin to do the calculations without getting a bad headache. Comments, anyone? P.S. On this, my final day sitting in on the Politicker, I have a pledge of my own: This is the last time I'm going to write the words "Brian Ellner" on this blog.  read more »

While the debate rages below over whether Democracy for NYC, the Dean group, is going to endorse Anthony Weiner or not, we hear the group is headed into a run-off on the Manhattan Borough President's race. The candidates are Scott Stringer, Brian Ellner, and Bill Perkins, he of the great Dean-Gore-Perkins photograph.  read more »

Brian Ellner looked at home as he made his way through the crowd of fashion designers, style editors  read more »

A year ago, Trippi was being fitted for a White House desk.

Now, he's consulting for an obscure, if dashing, candidate for a virtually meaningless job.  read more »

We suspect that the press release announcing Trippi's deal with Brian Ellner, a Manhattan Borough President candidate, is itself the extent of Trippi's work on this campaign, and that Trippi's basically being paid for his endorsement. Is this the revolution he was talking about?