Ned Lamont has a new ad attacking Joe Lieberman's parroting of Bush's "stay the course" line on Iraq, potentially a very incisive idea.

Lamont's version tweaks a Democratic National Committee ad that strings together Bush, Cheney, and White House press secretary Tony Snow repeating the phrase in dead-eyed repetition with Lieberman pasted in as the Fourth Top, harmonizing on an endless version of "The Same Old Song." Lieberman has used the phrase numerous times in the last two years, but the ad only shows one instance, a 2004 presidential debate that's looped three times.

Edited into a seemingly endless reel of Bush and Cheney drilling their one note home like minimalist martinets, Lieberman's bit cameo seems like a passing coincidence, which is exactly what Joe has been trying to argue. The end — where Lieberman and Bush both swear off ever having used the phrase — is damning, but it's hard to tell if it's a dunk on Lieberman or the Lamont campaign going to the well one time too many, playing their favorite oldie for a final blast of catharsis before the big chill sets in.

Lieberman & 'Stay the Course' [The Empire Zone]
New 'Stay the Course' Ad — Starring Joe Lieberman! [TPM Cafe]

Objectivity? Who needs it? Well-known members of the media establishment aren't ashamed of throwing money (as well as column inches) at their favorite politicos. And you can forget about that notion of liberal bias — Republican candidates and right-leaning PACs have also benefited from media bucks this year. (Blue-state pariah Rick Santorum even received a contribution from Ardath Rodale! Of course, the Rodale CEO gave even more money to Santorum's opponent, but still …) Here's a list of select media members who've been lending their election-year support:

William F. Buckley, editor-at-large, National Review
Christopher Shays: $1,500
The longtime GOP incumbent is tied at 43 percent with Democratic challenger Diane Farrell.
Club for Growth PAC: $2,000
The conservative PAC supports candidates in favor of repealing the estate tax and making tax cuts permanent.

Steve Forbes, CEO, Forbes Inc.
Rob Simmons: $1,000
The Republican incumbent from Connecticut's Second District is in a tight race with Joseph Courtney.

Merri Hannity, wife of conservative radio and TV host Sean Hannity
Jeanine Pirro: $20,000
In 2005, Sean Hannity urged his viewers to contribute to Pirro during her short-lived Senate race against Hillary Clinton.

William Kristol, founder, Weekly Standard
George Allen: $250
The Republican Virginia senator is slightly ahead of Democrat Jim Webb in the polls.

Judith Regan, president, Regan Media
Hillary Clinton: $1,000

Jann Wenner, founder, Wenner Media
Bob Casey: $2,500
In one of the most-watched Senate races in the country, Democrat Casey is trying to unseat Republican Rick Santorum after one term.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: $25,000

Dick Ebersol, chairman, NBC Sports
General Electric Company PAC: $2,000

Lorne Michaels, creator, Saturday Night Live
Midwest Values PAC: $2,000
Al Franken's PAC is closing in on $1 million raised this year.

Jeffrey Zucker, CEO, NBC Universal Television
General Electric Company PAC: $5,000

Ardath Rodale, chairman of the board, Rodale Inc.
Bob Casey: $2,300
Rick Santorum: $1,000

David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief, Men's Journal
Lois Murphy: $1,000
Murphy is a Democrat running against an incumbent Republican in Pennsylvania's Sixth District.
Jon Kyl: $1,000
The two-term Republican senator from Arizona has a small lead against Democrat Jim Pederson.

— Jon Steinberg

Tom Reynolds called this horse a liar.Courtesy iStockphoto.com

Maybe it's the money, but it might just easily be the mouth — the potty mouth, that is. There's no better way to show you're 100 percent manimal than to spray around a little sauce talk now and again. When asked about the miraculously coincidental timing of the federal relief money — which arrived two weeks after the storm and the same day that Reynolds testified about Mark Foley before the House Ethics Committee — Reynolds tartly responded, "It's all horseshit." The Buffalo News was so freaked by Reynolds after-hours agitation they printed his explicating expletive as "horse [manure]." Buffalo being a hockey town, we'd have preferred "horse [puckey]," but whatever.

Reynolds Edges Ahead of Davis [WGRZ]
Disaster Spawns Storm of Politics [Buffalo News]

Taking a cue from John Faso, Jeanine Pirro is quick to make her own ad suggesting that Andrew Cuomo and Alan Hevesi are paddling the same tainted canoe.

The slime trickles down. By the end of today, we'll have ads tying Hevesi to the dogcatcher's race in Munnsville.

John Faso, not giving up against horrible odds, spends his last couch-cushion money on this attack ad linking Spitzer to Alan Hevesi, who almost gets as much screen time as Eliot himself.

