Herman Badillo

Here is a slightly random interview with O. Aldon James, Jr. the whimsical and colorful president of the National Arts Club. He hosted a book party last night in Gramercy for Herman Badillo which was attended by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg plugged Badillo’s book, One Nation, One Standard, which talks about having high educational standards, and criticizes social promotion, an educational policy Bloomberg ended.

That inspirational talk about standards and efficiency was enough to convince Aldon that Bloomberg should be president. In fact, Aldon said, he'd rather hang out with Bloomberg than any of the candidates running for office.

Barack Obama did get an honorable mention from Aldon because, like Bill Clinton, they’re all Leos. And as Aldon put it, “Leos make wonderful leaders. Fidel Castro is a Leo.”

(Bloomberg is an Aquarius. And, in the spirit of full disclosure, the author of this post is a Leo.)

There's a new biography about Rudy Giuliani coming out by a publisher called Wiley.

The president of the National Institute for Latino Policy went to hear Herman Badillo speak at the Harvard Club and found himself "in the midst of the 'Other New York.'"

Eliot Spitzer's former campaign manager Ryan Toohey is getting involved in the special election in Nassau.

So much for Joe Bruno's warning that he doesn't want Spitzer getting too involved in that race.

The Republican candidate in that race, Maureen O'Connell, is on the radio.

Robert Stein, the former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors, wonders if Joe Lieberman will defect from the Democratic Party.

Larry King has been on the air for 50 years.

Dov Hikind's ad demanding the resignation of the Israeli Prime Minister may have violated the law.

Illinois may move the date of their presidential primary, which would be good for Barack Obama.

And pictured above is a chart from The Albany Project showing a slight discrepancy in spending on member items in the state Senate. The long red lines are for majority Republicans, the stubby blue ones are for minority Democrats. (Their chart for spending in the Democratic-held Assembly is in the works.)

-- Azi Paybarah

Investment banker Stephen Berger was sitting in his office high above midtown Manhattan on a recent  read more »

Stopping by the NY1 studios to boost Freddy, DNC Chairman Howard Dean ran into NY1 regular Ed Koch.

"After jostling over the merits of Freddy and Mike," a witness writes, "Dean recalled a time when the Mayor was a true Dem."

"I worked for your campaign years ago, when I went to school in the Bronx. I used to go to your campaign headquarters, pick up lit, and hand it out on the street around the school," the Chairman recalled.

"Thank you," Koch replied graciously, before adding, "I think Herman still has a contract out on you for doing that!"  read more »

Herman Badillo, that is. In case you were wondering.

Another apparently unsolicited bit of support for Freddy popped up in the latest edition of the Irish Echo, a print ad (.pdf) from "The Ginsberg Family and Friends" (yes, the Irish Echo) that nobody would call a perfect example of political targetting.

Freddy, the ad tells us: "is consistently progressive," "lacks the arrogance and self-righteousness of so many other politicians" and "will represent all of us: white, black, brown, red, and yellow; Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, and others...."  read more »

Not exactly salsa trucks in Bay Ridge (a famous dirty trick played against Herman Badillo), but the Ferrer campaign must hope the Campaign Finance Board doesn't decide this is a campaign expense.

Relatedly, Democrats are smiling at a rare unforced error by team Bloomberg: a print ad focusing on crime in the latest West Side Spirit has Bloomberg's name in Hebrew letters and list the Borough Park Office. Because Jews on the Upper West Side like being grouped with Borough Park's Chasids. Really.

A frustrating day for The Politicker, whose intern was not the only reporter to miss an elusive Ferrer event in upper Manhattan, and which was not the only publication not alerted to Vito Fossella's press conference, apparently solely for Tom Wrobleski's benefit, in response to Wrobleski's exploration, in the Advance, of the great big chip on his island's shoulder.

Our new intern, Leslie Kaufmann, did make it to the Bloomberg campaign's mainland event, in which Herman Badillo attacked Freddy on the steps of City Hall and appeared at times to be making the case for a vote for...Herman Badillo.  read more »

Also today, Freddy has another slick ad out, undeterred (says Jonathan Prince) by the Gray Lady's "Siskel-and-Eberting" of "It could be greater," and sounding incredulous on the city's dropout rate. And Mike has a sweet picture of himself with Hillary on the city's official homepage.

Mike hosted a packed, $1,000-a-head fundraiser for the Log Cabin Republicans last night.

We hear Patrick Murphy, the Log Cabiner running for Council on the East Side, left a good impression on a crowd that included Bloomberg advisors Patti Harris, Kevin Sheekey, and Jonathan Capehart. Also there were Georgette Mosbacher and Herman Badillo.  read more »

Mike told the crowd that he knows the rap on him is that he used to be a Democrat, but that Giuliani was once a Democrat, and Reagan was once a Democrat.

"Badillo, weren't you one too?" he asked, and then called for a show of hands of lifelong Republicans, and found very few.

We step out into the quicksand of racial politics and history underlying this year's election, and certainly echoing in yesterday's Fields-Ferrer exchange. Both Charlie Rangel and Herman Badillo, it turns out, have rather sharp recollections of a certain meeting in 1985. Also, if you don't want to read more than one piece on Benedict, Terry Golway knows a lot about this stuff.  read more »

El Diario's Gerson Borrero reports that the Bloomberg campaign is hiring Fernando Mateo -- Bush backer, taxi-driver advocate, and (to Borrero) "controversial Dominican," angering some more liberal Hispanics. Sheekey won't confirm it, but he does point out that "Herman Badillo y Willie Colón ya son co-presidentes de la campaña."  read more »

On a grim, gray day two weeks after terrorists killed nearly 7,000 people in downtown Manhattan, gri  read more »

On Aug. 21, Herman Badillo turned 72.  read more »

Eight years ago-only one year into the Clinton era-theRepublican Party saw a pre-dawn shimmer of hop  read more »