Kellyanne Conway

Republican City Council candidate Robert Hornak of Astoria is having a birthday party fund-raiser on May 21.

On the host committee, an interesting mix:

Radio host Curtis Sliwa; former Republican and Democratic 2005 public advocate candidate Jay Golub; consultant Kellyanne Conway; and Herb London, the Republican candidate for state comptroller in 1994.

Hornack is vying for the seat currently held by Peter Vallone, Jr., who will be term-limited out. So far, he's the only Republican competing. Costa Constantinides, a former staffer for Darlene Mealy, has declared a bid for the Democratic nomination, and Assemblyman Michael Gianaris is widely speculated to be considering it.

Here’s the invite:  read more »

Time columnist Joe Klein created a stir at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier today when he suggested that "an element of unwitting sabotage" may be behind Bill Clinton's series of apparently off-message comments while campaigning on behalf of his wife.

Klein speculated: "He's worrying, 'Maybe she's going to be a better president than I was'."

He also suggested that Clinton was ambivalent about his wife’s candidacy because, alongside those fears, "Consciously, I think that he sees her [possible] election as president as the final validation of his presidency."  read more »

Doug Schoen, the noted pollster who crunched numbers for Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in the mid 1990's, and for Michael Bloomberg’s 2001 mayoral race, said last night that he doesn’t think Bloomberg will run for president.

Schoen, speaking at a forum about presidential polling at Baruch College, was answering a question from an audience member who wanted to know which of the two major parties would be most affected by a Bloomberg presidential run.

“Let me just say at the outset I don’t think he is going to run,” Schoen said. “Largely Phil’s question is an academic one. It was very interesting to me that at this point, he appears to be hurting the Republicans at least as much if not more than the Democrats. I think the reason for that has more to do with disaffected Republicans who probably don’t want to vote, at this point, for Hillary Clinton--who hear, you know, Independent Michael Bloomberg, don’t know much about who Michael Bloomberg is, and are saying, ‘You know what, we don’t want to vote Republican, and this is an alternative.”

More after the jump.  read more »