The Hillarocity just wasn't as Hillacious as one have might hoped in last night's Senate debate. Practicing for a White House run by debating former Yonkers mayor John Spencer should be like warming up for March Madness with a game against Old Mother Hubbard's Academy for the Blind. And Hillary pretty much took it that way. Treating the event as a casual forum for reintroducing the brand, she only got heated when she condescended to correct Soldier Johnny's myriad factual errors, kept answers on Iraq and North Korea unquotably muddy, and avoided hot buttons like abortion and gay marriage (unless the line "New Yorkers took a chance on me" was intended to evoke ABBA).

"Dancing Queen" would have been a more apt reference. Searching for the right rhetorical vein — commanding but folksy, human but not all-too-human, red but purple but blue, truth-saying but poll-hugging — Hillary shimmies around until someone (ideally a donor) cries uncle. Appearing authentic in the canned contexts that shape American politics, sealing the utterly fake ties that bind, just isn't her thing.

Despite a debate style that suggests he learned rhetoric watching Peter Boyle's hippie-hunting nutjob in Joe, Spencer managed the one fun line of the night. When Hillary, in calling for Rumsfeld's ouster, noted that Lincoln changed generals during the Civil War, Spencer fired back: "Abraham Lincoln changed generals … you're not president yet, Mrs. Clinton."

Thank you, John Spencer. You may not have been able to recall your own wall-moat-snakes immigration position (despite its appearance on a campaign Website you claimed not to have looked at for six months) or articulate an economic-stimulus package beyond tax cuts, cutting taxes, tax-cutting and … er, um, lemme check my notes here … yes, decreasing the rate of taxation, but you decreased the rate of boredom for a fleeting second.

The new Republican National Committee ad "The Stakes" (set to air this weekend) returns to the familiar theme of "vote for us or you will perish in a hellish firestorm." It's subtle stuff.

The securers of the homeland have placed their spot in the tradition of LBJ's Daisy ad from the 1964 presidential campaign, in which a little girl (of questionable math skills) picks petals off a flower as a voice counts down to a nuclear explosion. "The Stakes" punctuates a string of scary Al Qaeda pictures with a big mushroom cloud, implying anything is permissible as long as the other side kinda did it once.

Still, the equivalency is a little off. LBJ was indeed fearmongering, though he also ended with the amazingly open-souled message that "we must either love each other or we must die." It'd be hard to make an argument that "the Stakes" is anything more than a nihilist Hail Mary — the Osama Now wing of the Democratic party being hard to find or at least very, very sneaky.

Also, why so much reading? If someone is dumb enough to fall for this, is he really the subtitle type? Somewhere between the Film Forum and a Hooters in Dubuque, there is an audience for this ad. If they can also pull a lever, maybe the homeland will survive.

Watch the ad. [RNC]

In a new advertisement from the Andrew Cuomo camp, the Democratic candidate for attorney general mentions Eliot Spitzer at least 6,000 times. As though by repeating the name, Cuomo could become Spitzer. In his debate with Pirro, Cuomo used the Spitzer strategy of answering every attack with a list of his successes. (On Cuomo's list: My dad got me a job in the Clinton administration.) When Spitzer is asked about actual future policy proposals, he can go on for days. Cuomo had a hard time filling 30 seconds.

Today while many mourn the fate of the Mets, our heart goes out to another defeated soul, Richard Grasso, now $100 million poorer than he was this time yesterday. A New York State Supreme Court ruling will leave the former New York Stock Exchange chair with but a mere $39.5 million of his $139.5 million retirement package he lied about to the board that governs the stock exchange. Even worse, poor Grasso was denied the $95 million in severance he believed he was owed for his "termination." That's tough, man.

It remains to be seen if Judge Charles Ramos's decision to grab a bite of Grasso's Cheddar will actually rustle any fig leafs on the engorged schlong of corporate capitalism, but it offers more shining validation for one tin-star-wearing maverick we all know and love. That defender of justice and good is, of course, Eliot Spitzer, the Sheriff of Wall Street, whose office had been trying to lasso Grasso for three years before getting the verdict they were looking for.

In any other election, the verdict's fortuitous timing would seem almost partisan by design, but Spitzer hardly needed the help. He's probably worried it'll make his certain and apparently crushing march to the governor's mansion seem less "pure."