The charge that Spitzer is going to the mat for the fallen Hevesi may be based on statements made in a debate that took place a month ago, and they're somewhat blunted now that Spitzer has dropped his endorsement of Hevesi. And Hevesi isn't exactly Spitzer's "running mate" to begin with, but it's a nice effort. Couple or three campaigns down the road, these Faso people are gonna be one well-oiled smearing machine.

In August, if there was one candidate for any state office who seemed least likely to be endorsed by the Times, it was Callaghan. GOP Senate hopeful John Spencer's "War for All Forever" platform had a better shot. The Times' nod is more of a shrug. "In interviews and in this week's debate, he has been extremely unimpressive, hardly the man whom voters would normally want to hire as the state's chief fiscal officer and sole trustee of New York's $140 billion pension fund."

The Times' logic is a little goofy: In voting to install the eminently unqualified former Saratoga County treasurer, we're not really selecting the right candidate for the job but instead circumventing the "curdled" political culture of Albany, which would select Hevesi's replacement — assuming he does what's now probably the right thing and resigns. The one million people in the state pension system (as well as the tens of millions of New Yorkers easily annoyed by boring white guys in bowties) might see this act of conscience a little differently. The Republican Party spent more time considering the catering for its post-convention party than it did selecting Callaghan. Isn't there some other way we can rise as one and protest our broken system?

The Daily News agrees the choice belongs to the people and not the curdlers. But the paper wants us to take "some perspective," describing Callaghan as "a nice, decent man. The Wall Street sharks would surely have him for breakfast and toss the bones." The editorial board also take a levelheaded, even laid-back view of Hevesi's ruination. "On the grand scale of offenses against probity, Hevesi is guilty of misdemeanor rather than felony … Callaghan was unsuited for the job from the moment the Republicans nominated him. So, at this time, it has to be Hevesi."

Atmospherically above the fray as we are, having assessed the tone, style, and argument of these editorials, Early & Often endorses the Daily News endorsement of Alan Hevesi. It was shorter, clearer, mentioned sharks, and made the gutsier choice against the political grain. It wasn't an easy choice for us, but the ones that count never are.

For New York Comptroller [NYT]
Why It Has to Be Hevesi [NYDN]

• For Comptroller the Times endorses...[NYT]
• And the Daily News backs....[NYDN]
• Spitzer pulls support, and Hevesi's 40-point lead falls to within the margin of error. [NYDN]
• Faso comes up with Spitzer-loves-Hevesi attack line just as Spitzer bails. [Albany Times Union]
• Thinking big, Clinton wants to give Hillary the best 59th birthday present a girl could get: Congress! [NYDN]
• Post-debate Hevesi opens up. [Newsday]
• Men, women on the street differ on Hevesi scandal. [Newsday]
• Republicans pounce on New Jersey gay marriage ruling like bigoted pumas. [NYT]
• Corzine backs civil unions. [NYT]
• Kean-Menendez in dead heat. [NYT]
• Bring your raincoat and rations for a week or so to the polls. Schumer sees an electoral "tsunami" a brewin'. [NYP]
• Fun of voting (i.e., pulling that big red lever) to be ruined by lame easily accessible new technology. [NY1]
• Clinton would not get in the way of a New York gay-marriage law. [NYT]
• Nice guy Andy. [NYT]

It would be a uniquely American irony if Alex P. Keaton, who taught a generation of young Republicans how to knot a tie, flipped Congress to the Democrats. It'd be an even greater irony if Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity helped. Yet, by making Michael J Fox's appeal for candidates supporting stem-cell research the biggest political story in the second-to-last week before the biggest off-year election in over a decade, they might have done just that.

Fox plans to appear with New Jersey's Robert Menendez, the Democratic candidate in one of the tightest Senate races in the country. To offset Hollywood stardom (and to make it all the harder for Menendez to take advantage of his small lead over Tom Kean Jr.), the National Republican Senatorial Committee just dropped $5 million dollars into New Jersey for the last two weeks of the race.

In a related story, Meredith Baxter's agent is presently getting an earful of "Why didn't you get me out front on clean coal!?"

NRSC to Invest As Much As $5M In New Jersey [The Hotline]

A just-released statement from the Spitzer campaign:

Recent developments in the Comptroller's race are deeply troubling. The outcome of the Ethics Commission investigation presents information that compromises Alan Hevesi's ability to fulfill his responsibilities.

J. Christopher Callaghan's experience and substantive positions lead me to believe he is not qualified to be Comptroller. Therefore, I can no longer support either candidate in the state Comptroller's race. I am confident that State Senate proceedings will carefully evaluate the facts and recommend appropriate action. In the event that Mr. Hevesi is removed from office through such a proceeding, it is the obligation of state leaders to act in a bipartisan manner to find a highly-qualified replacement.

Democrats love to hear Republicans jeopardize their candidacies by saying stupid things. But both liberal megablogger Daily Kos and local progressive the Daily Gotham misinterpret as sincerity a little shot of acerbic irony deployed by Long Island (Republican) incumbent Representative Peter King in describing his vote for the controversial 2003 Medicare overhaul.

