Check out this bit, a late-night item by the executive editor that begins, "OK, there's the first edition gone" and includes this:

"There was a bit of a rumpus with one of our leader writers who was so furious about the former Home Secretary's inability to balance liberty with security that he called him 'appallingly short sighted'. Luckily another of our leader team gently pointed out that he was actually blind, so we took that phrase out."

The Observer (no corporate relation to us, though we like them, and occasionally write for them) is the Sunday sister publication of the Guardian and one of Britain's great old papers. The new blog, along with being quite entertaining, strikes us as offering a kind of genuine media transparency that no number of ombudspeople and sober J-school evaluations can match. The editors see it as a way of opening up their "internal conversation" about everything from last week's paper to, yes, Marmite, as they say in this funny little introduction.

We can't quite imagine the Sunday New York Times, or any other American paper, letting a young editor and some writers loose in the newsroom like this, with occasional contributions from the big guns. (Well, we sort of can. We nominate NY Observer alum Jim Rutenberg for the editor's job...and not just because we're already tired of competing with him.)

Anyway, we'll add Observer Blog to our blogroll for those days when Gloomberg becomes unbearable.

The move is kind of a no-brainer for the Brooklyn Councilman, who makes no secret of his ambition to be the next City Council Speaker and who can use all the goodwill he can get from the Bronx.

But that doesn't mean it's not interesting. We're probably not the only ones who see this endorsement as important in that it reflects the considered judgement of a guy with very good political instincts. De Blasio, a former political operative, worked for David Dinkins and for Hillary. While serving in the Council, he ran
John Edwards's local campaign. Now he's betting on Freddy, or at least betting Freddy can help him.

We're told Bill broke the bad news to Gifford this morning.

Quinn is a former executive director of the New York State Republican Party and a veteran of the bitter post-election action in Florida in 2000. His presence on the campaign would indicate a level of seriousness about the political mechanics -- fundraising, petitioning, etc -- that we hadn't quite seen from Ognibene, and that his critics were hinting would not exist.

The two men had lunch at the Beekman Pub today, and we're told that Quinn is "very likely" to come on board. That probably means we'll see a real campaign from the right, and a headache for the Mayor.

Johnson is a very nice guy -- last time we saw him around here, in 2002, he was the spokesman for failed Comptroller candidate Bill Mulrow; then he jumped over to Tom Golisano's failed campaign for Governor -- and perhaps he has a career as a top strategist before him.

But the reported Clinton connection is raising some eyebrows. Former top Clinton campaign aides say they've "never heard of him."

UPDATE: Johnson tells us he volunteered for Clinton before he got into professional politics, working in the research shop no less.

Now her campaign appears to be thinking the same way. The Forward's politics blog is reporting that she just hired Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel's former chief of staff, consultant Arnie Linhardt, and an Orthodox Jewish operative, Adena Berkowitz.

Freddy himself hinted at one possibility in Newday yesterday, where he talked about his MLK Day pilgrimage to Sharpton's annual event:

"Someone asked me, 'Are you here to genuflect to Rev. Sharpton?'" Ferrer said of that day. "As I thought about the events of that day, I realized Mike Bloomberg actually did a good job of that."

One passage from Hilton Kramer's scathing rant at the project is really sticking with us:

"For what they signify is New York's surrender to a kind of tourist trade devoid of artistic consequence.... They make our city look more and more like a pushover for provincial charlatans."

And in support of the charlatan theory, the Frequent Questions section of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's website does read like some small-town imagining of what Artists are really like:

Q: How do you find inspiration and get past creative blocks?
A: All our projects come from ideas out of our two hearts, and our two brains, (we never create works coming from other people's ideas).

We at the Politicker make no such claims of originality, and indeed we're willing to give Lizzy Ratner credit for spotting the ridiculous FAQ.

A couple of older guys were the ones who recognized Weiner. "Councilman Winer" is how one regular introduced him to two older women, but never mind, that's close enough. And after he left, our conversation with another Park Slope old-timer in late middle-age, Bill, seemed to support the theory that makes Anthony a strong candidate.

Bill, who called himself an independent, had voted for Giuliani twice, and then for Green. He doesn't like Bloomberg, because Mike lacks a "bedside manner."

Freddy? "Fernando Ferrer. He wants to raise taxes."
Gifford? "I don't even know what he looks like."
Virginia? "Don't know her."

But he kind of liked Anthony, who had chatted with him briefly a moment before, and who he (rightly) associated with Chuck Schumer.
"Weiner, I could take a chance on Weiner," he said.

We honestly don't quite know what to make of this story. As we reported last March, Wachtel is an energetic, eclectic guy who revived his father's Drum Major Institute, employed Freddy, and generated quite a lot of campaign money for him, some from surprisingly low-level staff. On H. Carl McCall's failed bid for governor, Wachtel was known as the "hat king" for giving out campaign hats.

He seems to have gotten a sweet deal from the Port Authority in exchange for his attempt to keep the ferries running, which seems like a good deed to us. Perhaps he'll be Ferrer's Ferry advisor.