His opponent, John Faso, had recently scrounged up a mini-issue criticizing Spitzer and fellow Democrat, state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, over the botched Moynihan Station deal, which Silver upended earlier this week. But there's Faso luck and then there's Spitzer luck, so don't expect any sort of criticism to stick.

Would You Buy Stock in This Man? [NYM]
Ex-Stock Exchange Chief Told to Return Millions [NYT]
Faso Rips Silver, Spitzer on Station Plan [NYDN]

Just when you thought Tom Reynolds was certain to spend his winter filling out forms in Buffalo temp agencies, he might have a shot. A SurveyUSA poll released yesterday had Reynolds hanging on to tiny lead over Jack Davis, 49-46. Maybe this will get Senator John McCain to reconsider appearing at a Reynolds fund-raiser tonight in Rochester. He'll have to hurry; the Reynolds magic may evaporate by the time the Monday-morning polls show up.

• Assessment of Stewart sentencing suggests Pirro isn't a big current-events junkie. [NYDN]
• Pirro has half her burden lifted as Spitzer's office says there's no investigation. [NYDN]
• Spitzer, already in clean-up-Albany tough-guy mode, sends out warning to Sheldon Silver. [NYS)
• If you're going to Yonkers, do not wear a flower in your hair — John Spencer might shoot you. [NYT]
• Callaghan extends Hevesi criticism to attacks on his actual comptrolling. [amNY]
• State could be fined $50 million for not updating voting machines. Tourist board responds with new "We're Kinda Like Florida" ad campaign. [Rochester Democrat & Chronicle]
• Times high-fives itself over blog reporting on Menendez flip-flop. [NYT]
• And finally, on the not-name-calling-or-mudslinging front, an inspiring profile of disabled State Senate candidate Brooke M. Ellison. [NYT]

Tonight is the 61st Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a gala event benefiting Catholic charities held annually at the Waldorf-Astoria. All the stars of New York politics will be out and shining like jewels. We just got the list of who's at our table, and it appears we're sitting between an H. Clinton and an E. Spitzer. Hope they like to party, cuz we're planning on getting d-runk 2 nite!

Here's some pregame action courtesy of the Internet Archive: Al Smith Toasts the Passing of Prohibition. The Happy Warrior was the most prominent "wet" of his day. During the 1928 presidential campaign, his gravely voice was often referred to as "whiskey breath" by anti-immigrant demagogues who feared the first Catholic presidential nominee might wash away their vision of Babbitt's America in a tide of rye and Romanism. In 1933, Al was an even happier warrior when the Eighteenth Amendment bit the barroom sawdust after thirteen years of tyranny over the American liver.

In a recent discussion between Republican representative Sue Kelly and Democratic challenger John Hall, Hall raised questions about Kelly's former role as chair of the congressional-page committee in light of the Mark Foley scandal. Kelly pretty much handed the less-experienced Hall his ass, even throwing in a couple of breathless "Have you no shame!"s to seal the deal. Bravura stuff.

Well, Kelly's shocked! shocked! bluster seemed a bit overwrought at the time; this news segment from local WRNN-TV makes the well of emotion she tapped seem just a touch overbaked. WRNN invited the candidates for the Nineteenth District seat to debate in its studios. Kelly never responded and in fact scurries away from the reporter when confronted.

Good work, WRNN. Rarely do we see such a daring Beckettian study in absence on local news.

Sue Kelly Runs From Reporters [TPM Cafe]

As you've probably heard, this year's Connecticut Senate race isn't the usual binary battle between a Democrat and a Republican, what with "Independent Democrat" Joe Lieberman busting up the kissy-kissy duopoly of Ned "D" Lamont and Alan "R" Schlesinger. But for Wednesday afternoon's debate at the Bushnell theater in Hartford, the three-candidate roster swelled to an almost unmanageable five, with Green candidate Ralph Ferrucci and Timothy Knibbs of the Concerned Citizens Party joining the fun.

Sadly, although the format was democratic, host station WFSB-TV was not. It originally refused to let reporters from other news media into the debate (a policy revoked after considerable criticism) and then placed a 27-hour news blackout on the event, refusing to distribute even a snippet until 7 p.m. tonight.

We may never have known what kind of Stalinist airbrushing went on in the homegrown Pravda of the WFSB newsroom had not the intrepid Connecticut Blog heroically smuggled out some bootleg audio. The sound quality is kind of sucky, but the note-perfect resonance of Ned Lamont's solo on "Casey Jones" still cuts through the static like smokestack lightning.