The moment came in a debate with Democratic challenger David Mejias. It's oh-so subtle, but when the King calls AARP and the NCAAP "radical organizations," he's making a joke. It's pretty understated, and like fellow employers of the dry and detached delivery (David Letterman, Steven Wright), King pulls it off with perfect tactical remove.

Sadly, in a heated campaign year, the first casualty of politics is always hilarity. Next debate, the King of Comedy better wear a seltzer-spraying lapel and drop a few banana peels under Mejias's podium, just to let everyone know the joke shop is open for business.

King (R) Calls AARP and NAACP "Radical Organizations" [Daily Kos]
Peter King: NAACP, AARP "radical" [The Daily Gothamist]

Alan Hevesi (center) and Chris Callaghan (right) pause for a moment in between not talking about comptrolling.Photograph by Keith Bedford/AP

Hevesi couldn't produce his infirmed wife, Carol, but he conveyed her spirit with grim imagery of her spinal injury, three open-heart surgeries, and attempted suicide. Had Hevesi stuck with the implication that life with a chronically ill loved one can at times drive a person beyond reason, he might have approached the resolute dignity Nixon nailed in the Checkers speech. But in his vacillations between "abjectly" apologetic, combative, defiant, equivocating, and indignant, our troubled state comptroller fast-forwarded straight to the Tricky Dick of Watergate. Rather than the humble state number-cruncher coming clean, we got King Lear with a calculator.

And it's sad, because 35 years of good public service is a pretty lousy thing to throw away in one moment of careless hubris. When the debate turned to the actual office the candidates sought (about minute 49), we saw something that's been pretty absent throughout all the (admittedly excellent) scandalmongering: Alan Hevesi can comptroll his ass off. Check out this dig at Callaghan's shoddy oversight as Saratoga County treasurer. "The lack of proper accounting records and the failure to adequately monitor the financial status of each capital project is a significant weakness in the county's management system." Ouch.

If only Hevesi had stuck with the droning, banal stuff no one cares about. Then we'd be awarding our top accountant with the obliviousness he so deserves, rather than the persecution he now endures.

Hevesi Defends Accusations in Comptrollers Debate [NY1]

The New Jersey courts said yes to some form of same-sex unions, and local papers said yes to blanket coverage. A look at what some of the news outlets are offering:

• The New York Times ran at least seven stories about the court ruling, starting on the front page with the standard "what happened" with "New Jersey Court Backs Full Rights for Gay Couples." Follow that up with an analysis of the court ruling. Moving into the "Metro" section, we find a tactical look at what the gay community will have to do to push the legislature toward the politically charged "marriage" instead of the more ambivalent "civil union." Finish up with some happy interviews with gay couples and an answer to the day's most pressing question: What will Jim McGreevey do?
• At the Newark Star-Ledger reporter Matthew Reilly approaches the story in a coherent Q&A format. Read reactions from the thirteen gay plaintiffs in the suit. Columnist Bob Braun blasts the New Jersey Supreme Court for refusing to use the word "marriage" in its ruling.
• The Record gets candidate reactions: Tom Kean Jr. is against the ruling, and Senator Bob Menendez is for civil unions but against gay marriage.
• The Daily News goes to Asbury Park to hear from the small but strong gay community there. A black minister from Maryland wrote an op-ed calling the ruling a "warning to the majority of African-Americans" who don't support gay marriage and urging them to vote.
• In an editorial, the New York Sun said the New Jersey Supreme Court should not have ruled on the matter at all and should have instead deferred to the legislature. And aren't we lucky that the New York Court of Appeals isn't so rash.
• The New York Post just wanted to write a "Shades of Gay" headline.

Eliot Spitzer LOVES gay people.Photograph by Patrick McMullan

The New Jersey Supreme Court's decision to recognize same-sex couples will compel the State Legislature to either allow gay marriage or create civil unions. New Jersey is the latest New York neighbor to legalize some sort of gay union, and we might be slow to (ahem) keep up with the Jerseyites.

Soon-to-be governor Eliot Spitzer is unequivocally in favor of gay marriage, telling the Empire State Pride agenda on October 5, "This is not about government choosing winners or losers. It's about a government that recognizes the fundamental individual value of every single New Yorker." And 53 percent of New Yorkers agree, according to an April poll.

But most likely, Spitzer won't be pushed to take this matter before the legislature until 2009. Only one Republican in the State Senate's GOP majority — Nicholas Spano, of Yonkers — supports same-sex unions. Few believe the Democrats will gain a majority in the Senate this year, leaving Spitzer with two years to amass a record of success on his governmental-reform agenda of lowering taxes and balancing the state budget before attempting to take on a controversial social issue. In one of his debates with John Faso, Spitzer was clear that he would not make gay marriage an early priority in his administration.

