Election 2010: Redemption for Lazio, Paterson?
Photo credit: File / Alejandra Villa | Rick Lazio at the Republican National Convention on September 1, 2004 at Madison Square Garden.
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Paterson marches in African American Day Parade
Next year is already about a shot at redemption. Launching his 2010 campaign for governor, former Rep. Rick Lazio of Long Island runs for office for the first time since losing the 2000 U.S. Senate race. Gov. David A. Paterson seeks a personal recovery of sorts at the polls - with state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in the wings. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, both appointees, seek their first statewide salvation at the polls. Rudy Giuliani could redeem his own public career in a governor's race; ex-Gov. George Pataki could do the same by running for Senate.
POST-INTERVENTION: Last time we saw President Barack Obama intervene in a New York race, it was to push Rep. Steve Israel to forgo a primary against Gillibrand, which he did. Last Monday, former President Bill Clinton helped Israel raise a reported $250,000-plus for his congressional campaign committee in the Sands Point home of Marty Scheinman, the labor arbitrator, and his wife, Laurie. Guests included Stephon Marbury, the former Knicks player, upstate congressional candidate Bill Owens, incoming state Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs and various Democratic elected officials from Nassau and Suffolk.
MTA CRISIS: Drama resounds over multibillion-dollar Metropolitan Transportation Authority deficits. Last week, when the Suffolk Legislature approved an increase in the hotel-motel tax, sponsors called it a move to "recoup some of the $100 million increase in the (regional) payroll tax that went primarily to fund New York City MTA services." . . . Separately, the agency is seen as unlikely to win its lawsuit to reverse an arbitration award increasing subway and bus workers' wages more than 11 percent over three years.
NAME RECOGNITION: Bill de Blasio, facing Mark Green in a Democratic runoff for New York City public advocate, was born Warren Wilhelm Jr. He explained the change in 2002: "My parents were divorced when I was young. I was really brought up by my mother's side of the family." (His mom, Maria de Blasio, died in 2007.) It's not unheard of. Didn't William Jefferson Blythe III become President Bill Clinton?
