Howard Mills

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. endorses Hillary Clinton. [CNN]  read more »

Two World Trade Center insurers, Allianz and Royal & SunAlliance, are holding out on more than $803 million that is owed to developer Larry Silverstein (and by extension, the Port Authority), according to city Comptroller William Thompson. In a letter today, the Comptroller urged the state insurance superintendent, Howard Mills, to "compel these companies to meet their financial obligations." -Matthew Schuerman

It’s back to budget business in Albany, the Daily News reports. George Pataki rebukes Howard Mills for raising political donations, the Times reports, and Spitzer defends his Appalachia comments.

And the Post reports that Mike Bloomberg hasn’t ruled out endorsing Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton.

—Nicole Brydson

Another Q-Poll is out today, complete with quote that Hillary "doesn't seem to have any political problems" in New York. True, no doubt; but it's not ideal that the polling closed four days ago, before anybody had heard Hillary's "plantation" slip, so there's no way of telling if it hurt her at all.

Meanwhile -- I'm not sure how to explain this -- but Chuck's approval numbers have been gradually softening, perhaps because of his increasingly partisan profile and central role on judges. Nothing to make Howard Mills eager for a rematch, but he's down from 69-16 a bit over a year ago to 58 - 28 now.  read more »

Down ballot, both Cuomo and Green defeat Jeanine Pirro, whose favorable and unfavorable ratings are roughly equal.

Ed Cox's departure from the campaign makes Jeanine the de facto nominee, but her press conference this afternoon, at which she was endorsed by Governor Pataki, showed that she still has a way to go. Indeed, if you, like The Politicker, are a member of the snickering press class, a Pirro press conference is a thing almost too rich to bear.

The gathering this afternoon at the Women's National Republican club reflected a noticeable cooling of press interest from the raucous kick-off, but still, the regulars were there and licking our chops.

One thing is clear: Pirro's whole plan to study up on the issues? Well, maybe later.

She came out for making President Bush's tax cut permanent, but asked to give an outline of the tax plan's details -- which groups of taxpayers benefit, and to what degree -- she showed no sign of familiarity with the Bush tax cut.

She did, however, recite the usual list of bad taxes -- "death tax," "marriage penalty" -- with an unusual addition: "We've got to have expensing for small businesses so that they can survive."

Striking that she'd mention that one, because her husband, seated in the front row, went to jail for violating the federal law on that particular issue.

Pirro also said she'll release "reasonable" fundraising numbers later today, but Cox's departure and the Pataki endorsement should wash away that bad news.

Governor Pataki, off to Iowa later this month, meanwhile deplored, "one of the troubling developments of the last decade ... the idea of the permanent campaign."  read more »

At least, the Governor did not appear over-engaged in local politics. Asked about how this campaign would avoid repeating the disaster of 2004 (Howard Mills -- remember him?), George was nonplused.

"I'm sorry -- 2004?"