No matter what happens, here or in New Jersey, by getting out front on the issue, Spitzer gives himself a cushy spot from which to watch the debate in New Jersey and the national discussion unfold. If gay marriage doesn't come to New York, it will always be the do-nothing legislature, not the mealy mouthed governor, that failed.

New Jersey Okays Gay Marriage [Daily Intelligencer]

• Big hooray for Jersey's gays. [Star Ledger]
• And here's some helpful context. [NYT]
• Pataki returns from war-torn Hungary to get the ball rolling on Hevesi ouster. [NYDN]
• Carter for Comptroller. [NYDN]
• Young Republicans show up to mess with Hevesi's pre-debate mojo. [NY1]
• Pirrotown cops back Cuomo. [NYP]
• Bill "How You Like Me Now?" Clinton hits upstate. [Albany Times Union]
• Spencer-Pirro scuffle reminds Republicans how screwed they are. [Newsday]
• Spitzer, holding nose and whispering "he stanky," steps back from Hevesi. [NYT]
• Newsday backs Callaghan. [Newsday]

Ah, those mischievous political gods: This afternoon, New Jersey's Supreme Court issued a ruling that seems to move the state closer to legalizing same-sex marriage or its civil-union equivalent. The court also handed Republicans a badly needed cultural weapon twelve days before Election Day.

Tonight, New York gay leaders have a long-awaited sit-down with Senator Hillary Clinton in the Upper East Side apartment of Democratic donor Sally Minard. As if they needed a conversation starter: Clinton has opposed same-sex marriage while otherwise saying the proper things about equal rights, a stance that's earned her considerable scorn locally. Most recently, she quietly endorsed extending insurance benefits to the domestic partners of federal workers. The activists would like to see some moral courage from Clinton, even if her legislative incrementalism is the only politically realistic option as long as Republicans control Congress.

— Chris Smith

New Jersey Okays Gay Marriage [Daily Intelligencer]

Nothing brings joy (and votes) to a snowed-in town like federal relief.Courtesy iStockphoto.com

The cost of relief needed for home and business owners is estimated at $95 million and will be handled by FEMA. In this post-Katrina world, FEMA took only two weeks to respond to the storm. But if you're assuming incompetence explains the tardy arrival of the much-needed assistance, well, you're not nearly as conspiracy-minded as you should be.

Buffalo Pundit sees evil where all others can only see stupidity. Republican incumbent and troubled friend of Foley Tom Reynolds promised the relief as early as last Sunday, but nothing arrived until yesterday — the same day Reynolds testified before the House Ethics Committee regarding his involvement in the Foley scandal.

Though the National Republican Congressional Committee (which Reynolds chairs) recently left the embattled incumbent off its campaign-relief list, $95 million in free advertising ought to compensate.

WNY Gets Disaster Designation [Buffalo News]

Fortuitous Timing, No? [Buffalo Pundit]

NRCC Seeks Cash Infusion [Capitol Confidential]

VP Dick Cheney contemplates just how long he can make
this war last if Hillary runs in 2008.Getty Images

Yesterday, Cheney told USA Today: "I think Hillary Clinton is a formidable candidate. I think she could win. I hope she doesn't. I disagree with her on nearly all the issues, but nobody should underestimate her. She's a very serious candidate for president."

Early and Often has translated this statement for those of you who don't speak Cheney: "Please nominate Hillary Clinton. Oh, God, oh, God, please. We know Democrats are stupid, but just in case you're not that stupid, let me stress again when I say 'she can win,' I really mean 'she has no chance of winning.' So please, pull the trigger on this insanely foolish idea and drive your little hybrid car off the cliffs of destiny."

Republicans long ago received the memo in which it was specified that whenever Hillary comes up, they are always supposed to act scared or deferential or whatever it takes to get her closer to giving an acceptance speech come mid-July 2008. Here in New York, conservative talk-show hosts were early adopters of this trend. Hillary-hate screeds from callers that would have met with barking approval in 1998 were tut-tutted in 2002 with sheepish admissions that although, yes, she is evil incarnate, you gotta admit she has been a decent senator for New York.

Now the trickle-up approach has reached all the way to the Veep. There's one higher-up left to endorse Hillary's candidacy. When will the other cowboy boot drop?

Cheney Says Hillary Clinton Could Win, Hopes She Doesn't [USA Today]

When this campaign season got rolling round about Labor Day, everyone knew Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton were sure of certain victory come November 7. But even surer of certainer victory was Alan Hevesi. Obviously, that is no longer the case.

Our comptroller's free-spending ways don't end with state-subsidized car rides for the old lady. He also took two taxpayer-funded trips to Las Vegas and two more to Tel Aviv to the tune of about $35,000. While all the other comptrollers were eating at Denny's and clipping coupons, Alan Hevesi was drinking Hennessy at the Tropicana with Moe Green.

