Denise O'Donnell

Andrew Cuomo announced members of his transition team at Fordham University this morning.

Worth noting on that transition are people like:

--Albany DA David Soares, who is investigating state comptroller Alan Hevesi over the chauffeur scandal;

--Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, who is prosecuting former Assemblyman and Kings County Democratic Leader Clarence Norman;

--Ed Cox, one-time Republican senatorial challenger to Hillary Clinton; and

--former Democratic opponents Charlie King and Denise O'Donnell.

One group that is not heavily represented on the list are people currently in the Attorney General's office.

The full list is after the jump.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

I'm told that Eliot Spitzer will join former AG candidate Denise O'Donnell tomorrow at 12 30 at O'Donnell's former headquarters in Buffalo for some sort of announcement.

I would guess, based on the statement she made when she withdrew from the race this weekend, that O'Donnell will be joining the Spitzer campaign. I'd also guess, base on her credentials, that she'll be helping in some capacity with his women's outreach.

Just a hunch.

The mole inside Brooklyn's Independent Neighborhood Democrats says Suozzi came out against Atlantic Yards last night and got the club's nod in part because of the new anti-AY members that joined the club but never got to vote for Chris Owens.

Sean Patrick Maloney, despite bashing the Ratner arena project earlier in the day, failed to win the endorsement for AG, which went to Denise O'Donnell instead.

-Matthew Schuerman

(via The Daily Politics)

So up in Buffalo they are finishing up the nominating and seconding speeches for the Attorney General candidates. We called Wendy Katz, a Cuomo aide to check the campaign's confidence level. After ducking into a quiet corner of the convention hall, Katz at first struck a tone of cautious optimism. "Anything can happen on the convention floor, we're just hoping to get our 25 percent and anything else we can get will be extra."

She flatly denied the day's rumors that Cuomo operatives were trying to strike deals with the Mark Green and Denise O'Donnell camps to keep one of the two candidates, or both, below the 25 percent threshold. She said the Cuomo camp is focused on Cuomo getting the chance to speak.

"He is just going to talk about how he is going to use his record and his experience to stand up to the gun lobby and to medicaid fraud. He is just going to be talking about how he is going to keep fighting for people."

So much for cautious optimism.

—Jason Horowitz

Here are two (contradictory) things we've just heard about the scramble for the Attorney General designation in Buffalo:

1) The Cuomo campaign is in negotiations to cut a deal with Denise O'Donnell to keep Mark Green from getting on the ballot. (This, based on an earlier sighting of her son Jack - one of the nicest people in state politics - deep in conversation with Emily Giske.)

2) The Cuomo campaign is in negotiations to cut a deal with Mark Green to keep Denise O'Donnell from getting on the ballot.

And now Ben is reporting that Green's aides have given up hope of getting to 25 percent.

What does it all mean? If Cuomo is the only candidate to get to 25, which of the other candidates will see the race through to the end? And if the field narrows, will any of them be able to compete with Cuomo's money and institutional support?

Help us.

In a piece of news that should probably count for more than it actually will in the race to become the state's top public lawyer, Denise O'Donnell obliterated all comers in a reader poll in the New York Law Journal.

From the Journal's write-up, which is available to subscribers only:

Ms. O'Donnell, a former federal prosecutor who now practices with Hodgson Russ in Buffalo, garnered over 70 percent of the votes from an audience probably comprised largely of lawyers and judges. She annihilated her five competitors, including Democratic frontrunners Mark Green and Andrew Cuomo, and the likely Republican candidate, Jeanine Pirro.

One O'Donnell aide estimated the significance of the development in an email from Buffalo: "Even if we don't get it from the state committee, we've got the lawyers overwhelmingly."

The Denise O'Donnell campaign has another announcement of upstate support, touting "landslide" votes from the county committees in Columbia and Putnam, which join the Broome, Rensselaer, Chautauqua and Erie organizations in backing her candidacy.

It's always a nice idea, in theory: the candidate of upstate New York, the perennially ignored constituency, rides a wave of northerly support while the rest of the field splits the city and suburbs into little pieces.

We'll have to see about the surprises that await us at the convention in Buffalo, but I suspect the problem for her will be the usual one, that too few of the state's Democrats live in places like Chautauqua County for those endorsements to matter.

It's a simplistic analysis, admittedly, but for now, the math doesn't seem to work out no matter how you add it up.

She'll just have to hope for the rapid onset of Cuomo-fatigue in the Democrat-rich areas around the city.

Full announcement after the jump.  read more »

The Post reports that former deputy mayor under Giuliani Rudy Washington may have a respiratory illness related to pollution at the World Trade Center; and John Faso voted against equal pay.

The Times reports Faso's growing support is beginning to make Republicans nervous; and Jonathan Hicks profiles Denise O'Donnell.

And the Sun's editorial board wonders if Mike Bloomberg might really have national ambitions.

—Nicole Brydson

In the Daily News, Errol Louis writes about Cory Booker.

AP reports that Denise O'Donnell has received the endorsement of Janet Reno.

The Post reports that Joe Bruno is courting the gay vote.

In the Times, Tom Suozzi plans housing in Garden City, and Eliot Spitzer is investigating ties between ING and the New York State United Teachers.

—Nicole Brydson

Here's another way in which Denise O'Donnell, the only woman in the Democratic primary for Attorney General and the only Upstater, differs from her rivals: She's willing (partially) to defend George W. Bush.

She tells the New York Law Journal that it's "important to make sure police follow constitutional procedures," but says she's "willing to give Mr. Bush the 'benefit of the doubt' when he says he had reasons for ordering the wiretaps that are so sensitive they cannot be disclosed."

She is a former U.S. Attorney, after all. But it's not what you'll read in Mark Green's Book on Bush.

AG candidate Denise O'Donnell was spotted at the Regency Tuesday, breakfasting with Ed Koch and lawyer Arnie Kriss. Could that be what put Koch in such a bad mood?  read more »

I still don't have a clear explanation as to why Spitzer foe John Whitehead gave $10,000 to a Democrat, Denise O'Donnell, promising to "make sure that we continue the Elliot Spitzer tradition of strong, professional and non-political leadership in the Attorney General's office."

But O'Donnell's campaign manager (and son) Jack offered a partial explanation. The two were introduced, he said, by fund-raiser Robin Duke. They actually "argued" about Spitzer, with O'Donnell defending him  read more »

"She said that just because things were tolerated for years doesn't mean they aren't crimes," he said.

Then Whitehead amiably promised a check; the campaign was surprised by the $5,000 sum, and then by another, unsolicited $5,000 from Whitehead that floated in several weeks later.