Best line delivered by a guy with nothing to lose:

Knibbs: "Mr. Lieberman has called for Rumsfeld to be removed, maybe that's because he's on the short list to replace him."

WFSB-TV Relents on Debate Embargo [Hartford Courant]

Listen to the debate. [Connecticut Blog]

Bad new for fans of the Andy & Jeanine Show. A race that was becoming not just totally crazy but increasingly competitive now seems to have drifted back toward merely nutty. A new poll from fun-to-say Quinnipiac University has Democratic attorney-general candidate Andrew Cuomo up 21 on Republican Jeanine Pirro, an eight-point bump since a recent poll that showed him leading by the not entirely insurmountable 13. What accounts for the tilt? Jeanine Pirro has been claiming that once voters got over all the tabloid wackiness and took a look at her record of locking up perverts as Westchester D.A., we'd realize she was far more qualified to be the state's top lawyer than a daddy's boy with a padded résumé like Andrew Cuomo.

But the opposite seems to be true. As Pirro's past is scrutinized and the scandal fades, New Yorkers are responding with a decided "eh, maybe not so much."

But the race continues. That pink blazer Pirro wore in the second debate — the one that made her like she played keyboards in the Knack — has got to be worth a point or two in the next round of polls. Her fight will go on. And JP will struggle to climb the high heights she assailed back when she was new to us, a boat-bugging glimmer on the horizon of expectations.

We all go through mood swings this time of year, what with the changing weather and shorter days. For most people, it's just a passing thing, but for some, Seasonal Affective Disorder (or "winter depression") can be a serious psychological illness. (Imagine Julianne Moore in Safe, but wearing a snowsuit and moon boots). Most cases are isolated to certain individuals, but folks up in the Twentieth Congressional District seem to be feeling this dread affliction en masse.

Two new polls out today tracking the race between incumbent Republican John Sweeney and Democratic challenger Kirsten Gillibrand suggest either really shoddy pollster math skills or a frighteningly capricious upstate. In a new Constituent Dynamics poll Gillibrand is beating Sweeney 54-41. But a Siena poll shows Sweeney up 53-39. Can two samplings of citizens with a relatively similar cultural and social experience be that disparate? Was the Constituent Dynamics sampling limited to Kirsten Gillibrand's pets? Did the Siena folks ask only Alpha Delta Phi brothers? It's baffling.

We should definitely dispatch a team of white-coated psych-ward attendants to round up the troubled residents of the Terrified Twentieth. They might do something truly deranged, like vote the Green Party ticket.

The Moynihan Train Station clings to life as an artist's rendering.Getty Images

There was no shortage of agendas at work in yesterday's vote to delay the building of Moynihan Station yet again. Dithering by the U.S. Postal Service initially slowed things down, but George Pataki has had twelve years to put shovels to the old Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue. He shows a newfound sense of urgency in the project, perhaps because he has only ten weeks left in office and could use a legacy greater than setting a record for last-minute patronage appointments.

The Dolans and Cablevision are angling for a new Madison Square Garden on the post-office site, but the Bloomberg administration, still stung by James Dolan's torpedoing of the West Side stadium, is in no hurry to help with that piece of the puzzle. The Ross and Roth real-estate-development empires recently acquired big chunks of property adjacent to the prospective station, giving them a sizable bargaining chip in the negotiations. There may also be legitimate financing problems, as Alan Hevesi has claimed. Eliot Spitzer, governor-in-waiting, says he only wants the best deal for the city and state — but he certainly wouldn't mind if that deal doesn't happen until he's officially in office.

Yet all of that stuff is subject to reasonable horse-trading, and it's all secondary to the role of state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver. He controls one of the three votes on the Public Authorities Control Board, which needs to approve the project unanimously. Yesterday Silver said no. He cited almost all of the above as reasons for his veto; what Silver didn't say is that by stalling the project, he puts some credit in the favor bank for his future give-and-take with Governor Spitzer.

But the overriding constant in all this has somehow been overlooked: Silver's demand that rebuilding ground zero and the downtown business district, which Silver represents in the assembly, take priority over any midtown development. To Silver, more midtown office space is a dangerous competitor to the more-deserving, still-recovering financial district. He's also suspicious that the real motivation for the Bloomberg administration's attempt to scatter new business districts throughout the city is an old-fashioned coziness with developers.