As Hevesi's bad-assness compounds, Democrats are fleeing from him. Republicans are acting like he's the worst thing for civic life since Nero rocked a fiddle. The Post endorsed his opponent. Republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno wants him out. The nonpartisan Citizens Union wants him out, and Eliot Spitzer probably wants him out, though he's still parsing the exact phrasing. Upstate congressional hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand is asking for his resignation to bolster her own credentials as a candidate of "ethics and accountability."

All because a guy wanted his sick wife to suffer a little less and get around a little easier. And play a little roulette on the back of working man.

Pressure Builds on Hevesi to Resign in Ethics Case [NYT]
State's Moneyman Jet-sets — First Class — on N.Y.ers' Dime [NYDN]

Have you seen this woman?Photograph by Patrick McMullan

"It's been quiet compared to the last three weeks," says Pirro spokesperson John Gallagher.

Yesterday Pirro did radio and television interviews in the Buffalo area and stayed at her mother's house in Elmira, where mom made dinner for Pirro and a couple of traveling companions. Today she has a fund-raiser in Binghamton and an endorsement from the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce. Tonight she'll be back downstate speaking to the Bronx Realty Advisory Board at the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Pirro will end her evening in Westchester speaking to the Westchester-Rockland Society of Pharmacists. This event isn't open to the public, but if you can sneak in, pack your Zoloft. Those cats can party.

If you want to get on Team Pirro, there's a "Jeanine Pirro Get Out the Vote Meeting" tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. at the Metropolitan Republican Club, 122 E. 83rd St., nr. Lexington Ave.

Catch the wave!

Cuomo for Attorney General [NYP]

Can This Marriage Be Saved? [NYM]

Free publicity isn't easy to come by in a pay-for-play culture such as ours. The stage light of fate falls where it may and rarely fixes its gaze for long. Like any student of the biz, John Spencer's handler, Rob Ryan, knows this rule. He's spinning like a top to keep his boy from falling off the front page and into the ass-end of the "Metro" section from whence few polls rise.

Yesterday Ryan continued to stoke the simmering controversy initiated by his charge's untoward comments about Senator Hillary Clinton's appearance. In a letter to the Daily News, he questioned "blogger/reporter" Ben Smith's account of the Spencer story. Like Broadway Danny Rose working a one-legged juggler, Ryan sets about making stew out of gruel:

For some reason, known only to him, Mr. .Smith seems to believe that the word "work" automatically translates into "plastic surgery". Perhaps he should keep up on the news and read what his fellow bloggers have to say on the matter. Just yesterday, Amanda Carpenter, a respected editor and author, wrote on the blog HILLARY WATCH that in the months of April and May 2006 the Clinton campaign reported spending $3,000 on celebrity hairstylist Isabelle Goetz to work on Senator Clinton's hair. In the month of May alone, Senator Clinton's campaign spent $2800 on the talents of make-up artist Barbara Lacey to work her magic on Mrs. Clinton. Are these professionals not being paid for their work?

Through-out both stories Mr. Smith runs rough shod over the quotes and the facts. Two glaring examples of inaccuracies are the claim that last Friday he and Mr. Spencer were on the "10:30 am JetBlue flight" — yet no such flight exists. Mr. Smith also refers to me as Mayor Spencer's "campaign manager" — a position I do not hold. My business card lists me as Communications Director and I have also been referred to as "campaign spokesperson" but, never campaign manager. While both these matters may appear trivial, I feel they are indicative of the sloppiness with which Mr. Smith has approached this story. If he can't report these simple facts correctly, how can we expect him to accurately report quotes without a tape recorder or without written notes?

It's hard to imagine John Spencer seeing Hillary's hair and saying, "Oh, that styling has Isabelle Goetz written all over it, and she does not come cheap" and then retroactively pricing the "work" to reach his estimated "millions" of dollars. But the idea of John Spencer: Secret Fashion Aesthete is intriguing. Nice work, Rob.

When in Doubt, Shoot the Messenger [Capitol Confidential]

• Hevesi hit Vegas. [NYDN]
• And he's still a gangsta. [NYDN]
• So his pals hit the deck. [NYT]
• Post endorses Callaghan for comptroller. [NYP]
• And not-Pirro for AG. [NYP]
• Republicans fear a sweep. [amNY]
• Bloomberg, superstar fund-raiser. [NYS]
• Spitzer and Faso promise to break up "three guys in a room" Albany system. [Albany Times Union]
• Reynolds's day in court. [Rochester Democrat & Chronicle]

Gifford Miller has been teaching politics at NYU since the spring, avoiding the practice of politics since losing in last year's Democratic mayoral primary and being term-limited out of his job as City Council speaker. Until tonight.