The Mayor hasn't given a real interview in more than a year. But he apparently found time to sit down with a reporter from Lifestyles Magazine and with "a little-known author...working on a book about Eagle Scouts."

Over in Room 9, meanwhile, there's been grumbling that Mike hasn't granted a free-ranging sit-down to a newspaper reporter since Christmas of 2003. This winter, he ended the longstanding tradition of mayors granting year-end interviews to the major outlets. (We haven't had a sit-down with him for longer than that, so perhaps we should go to the front of the line. Ed?)

Anyway, we're not sure how Mike's making time to talk about his Boy Scout accomplishments and his fancy houses fits with Skyler's comment:

"The mayor's schedule reflects that he is a tireless worker who is always doing his best for the people of New York City."

There are two conspiracy theories about Michael Benjamin's bid for Public Advocate: That he's in it to help Freddy raise minority turnout; and that he's in it to sabotage lawyer Norman Siegel on behalf of the incumbent, Betsy Gotbaum.

Those who think Benjamin's bid is about something other than actually becoming Public Advocate can take comfort in the unusual postscript to a recent Benjamin email to prospective donors:

"P.S. I don't have to give up my Assembly seat in order to run. This is an off-year-election. If unsuccessful, I will seek re-election to the Assembly in 2006."

And the presence of an African-American man in the contest does complicate Siegel's campaign, which notes prominently on its Website -- under the first heading, "race relations" -- that "His leadership will embolden citizens to speak their hearts on the charged issue of racialism as a factor in police misconduct."

This throws a wrench into the campaigns of a pair of openly-gay candidates in the race, Margarita Lopez and Brian Ellner. It also puts to rest one of those lovely West Side blood-feuds, which opened in 1994 when Duane ran for Congress against Stringer patron Jerry Nadler.

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America." - Bill Clinton's First Inaugural.

According to the Times of London, the presumptive PM, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, didn't take kindly to Hillary's suggestion that his rise is "grounds both for concern and for... vigilance."

"Clearly irritated, the candidate...brushed aside the remark yesterday. 'We are not at an American traffic light to be given a red or green signal. I am speaking on behalf of a collective decision. I will stop when the Iraqi people say to stop,' he said. 'Hillary Clinton, as far as I know, does not represent any political decision or the American Administration and I don't know why she said this. She knows nothing about the Iraqi situation.'"

And over at a website called "Al Jazeerah" and apparently not related to the Qatar-based television network, contributor Sam Hamod added these kind words: "Once again, showing that she's as evil politically as her husband, ex-president Clinton, the shill for Israel--Hillary Clinton is in the infamous American fortress called 'the green zone,' telling the Iraqis who should be their next Prime Minister.... After all, who tells Hillary what to do, and gives her the money to remain in office--the biggest zionist voting bloc in history, in New York City. Thus, Hillary is there to do the bidding of her zionist constituency, not the American people's constituency, nor for freedom or justice in the world."

Juan Cole, who thinks Hillary's wrong on the merits, has a somewhat saner analysis of the situation.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post, we mistakenly attributed Sam Hamod's views to the television network Al Jazeera; his op-ed is in fact posted on a website with a very similar name, Al-Jazeerah, but wilder-eyed views. We appear not to be the only ones who made this mistake.

First, a translation for the uninitiated: Research, in political-speak, mostly means opposition research, or dirt-digging. ("Not exclusively opposition research" was how Brian Hardwick, Miller's campaign manager, described the expenditure to us.) Also, everybody does it, including the campaigns who periodically pretend to be appalled by it.

Anyway, our own research on these researchers led us first to the "K" in the group's name, a Carleton College press release about one Howard Kushlan, former aide to Senators Wellstone, Bradley, and Graham.

The "H" is Jay Howser, Kushlan's boss on the Bob Graham campaign and a man whose passing political fame came in 1998, when the Governor of Alabama warned him not to be a "pimp."

But we have a feeling that it's the "A" in AK&P; who's been digging the dirt on Freddy and the others. That would be Katie Allison, former McCall campaign researcher and resident of the same Brooklyn zip code to which AK&P's checks are being sent.

Now, we have no problem with negative campaigning, and the cause of Democratic Party unity doesn't get us very excited. But so far, those books seem to have stayed on the shelves, and Gifford has mostly been the target of barbs from Anthony. But our wiser friends tell us that, if Freddy's lead holds, his rivals will have to try to muddy him. So perhaps we'll get a glimpse of what Allison's been up to after all.

He's still the only candidate, however, who seems actually to enjoy Koch-esque street politics, so we're very sorry we missed his City Hall encounter with pro-stadium union members.

As Newsday has it:

"[A]fter the news conference he bounded out of the plaza, past the gate to confront his adversaries.

'What are you, a bunch of rich Upper East Siders?' asked Weiner, who supports putting the stadium in Willets Point.

The workers, who seemed more amused than menacing, formed a circle around Weiner and chanted 'Stadium!' -- which Weiner kept punctuating with 'in Queens!'"

