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Hillary Clinton just sent a formal public letter to Barack Obama calling on him to work to find a resolution to the Florida and Michigan question that reflects the votes in those states and seats their delegations at the convention. She also attempts to shame him for what she calls his failure to "support those efforts" in Michigan, and for the Obama campaign's opposition to revotes in Florida. "In Florida a number of revote options were proposed. I am not aware of any that you supported," she writes.

As pointed out in a conference call yesterday, it is not clear that the Clinton campaign picks up enough support to change their dire position even if both states are counted. But as long as the Obama campaign doesn't budge, it's a talking point for the Clinton campaign.

Here's the letter:  read more »

Now that the remaining suspense has been drained from the actual race for the Democratic nomination, we’re on to the next great guessing game: Will Barack Obama be compelled to offer Hillary Clinton the number-two slot?

There’s certainly a strong and highly logical case to be made. Between the two of them, Obama and Clinton will have attracted upward of 36 million votes when all of the primaries are over, with only a few hundred thousand votes separating them. That’s nearly 60 percent of the total number of votes George W. Bush received in the 2004 general election.  read more »

Hillary Clinton has begun to ask her influential backers to be in Washington on May 14 for a meeting at her home, according to a major fund-raiser. Separately, the fund-raiser said, Bill Clinton will be speaking with top donors this afternoon on a conference call.

Bob Kerrey, the onetime Clinton family antagonist who now supports Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, believes that “if things stay the way they are now” his candidate will withdraw from the race sometime between now and June 3, when the primary season concludes in Montana and South Dakota.

He did say that there was no reason for Clinton to yield to pressure to get out of the race before then, even as a famous South Dakotan, George McGovern, renounced his support of Clinton and called on her to quit.  read more »

It's not a particularly great day to be a close Clinton ally, but Howard Wolfson, one of the senator's chief strategists, has a non-election reason to celebrate. According to a deed filed in city records today, he finally sold his two-bedroom, 1,333-square-foot apartment at 455 Central Park West for $1.91 million. The condo was first listed way back in July, according to the Web site Streeteasy, and closed late last month.

The listing says there are 10-foot ceilings, "absolutely mesmerizing" Central Park and skyscraper views, a layout that "lends itself perfectly to gracious living," and two bedrooms with "luxurious limestone bathrooms en suite!" Sounds classy. On the downside, Mr. Wolfson paid $1,775,000 in 2005, so he didn't make much money from the deal.

Embattled Scores owner Richard Goldring is suing the city and State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.) in federal court, alleging that the government's recent crackdown on his two Manhattan strip clubs violates his First Amendment rights.

In court papers, his latest attorney called last month's revocation of Mr. Goldring's liquor license at Scores West "a circumstance intended to terminate in Scores West any future First Amendment expressive entertainment and to chill the principals of Scores East and Scores West in the exercise of their First Amendment right to provide such entertainment."  read more »

Max Abelson reports.

Vito Fossella's office just released this statement from the congressman:

“I have had a relationship with Laura Fay, with whom I have a three year old daughter.

"My personal failings and imperfections have caused enormous pain to the people I love and I am truly sorry.

"While I understand that there will be many questions, including those about my political future, making any political decisions right now are furthest from my mind.

More after the jump.  read more »

Rupert Murdoch was standing in a deep corner of the Rose Hall at about 7:30 p.m. last night to toast his fellow influencers: It was the Time 100 celebration, an event that drums up publicity for the magazine's decreasingly influential list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The day before, Mr. Murdoch had promised investors and reporters listening in on a News Corp. investors' call that he'd prevail in his purchase of Newsday over rival bidders Mort Zuckerman and the Dolans.  read more »

My colleague Dana Rubinstein broke the news earlier this week that the new One Bryant Park unofficially opened on Monday. Over 300 Bank of America employees took to their desks in the 54-story, Durst-developed skyscraper in midtown.

Above is a photo of the lobby earlier today. Life! At last!

The Dolans bought the Sundance Channel today for $496 million. And what of Newsday? They still have the leading bid.

Look out, Pat Kiernan! The world of round-the-clock local New York news channels is about to get a whole lot more competitive.

According to The New York Times’ Bill Carter, NBC Universal is planning to start a 24-hour local news channel, to be called … “New York’s Newschannel.”

More from the Times:  read more »

Finally someone is honoring Silda Wall Spitzer's mortifying role in her husband's debacle rather than criticizing her for it. Harper's Bazaarhas done a photo shoot titled "Stand By Your Man" inspired by the Spitzer sex scandal; it will appear in the magazine's June issue. The images, conceived by photographer Peter Lindbergh, portray the narrative of an uptown couple dealing with a very public political sex scandal. They even recreate the Podium Scene in which Ms. Wall stood beside the former governor with that infamous defeated look on her face. And check out the ascots!

Follow the jump for the rest of the "story."  read more »

The deal for billions of dollars worth of development over the West Side rail yards collapsed Thursday afternoon, with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Tishman Speyer hitting an impasse in negotiations. The failure to reach a deal came more than five weeks after the M.T.A. announced Tishman Speyer as the winner of the development rights, after a months-long bidding contest between six of the city’s largest development firms.

According to a statement from the M.T.A., the failure to complete the deal came as Tishman Speyer refused to close on the agreement for the eastern half of the rail yards until the western half was rezoned, a process that could easily take until late 2009, if not 2010. The accord reached in late March held that Tishman would close on the eastern half; then, after the western half was rezoned, they would close the deal on that section, completing the deal. The total deal was estimated to bring the M.T.A. about $1 billion from Tishman.

The collapse in talks came one day after the M.T.A. passed a self-imposed seven-day deadline to finish negotiations and sign a conditional letter of designation, a document that was not signed when Tishman won the bidding. Officials said at the time of that announcement, in late March, that they were highly confident a final deal would be reached, characterizing the designation letter as something of a formality.  read more »

Several weeks ago, David Barstow wrote an investigative piece for The New York Times taking a hard look at a group of ex-military pundits and their relationships with the Pentagon during the run-up to and early stages of the war in Iraq. Today, in the Politico, former Media Mobster Michael Calderone and his colleague Avi Zenilman report that while the television networks have mostly ignored the unflattering revelations in the Times story, various Democratic Congressional leaders are now calling for investigations "that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story—and, in effect, themselves."  read more »

Two weeks ago, I examined the officially meaningless but symbolically crucial popular-vote tally on the Democratic side.

At the time, Hillary Clinton had just won Pennsylvania by nine points and was claiming to be the popular-vote leader, positioning herself – in theory—to assert a moral claim on the loyalties of uncommitted superdelegates.  read more »

On Monday, MSNBC kicked off The New York Times Special Primary Edition, a new irregularly recurring daytime political show hosted by John Harwood in which Times scribes chew over news from the campaign trail.

So how did the show's premier do?

Not great!

According to Nielsen data, "The New York Times Special Primary Edition," finished fourth among cable news networks in the 2 P.M. time slot.  read more »

Steve Kornacki doesn't think she'll take it, anyway.

Clinton supporter Bob Kerrey tells Steve Kornacki that she'll drop out when (if?) she's good and ready.