Miller is launching "Fair Share New York" with a party at Georgette Mosbacher's Upper East Side apartment. "The city starts the game $20 billion behind," Miller says. "That's how much more in taxes we send to Albany and Washington than we get back." Fair Share will ask New York's prolific political donors — "six zip codes in the city contributed $61 million to federal candidates last year," Miller points out — to close their checkbooks until public officials promise a more equitable split for the city.

By decrying the imbalance, Miller joins an exalted line of advocates. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan started making the point early and eloquently in the seventies, and last April, Mayor Michael Bloomberg invited some of the city's biggest political cash machines to lunch at the Four Seasons and gave each a handy wallet-size card listing the demands they should make on the city's behalf. Not much has changed over the years, however. "Senators, governors, mayors, they have a lot on their plates," Miller says. "I think it will be valuable to have one organization that focuses only on this."

That the Republican doyenne Mosbacher is hosting Fair Share's event is only one indication of the eclectic, well-connected board Miller has assembled. It includes Bloomberg administration vets Marc Shaw and Bill Cunningham as well as Republican eminence John Whitehead and Democratic financier Robert Zimmerman. It's the kind of bipartisan coalition that a smart, 36-year-old former elected official looking to position himself for a new office might put together. Miller laughs. "This is not my political vehicle, and I'm not looking to be its face," he says. "I'm enjoying being out of office. My Microsoft Outlook calendar only runs until 2020. After that, I don't know."

— Chris Smith

Fair Share New York

What Up, G? [NYM]

Chris Callaghan looks forward to crowded press conferences.Courtesy of Callaghan for New York

J. Christopher Callaghan is driving his '99 Honda Civic east on the thruway right now and talking (through an earpiece, of course) about something that never seemed possible for his Cinderella campaign for state comptroller: a television ad!

"I'm feeling greeeat!" he says. "Cable is within financial reach. I think we can make that happen."

Yesterday, editorial boards pounced on an ethics report that found Alan Hevesi's use of a chauffeur for his wife and his failure to properly reimburse his office unlawful. Today, GOP operatives at the New York Republican State Committee frantically began making calls to raise money for Callaghan and cut his bare-bones campaign a $25,000 check.

"The ethics ruling changes everything," says Ryan Moses, the committee's executive director, who's also planned a Monday fund-raiser for Callaghan. "We're not gonna leave a stone unturned when it comes to this race."

The $25,000 check is big money for Callaghan. As of today, Callaghan says his campaign has a measly $10,000 on hand — money he claims is already committed. (Hevesi reported about $5.9 million in funds to the New York State Board of Elections earlier this month.)

And Callaghan's got a long way to go to get on air — even in small markets. Political strategists estimate any legitimate television campaign could cost $1 million bucks, give or take. "Having $25,000 in the New York market around Election Day is like taking a nickel and dumping it in the Pacific Ocean and hoping you can find it a month later," says Dem consultant Hank Sheinkopf. "Could he do it? Sure. He could produce it on cardboard and Ogdensburg [a city near the Canadian border, pop. 12,364] could watch it like twelve, fifteen times."

— Geoffrey Gray

Don't Count Him Out [NYM]

Spitzer doesn't get all smiley for just anyone.Courtesy Spitzer-Paterson 2006

Like sands in the hour glass, these questions fall …

And speaking of daytime dramas, where the hell has Jeanine Pirro been to take some of this heat? It's been a rough day.

Spitzer Cools to Hevesi [Empire Zone]

The time has come. Tomorrow. 7 p.m. Tune into "Inside City Hall" on NY1 and find out definitively (and finally) what exactly it is that a comptroller does. You may be shocked, you may be alarmed. Life as you know it may never be the same. But at least you'll know. And knowing is half the battle.

After weeks of ducking invitations to square off in a head-to-head battle of comptrolling skills, sitting (or is that teetering?) state comptroller Alan Hevesi will take on opponent Chris Callaghan. The one-hour debate may touch on a few other issues beyond the ins and outs of pension-plan management. But we're just guessing.

So, what does one wear to a comptroller's debate?

Spitzer May Withdraw Support for Hevesi as Candidates Gear Up for Debate [NY1]

The dogfight for the Twentieth Congressional is getting meaner and meaner by the nanosecond, with mud slung at rates rarely attempted in even the most heated contests. Now, even the candidates' families are being soiled.

The Kirsten Gillibrand campaign claims the John Sweeney campaign and its supporters have attacked her brother, husband, even her dear old granny. The Sweeney campaign says the Gillibrand campaign and its supporters have harassed his wife and kids with anonymous voice messages, e-mails, letters, and flyers.

The fracas has prompted Sweeney, the Republican incumbent, to attempt a political performance piece that's not entirely within his skill set: the personal appeal. The Sweeneys seem like fine, sweater-wearing folk who perhaps have not been in the same room together since Home Improvement got canceled. When the cue card reads "TURN TO HER WITH LOVING GAZE," Sweeney lands on something much closer to "uh, have we met?" Come to think of it, is that even the real Mrs. Sweeney or a "Mrs. Sweeney" the ad agency brought along for the shoot? Has Mrs. Sweeney been so traumatized by the Gillibrand campaign's intimidations and smears that she's gone into seclusion?