In some ways Silver's dogged focus is admirable. But for the thousands of commuters who'll trudge through the outmoded Penn Station even longer thanks to yesterday's maneuvering — and for the rest of the city, which is missing out on a new architectural showpiece — Silver's intransigence is only the latest example of why people hate Albany.

— Chris Smith

Tom Reynolds chortles at the notion of losing his seat.Photograph by Getty Images

But there is one man, one lone soldier on the parapet, a warrior of steely spirit and girded gullet, ready to mount the tired elephant and lead the charge to glory. And that man is ... the jerk who got them in this mess in the first place. Yesterday, Tom Reynolds — National Republican Congressional Committee chair, Mark Foley cover-upper, and part-time youth exploiter — arose from his premature winter slumber, shook off the cobwebs, and reassured voters with this helpful cliché.

"Democrats, desperate after more than a decade out of power, are trying to nationalize this election," Reynolds told the National Press Club yesterday. "But the old saying still rings true: Voters may hate Congress, but they like their local representative."

Reynolds didn't bother to note the he's trailing in his own reelection bid by thirteen points, a contradiction that suggests either (a) the old rule of incumbency is changing or (b) Tom Reynolds is just that transcendently loathsome.

Moderates in Kansas Decide They're Not in GOP Anymore [WP]

Tables Turned for the G.O.P. Over Iraq Issue [NYT]

Reynolds Sees GOP Victory But Avoids Talk About His Tight Race [Democrat & Chronicle]

• Hevesi lead big but squishy. [NYDN]
• Pirro transcends factual evidence to insist Cuomo got paid for speeches. [amNY]
• Bloomberg owns just okay car for a superrich guy .[NYS]
• Pirro claims she wasn't a vindictive loon in old job. [Newsday]
• Faso will cut taxes at the neck, Spitzer aims for lower regions. [NYT]
• Lieberman jumped by gang of local toughs. [NYT]
• Heedless Clinton flies off the handle with out-of-blue criticism that Republicans like rich people. [NYDN]

Last week Representative Chris Shays (R-Conn.) stepped outside the niceties of standard political discourse and put a salty smackdown on Teddy Kennedy. Today the ten-term incumbent forged a new path of questionable discourse, preserved by Greg Sargent (also a New York Magazine contributing editor) at TPMCafe. In a debate with Democratic challenger Dianne Farrell, Shays — a supporter of the Iraq war — expressed his wish that we had entered Iraq earlier. "Now let me just tell you something about the reality. We're there. And if we made mistakes, we're still there. In my judgment, we should have gone in sooner but not for weapons of mass destruction."

Sadly, Shays did not elaborate. But we hope desperately that he will; he'll say something even weirder next time.

CT-04: Shays: We Should Have Invaded Iraq "Sooner," and "Not For WMD" [TPMCafe]

We've been following the congressional race in the Twentieth District, between Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand (of the self-aware ironic ads) and Republican John Sweeney (of the folksy, authentic ads), partly for entertainment value and partly because it's turned into one of the more exciting contests in the emerging battleground region that is upstate New York.

The race is either pretty close or neck-and-neck, depending on which poll you consult, and things might just get a whole lot squeakier. Incumbent Sweeney, a guy who already had some character issues, is again having his relationship with House ethics questioned. The Albany Times-Union is reporting that "U.S. Rep. John Sweeney may have violated congressional ethics rules by failing to reveal who paid for a trip he took to a Pacific island with a lobbyist hired by convicted Washington influence peddler Jack Abramoff."

Oochie.

Not to be outdone, Kirsten Gillibrand came in for a little criticism today as well, though of a somewhat less damning nature. A veterans group in the Capital Region took her to task for attacking Sweeney's voting record on the war and veterans benefits. A National Guardsman named Matthew Tully, recently returned from Iraq, offered this remark.

"We are the new face of veterans in the Capital Region. We are sick and tired of politicians politicizing the Iraqi war for their own personal gain. Ms. Gillibrand has never served in the military and yet she is making veterans benefits and the Iraqi war a top priority," Tully said.

Not to get overly technical about the relationship between government and the armed forces, but if only lawmakers who'd served in the military were allowed to have oversight regarding military affairs, wouldn't that be like sorta how it is in one of those, uh, whadya call 'em…fascist military dictatorships? Either we can't handle the truth or someone needs to undo the bunch in Col. Nathan R. Jessep's olive-drab undies.

