Jim Florio

Hillary Clinton had a small fund-raiser at the 57th Street and 8th Avenue home of Mike DelGuidice last night that featured a number of big Democratic names: Bill Clinton, Terry McAulliffe, former New Jersey Governor Jim Florio and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, among others.

There were also at least two Republicans.

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At 8 a.m., the Campaign for Fiscal Equity has a breakfast forum at the Yale Club.

Starting at 8:20 a.m., former governors Bill Weld and Jim Florio join incoming state budget director Paul Francis at a panel discussion on "Governing Change: Policy, Politics and the Spitzer Administration" at The New School.

At 9 a.m., the Board of Directors for the NYC Industrial Development Agency will meet at 110 William Street.

At 10 a.m., the Governance and Audit Committee of the NYC Center Operating Corporation will meet at the Javits Center.

At 11 a.m., Assemblyman Mike Gianaris calls for the creation of the Innocence Commission, with members of the Innocence Project, in his Astoria office.

At noon, there's a protest outside the Iranian mission to the U.N.

The City Council's Civil Service and the Housing Committees will hold meetings.

And the holiday parties of DL21C, Queens DA Richard Brown, and The New York County Lawyers' Association will be taking place.

-- Azi Paybarah

As is its custom, Quinnipiac University released the final poll of the New Jersey campaign season yesterday, pegging Robert Menendez's lead over Tom Kean Jr. at five points, 48 to 43 percent. This corresponds roughly to the findings of perhaps a dozen other recent polls, all of which gave the appointed Democrat leads - as high as ten points.

And so it appears that the New Jersey GOP will extends its losing streak in U.S. Senate races to 11. Which raises the question of what's next for Kean, a 38-year-old political legacy whose charmed ascension in politics now faces an abrupt detour.

The easiest answer is that he'll be back. He's young, after all, possesses a beloved New Jersey surname, and had the misfortune of running in the most toxic year imaginable for a Republican. And, anyway, it's an unofficial Garden State tradition that losing statewide candidates get second chances (Jim McGreevey, Christine Todd Whitman, and Jim Florio are a few members of this club).

But there's a compelling case that campaign '06 will mark Junior's last hurrah. For one thing, this race has confirmed that there are deep and incorrigible flaws in his public style. Kean is exceptionally slow on his feet, and is incapable of convincingly selling the talking points his handlers force-feed him . And he has failed miserably to mask any of these shortcomings with good humor, charm, or even the occasional chortle-worthy quip. As a candidate for office, he is badly miscast. It is hard to imagine that he has enjoyed running for statewide office - why would he go through this again?  read more »

The Speaker of the State Assembly, a man named Sheldon Silver, said the other day that some kind of  read more »