The Sweeney and Gillibrand campaigns have pursued decidedly different approaches in showing how much they hate the opposing side. Gillibrand's ads have riffed on Hollywood movies and crafted improv-troupe-style skits to take shots at her adversary. Sweeney gets the mothers of dead solders to speak for him. But here it seems the down-home-authenticity thing has hoisted Candidate Soft-Tough on his own folksy petard.

Watch "No Honor" [John Sweeney for Congress]
Yeah, and So's Your Mother [Capitol Confidential]

Besides, anyone who's taken on the yeoman's task of contemplating John Spencer's visage might notice his complexion is hardly peaches-and-cream perfect. Maybe the health plan for Yonkers public employees couldn't hook up "millions" in plastic surgery, but how bad could the co-pay have been on a microdermabrasion?

Meanwhile, as Clinton was cutting up her nemesis, he was backtracking from another comment. A columnist for the Journal News said that Spencer made an "off-color remark" (i.e., steamy) about Mrs. Clinton's sexuality.

The writer, Phil Reisman, said that he asked Spencer if he would label Clinton a liberal in their debates last weekend. Reisman says Spencer "said words to the effect of, 'Well, you know me, words slip out, but I won't call her a lesbian or anything.'"

Whenever the remote control in John Spencer's mind flips past Hillary Clinton, the Spice Channel is only one click away.

Face It, I Was 'Cute,' Hil Sez [NYDN]

Opponent Is Put on the Spot Over Remarks About Clinton [NYT]

Yesterday the word came down loud and clear. Hevesi is the first statewide official to be charged with wrongdoing by the State Ethics Commission. Citing security concerns, Hevesi had a public employee chauffeur his wife, Carol, around at taxpayer expense to the tune of $82,000.

That screaming sound is your pocketbook crying for mercy. It hurts, doesn't it?

Here are the specific findings of the commission. For those of you who suffered through black dark periods in our nation's history like Teapot Dome and Troopergate, this will merely be another sad example of the malfeasance we've come to expect from our elected officials. For younger readers, some of whom may be casting their first vote this very year, well, your nightmare of civic disillusionment had to begin sometime.

1. Hevesi's security concerns for his wife were illegitimate.

2. When the state police told Hevesi that his wife didn't need a private driver, he ignored them.

3. When Hevesi agreed to reimburse the state, he came up with a sum of $82,688.82, a figure the commission suggests is too low. Moreover, Hevesi's "failure to keep any record that would allow for proper reimbursement suggests that Mr. Hevesi did not intend to reimburse the state."

In Hevesi's defense, his wife is plagued by chronic back pain; has undergone a series of surgeries, including open-heart surgery; and suffers from severe depression. But this isn't about her, is it, Alan?

Hevesi released this statement: "I made a mistake," he said. "I am deeply sorry. I offer no excuses. I will continue to cooperate fully with any inquiry. I ask New Yorkers for their understanding and hope they will judge me on the basis of my performance as comptroller and my 35-year record of public service."

Hevesi's reelection this year is likely. As a low-profile officeholder on a Democratic slate, he is almost certain to keep his job. Yes, he's being investigated by the man at the top of the ticket, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and may have to resign upon winning. But his ability to slip underneath detection of the public at large is in keeping with his criminal pathology. Did Hevesi seek a position most people don't know exists as the perfect nest from which to hatch his plans? Were his many years in the State Assembly, failed run for mayor, and years as city comptroller all part of a plot to reach a perch just high enough to do evil but just low enough that no one would notice?

Read the report. [New York State Ethics Commission]

Ethics Panel Raps Hevesi [NYDN]

• Spencer can't get Hillary off the brain. [NYT]
• Hillary cheers herself up. [NYDN]
• Hevesi, a lonely fugitive. [Newsday]
• Cheese-eating Reynolds sings like a canary. [Rochester Democrat & Chronicle]
• Pre-victory, Cuomo takes post-victory vacation. [NYDN]
• Lieberman and Lamont take their final curtain call. [NYT]
• There are many pretty songs in Joe Lieberman's Iraq-war hymnal. [NYT]
• Hillary: Only Dems can save New York. [Albany Times Union]

Tom Kean Jr. and Robert MenedezIllustration by Darrow

Manhattan GOP leader James Ortenzio is under investigation.

Comptroller candidate Chris Callaghan tries out his laugh lines.

Collect them all!Photograph courtesy of Spectre Studios/eBay

K-Mart is stocked to the rafters with Hillary crosses, but you'll look just like every other voter at the polls. Give a gift that reflects the uniqueness of this election cycle while stirring the heart (and possibly a couple of other organs as well).