Sweeney Trip in Question [Albany Times-Union]
Veterans Group Criticizes Gillibrand [Capital News 9]

Peter King plans his Baghdad slideshow.Photograph by Getty Images

As you might expect, the closer the contest, the lower the blows. A debate last night devolved into King accusing Mejias of taking a donation from an area mosque with alleged terror ties. Mejias then accused King of fear-mongering while noting that King also received money from the mosque. Weird, right? It makes sense that an Al Qaeda–smooching Democrat might roll deep with the freedom-hating forces of evil, but a saber-rattling Republican? Turns out, King loves Baghdad.

He gave this speech (lovingly uploaded by Think Progress) in February 2006 in Merrick, New York. Recalling a recent trip to Iraq, he describes Baghdad as a veritable Soho on the Euphrates: "You're talking about bumper-to-bumper traffic, you're talking about shopping centers, you're talking about restaurants, you're talking video stores, you're talking about guys selling roses on the street corner."

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) Says That Being in Baghdad Is 'Like Being in Manhattan' [Think Progress]

Bush Stars in King-Mejias Debate [Newsday]

That grin is for everyone except Andrew Cuomo.Photograph by Patrick McMullan

The Brian Lehrer Show

There were many fine digs during yesterday's attorney-general debate — Jeanine Pirro on Andrew Cuomo's tainted HUD tenure, Cuomo on Pirro's irresponsibility as Westchester D.A. — but the best came from Cuomo spokesman Wendy Katz. During the debate, Pirro accused Cuomo of accepting fees for speeches he made as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration. Cuomo claims the money went to his former wife, Kerry Kennedy. "Once again, Mrs. Pirro got it wrong on government forms," said Katz. "We are shocked if Mrs. Pirro's position would fail to recognize the independence of a professional woman from her husband."

Oooh. Snap!

Integrity at Issue in AG Debate [Albany Times-Union]

• Sparks fly between Cuomo and Pirro, suggesting stormy romance in second season. [NYT]
• The "facts" that obscure the fun in the Cuomo-Pirro debate. [NYT]
• Hating politicians: It's not just for the apathetic and uninformed. [NYDN]
• Bush does cameo in Long Island congressional debate between King and Mejias. [Newsday]
• John Faso: party animal. [NYT]
• Faso claims fear that Emperor Spitz's wrath will scare away potential donors. [Journal News]
• Burning money is bad for the environment, so Pataki throws it away in New Hampshire. [Albany Times Union]
• Clinton debate prep includes showing up, speaking into camera. [NYS]
• Robert Menendez and Tom Kean Jr. won't be writing BFF in each other's yearbooks after the election ends. [Star Ledger]

Reviews are trickling in from this morning's attorney-general debate in Rochester and all indications suggest the touring version of the Andy & Jeanine Show has even more thrills and spills than last Sunday's hometown debut. They do faithful renditions of all their best routines (such as "My opponent's inexperience is blatant again") and try out some new material too (like "The office she's seeking is investigating her"). They even attempt the "throw scalding acid at your opponent's face" portion of the program on ice-skates. Real fun for the whole family, assuming you all enjoy hatred and shame. The delayed telecast is overnight — 12:30 a.m. on Channel 13. Don't miss it.

The Pirro Barrage Continues [The Empire Zone]
New York State Attorney General Debate 2006 [Thirteen-WNET]

Edward Norton loves hot, liberal actionPhotograph by Patrick McMullan

Norton, who brownnosedly interviewed Eliot Spitzer in the October issue of Interview, will continue to assist the financially lagging gubernatorial candidate with a fund-raiser this very evening. Nixon is stumping tomorrow for the Working Families Party and reminding us that "sexually explicit emails alone are never enough to take back Congress. We need to move beyond scandal and support innovative strategies that will help Democrats win." Always in character. That's fun.

At Nixon's side will be Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Eric Schneiderman, barely incumbent State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, and City Councilwoman Gale Brewer.

Attendees can give at various levels of support, including "Miranda" ($1,000); "Carrie" ($500); "Mr. Big" ($250); "Steve the bartender" ($100); or if you're strapped for cash, "Miranda's husband Steve's mom who went nuts and ate pizza from a trash can" ($50).

Edward Norton, Eliot Spitzer, and David Paterson [Spitzer-Paterson 2006]

Take Back Congress reception with Cynthia Nixon [Working Families Party]

Esquire's print edition fights its online counterpart.Courtesy Esquire

Beneath the strike-through portion on the Website is this change of heart:

You know what? In the wake of the Foley Scandal there's no way in hell we can endorse a man who bravely stepped before the microphones to say he didn't know anything about anything, and managed to surround himself with children to do it. What a dirtball. Esquire now endorses: Davis

Early and Often will offer its endorsements on Wednesday, November 8.

Endorsements 2006: New York [Esquire]
Reynolds Cowers Behind Innocent Children [Early and Often]

Sue Kelly and John Hall exchange words in a meeting
with the Times Herald-Record's editorial board.
Courtesy the Times Herald-Record

And yet through all those uncool times, it's hard to imagine he's been caught in a crossfire hurricane quite like this exchange with incumbent Sue Kelly during a recent debate in the Nineteenth District. Kelly was overseer of the congressional-page program from 1999 to 2001, a period that possibly coincided with the Mark Foley hottie-hassling era. Hall, like many Democrats in tough races, has used the Foley cover-up to turn what seemed like a no-hope bid into an increasingly close contest. But Hall's naturally sunny heart may not be entirely suited for the politics of personal destruction. Watch the video and find out if, indeed, Hall has no shame.

(Back when Hall was doing session work with Seals & Crofts, there was a violent altercation over whether the backing harmonies on "Summer Breeze" should be "sweet and cool like morning rain" or "milky but not too milky." In 1979, when organizing the No Nukes benefit concerts, Hall and James Taylor got into a tense discussion about who was going to go on after Bonnie Raitt — "Following Bonnie, man, that's tough" said Hall, to which Taylor responded, "I know, friend, but look, if we can't figure out stuff like this, how're we gonna bring an end to nuclear proliferation?")

Kelly on the Pages [The Times Herald-Record, via Talking Points Memo]

Local Republicans are wondering if maybe their all-Hevesi-all-the-time approach toward the '06 election might be a bit of a distraction from the greater congressional struggle. Then again, maybe they should swipe at whatever low-hanging fruit this mean season bears, namely incumbent state comptroller Alan Hevesi.

Hevesi broke from his recent low-profile M.O. on Monday to make an appearance at Cornell University. There, he spoke to an entrepreneurship class about the corporate scandals of the nineties and offered a few non-answers on his wife-ferrying woes.

"You're drawing conclusions without knowing the facts," Hevesi told the Cornell Daily Sun. "I'm not going to discuss them with the public until I've finished a report through the Ethics Commission that I requested.

"Don't believe everything you hear. That's my quote."

John Callaghan, son of Hevesi's opponent Chris Callaghan, serves as the challenger's spokesman and was predictably hard on his old man's rival and, somewhat less predictably, pretty tough on his own mother.

"My mom wasn't able to walk for most of last summer," he said. "[Hevesi] reached for the easy button."

It seems to be a trait among the Callaghan men to not go soft on Callaghan women, but when you're going around implying even ailing Mama C isn't above your stringent ethical standard, that's cold. Real cold.

Just imagine what kind of badass Chris Callaghan's going to be when it comes time to restructure the state's pension system.

Hevesi Defends Service Record [Cornell Daily Sun]

• Jeanine Pirro to Post gossip fossil: Pray for me, trail Al. [NYP]
• Spitzer leans on Hevesi to man up and debate. [NYDN]
• Bloomberg, always ready to zig when you think he ought to zag, defends Hevesi. [NYP]
• Arnold the Green Giant comes to lower Manhattan. [amNY]
• Wrath and acrimony are major issues in Connecticut Senate debate. [NYT]
• More Clinton lies: Hillary not named after Sir Edmund Hillary. [NYT]
• Spencer builds base of loonies, wackos to ensure win. [NYS]

Hillary for Senate

Not that there's any doubt about Hillary Clinton's focus these days, but two moments from her appearance at this afternoon's Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee luncheon at the Grand Hyatt neatly illustrated her campaign priorities.

At the end of a brief press "avail" before the event, New York's junior senator was asked how she's preparing for this Friday's debate, her first opposite hopeless Republican challenger John Spencer. "Well," Clinton said languidly, "I'm talking to you … and hanging around." She paused for a couple of seconds and seemed to let her thoughts drift. Then she started to walk away. "I'll get organized on that soon," she finally concluded.