Give an overage someone you love a Mark Foley doll. [eBay]

GOP Senate hopeful John Spencer
loves rehashing the sixties.Courtesy Spencer For Senate

'It's so ridiculous that Ben Smith, the blogger sitting next to me on an airplane, who quite frankly, made statements that I surely wouldn't repeat about other candidates in the race. He was in a giddy mood making statements, so I think in his conversational mind with a jet engine blowing in his right ear, uh … we had a rambling conversation about the sixties. That's what our conversation was about and how he came out with those ridiculous fabrications is beyond me."

So what was their "rambling conversation" like? The E&O Speculator has the answers:

Smith: So, what were the sixties like for you, Mr. Spencer?

Spencer: Pretty empty. Hillary Clinton wasn't in my life yet, and so I had no focus, no direction. I enlisted in Vietnam, out of desperation more than anything. I wouldn't have done that if I'd had the grounding power of love. I'd have stayed in school, maybe gone to graduate school. I'm a pretty bright guy, ran a whole city, ya know. Anyway, yeah, the sixties sucked. Now, if you'll pardon me, these JetBlue flights are my only chance to watch competitive bass fishing.

A Conversational Mind [The Politicker]

We've already sussed out the romantic aspect of Sunday's debate, but there was a collegial moment as well. John Spencer said at one point that Clinton would make a "tremendous" presidential candidate.

Hillary didn't entirely live up to the billing, but she was downright breezy at points. As she often has trouble connecting with an audience, the antiseptic environs of a TV studio had the weird effect of loosening her up. For her that means policy over personality. She was effortlessly on point on all issues except, yeah, the big one. (On abortion she added a nice bit adoption and cutting teen pregnancies to the Bill stadard "safe, legal, and rare". If Kerry had her comfort on the issue in his town-hall debate against George Bush in 2004, he may have earned a few extra thousand votes.) On the war, Hillary's still in a fog. This time, she said her vote gave Bush approval to let the weapons inspectors return, adding the strangely psychoanalytical assertion that Bush needed that authority because Saddam may have wanted to out-terror Al Qaeda with another attack. Well, at least that's a new line.

Clinton Stays on Talking Points in Senate Debate [NYT]

Hil Better Watch Her Barack [NYDN]

Hands, touching hands, reaching outPhotograph by James Estrin/AP

"You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," said Spencer of Clinton's younger days. "I don't know why Bill married her." Spencer conceded that Clinton "looks good now," thanks to lots of plastic surgery.

Spencer's pinheaded comments are especially striking considering his fawning treatment of Clinton in their two debates this weekend. In fact, they suggest more is at stake than Spencer is letting on. If you'll recall the mating rituals of junior-high gym class, roughly the apogee of Spencer's intellectual maturation, the male often attempts to court the female through negative assertions about her appearance, clothes sense, smell, etc. Now John Spencer is not an untalented courtier. He has wooed women into wearing the sobriquet Mrs. John Spencer on three different occasions, so you know the guy can throw a little game. Telling Ben Smith "Hillary has cooties" would have tipped his hand too much. He played brilliantly, leading with the harsh stuff ("I don't know why Bill married her") and then throwing in the sweetener ("she looks good now"). Witness, amateur studs, he's got her coming and going.

On Friday night, he played it cool, showing Hillary his command of the issues and staying above petty political jabs to show her he's a gentlemen.

By Sunday morning, Spencer couldn't contain himself. At one point, viewers were shown a recent Time cover with a picture of Hillary Clinton and boxes in which readers could check "love her" or "hate her." Hillary chuckled. Spencer lunged like the jungle lion he is. "I like Hillary Clinton," he said plainly and clearly into his mike. Later he noted that she was younger than he is, making it pretty obvious that his "like" was, in fact, full on "like-like."

This doesn't just explain why Spencer wants more debates; it explains his entire candidacy. He can't win. He wouldn't know what to do if he did. He's underfunded, shunned by his party, and unpopular among prospective voters. But he'll endure all that for a chance to get near the maiden he pines for. You have to admire a guy who'll travel all over the state staging events no one shows up for and espousing ideas most people find terrifying, just to get a few fleeting moments in the same room as the girl he fancies. Of course Spencer wants more debates; they're the only opportunity his hungry heart has of finally being made whole.

Mud in the Face [NYDN]

• Times: Vote Spitzer. [NYT]
• Times: Vote Cuomo (sorta). [NYT]
• Hillary has another breezy debate. [Newsday]
• Spitzer and Bloomberg are ready to rumble, collegially. [NYP]
• Our emo comptroller gets personal. [NYDN]
• And he gets dissed. [Poughkeepsie Journal)
• Maybe debating would help his image. [NYP]
• Tom Reynolds crowned Snow Bunny '06. [Buffalo News]
• Coasting Lieberman stays tough. [Hartford Courant]