A half-hour later, Clinton turned on the passion. After accepting the committee's annual "Champion of Democracy Award" (which was kind of a nifty trick — accepting honors from a group she helped launch six years ago), Clinton ripped into the national Republican leadership as "extremists" that are driving disheartened, moderate GOP types to her side. "They didn't sign up for a radical Republican party," Clinton said, introducing a new, rousing refrain, and bringing the crowd to its feet. "They didn't sign up for budget deficits …They didn't sign up for science being pushed out of the way by ideology … They didn't sign up for the denial of climate change … They didn't sign up for North Korea getting nuclear weapons … "

Also not signing up, in this case to Clinton's cause, were two protestors from Code Pink. Dressed in gray corporate attire to blend in with the businesswomen in the audience, the activists unfurled pink banners with "Stop Supporting the War" in black letters and briefly yelled the phrase at Clinton from the back of the room until they were hustled out by security guards. Clinton didn't give them the slightest attention, plowing ahead with her praise of upstate congressional candidate Kirsten Gillibrand.

— Chris Smith

Hillary's Baggage [Houston Chronicle]

You really have to respect New Yorkers' ability to transcend the trashy tone of modern discourse. Though four out of five voters have heard of Jeanine Pirro's myriad extra-curricular problems, only half want to make the personal political, according to a Siena Research Institute poll released today. Andrew Cuomo's lead over Jeanine the Machine has gone from seventeen points a month ago to thirteen.

What good wonks we are, not letting scandal obscure our eagle-eyed hunt for the candidate with the best record and soundest policy proposals. This evening after work, when you're kicking back with the new Congressional Quarterly and deciding whether to make it a C-SPAN night or C-SPAN 2 night, pat yourselves on the back. You deserve it, New York.

Siena Research Institute poll

Jeanine Pirro and Andrew Cuomo in their Sunday best.Photograph by James Estrin/AP

Pirro was a bit more Movie of the Week than duty required, once telling her adversary, "you've never held the hand of a child who's been victimized by a sexual predator," a gimmicky image that still suckered Cuomo into a jumbled rebuttal about how much he loved his kids. Pirro also got a hold of Cuomo on alleged corruption during his time as Clinton's HUD secretary ("if it's illegal today, what made it ethical then?") and didn't let go until she'd almost reversed the very stakes of the election itself. "Just so we're clear," Cuomo said. "There is a candidate who is being accused of criminal wrongdoing and is under investigation by a number of law-enforcement agencies and had their ethics questioned — that's not me, however." Well turned.

The blurring of their identities was Pirro's biggest hit and Cuomo's biggest problem. In the New York of 2006, a Democrat running for a law-enforcement position against a Republican under criminal investigation shouldn't have a hard time differentiating himself. Maybe it was Cuomo's New Democrat reluctance to get too close to his father's liberal legacy, a patricidal quirk he shares with George Bush. Cuomo emphasized his legal-beagle head over his social-justice heart, his competence over his compassion, and merged his candidacy with Eliot Spitzer's so many times you'd think they were running together. It was so glaring, the sainted one's name was almost taken in vain.

Of course, Cuomo didn't need to work so hard. He could have stood up there and read the newspaper, literally, as in that morning's Post, which recapped this magazine's must-read piece on life with the Pirros — and gone home a default champ. But it's to Cuomo's credit that he didn't. A good Catholic boy knows some topics are too unseemly for Sunday morning, even a Sabbath as besmirched as this.

Staying Power: Jeanine and Al Pirro.Photograph by Timothy Fadek/Polaris

Mario Cuomo plays cornerman in Junior's spat with Spitzer.

Understanding the conservatism of Andrew Sullivan.

• The loveless life of Al Pirro. [NYP]
• The sizzling saucepot of crazy good times that was the first attorney-general debate. [NYT]
• Two views of Spitzer: Either he's a power-drunk jerk or you're just jealous. [NYT]
• Pirro and Cuomo share shady donor issues. [NYDN]
• Contrary to her claim, Pirro saw Deskovic evidence. [NYDN]
• Michael Bloomberg, a lot like Danny Devito in "Twins." [NYT]
• Will the new anti-Hillary please step forward? [NYS]
• Can Eliot Spitzer be excellent to everyone?. [Newsday]
• Even in victory, Lieberman may end up the loneliest kid in the Senatorial sandbox. [Hartford Courant]
• Everyone's favorite Vaudeville comedy act, Koch & D'Amato wheeze forth with pronouncement: The NYGOP is toast. [Newsday]