Our read is that "the Attorney General's embrace of the former Bronx Borough President will likely be the single most important endorsement of the Mayor's race and a centerpiece of Mr. Ferrer's campaign."

We heard a lot from Freddy's rivals about how the overlapping political operations at 895 Broadway explain the alliance, but we're inclined to discount that stuff in favor of looking at how they can be helpful to each other.

Also in the piece, Chuck and Hillary signal that they won't be in the primary -- though Chuck will back the Democrat -- and Brian Hardwick holds out hope that Chairman Dean will be of aid to his erstwhile Gifford.

CORRECTION: Gifford, Steve Sigmund points out to us, is not "erstwhile," which means "former." We thought it meant "steady." We also hear the erstwhile Green aide did well on his GREs.

Chuck claims never to have nightmares, but after seeing Million Dollar Baby -- warning, we're about to ruin the ending -- he wound up dreaming of Hillary Swank on the respirator. Our Freudians see this as a metaphor for the condition of the Democratic Party.

Also, don't miss this little backhanded shot at Eliot:

"Governor's a great job: you get an airplane, you get a helicopter, you get four bodyguards. But at the end of the day, who has left legacies? Javits and Moynihan."

"When it comes to the Olympics, and the conduct of NYC2012...the mayor has created at least the perception of a 'pay-to-play' operation," he said. "In light of the troubling news reports, the Conflicts of Interest Board should revisit its ruling that permitted the Mayor and his staff to fundraise for NYC2012."

Weiner quoted from our story, and also cited reporting in the Village Voice and on WNYC.

Which raises another troubling question: What's a crusader for the fed-up-outer-borough-working-guy doing reading our plutocratic, salmon-hued rag, not to mention a hippy-liberal free weekly and the favored radio station of the Upper West Side?

We asked Anthony about this apparent treason after the speech.

"I don't actually read those publications," he told us.

The whole piece is worth a read, but this item in particular struck us:

"The post-9/11 mayoralty: At some point, the Democratic nominee will have to square his or her shoulders and promise, 'I will keep you safer than Mike Bloomberg.' But none of the current candidates boast impressive national security credentials or an air of gravitas. For New York City voters, national security is a major part of the job description. If you don't buy that, study the 2004 presidential election results throughout the five boroughs: President Bush significantly improved his vote totals from 2000."

But it's not just the Democrats. Mike doesn't have any particular "national security credentials" either, and never really talks about terrorism. We've been repeatedly struck by how rarely any politician (with the occasional exception of Chuck Schumer and the regular one of Mike Balboni) ever mentions the only existential threat to New York City. And it's not for a lack of issues. Chuck has found items like port security to keep him busy every Sunday. And other threats -- like the possibility, outlined in this scary paper, that terrorists could turn the lights out for years -- seem to be outside the realm of political debate.

One political pro once explained this silence to us on the grounds that politicians need to talk about "hopes not fears." But we suspect Karl Rove would differ.

"We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along."

Sager's and George's articles cast some light on the developing rift between the conservatives -- yes, we're still on conservatives -- around Rudy Giuliani, the Manhattan Instititute, the Journal and Post and Sun, on one hand; and the crowd running the GOP and the country on the other. New York vs. Washington is a shorthand for the split here, which is part cultural, part intellectual. On the cultural side, the New Yorkers are as likely to be Jewish as Christian; likely to have, as Barack Obama put it, gay friends; and unlikely to own guns.

But the ideological split is more important. For the New Yorkers, small government is often the end in itself, as is judicial restraint. They're libertarians and Reaganites when it comes to this. But for the Rick Santorums of the world, small government is a value that can be discarded when it comes to, say, government programs promoting marriage. And judicial restraint is just this week's line of attack against gay rights and abortion. If the legal tide shifts, they'll think of another one.

(New York's Conservative Party is aligned with the national movement. That may be part of why it's dying.)

Sager, along with being a Postie, is a fellow blogger and Sun alum. And for all his hawkishness and libertarianism, he apparently felt distinctly unwelcome at CPAC, as he writes at Tech Central Station:

"The arrogance that will prove problematic, ultimately, was that directed at the libertarian-leaning conservatives by the social conservatives. The message in that regard was clear: We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along.

"That was the message when Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute, who was on a panel to defend President Bush's proposed immigration reforms (supported by no less a conservative institution than The Wall Street Journal), was loudly booed by the anti-immigrant crowd. That was the message when a representative of the Log Cabin Republicans was booed and then asked by a student, 'You people [homosexuals, that is] already have the right to live together, you got the sex, what else do you people want?'

"In fact, if there was anything particularly striking about this year's CPAC, it is to just what extent Republicans have given up being the party of small government and individual liberty.

"Make absolutely no mistake about it: This party, among its most hard-core supporters, is not about freedom anymore. It is about foisting its members' version of morality and economic intervention on the country. It is, in other words, the mirror image of its hated enemy."

"Our bid today is a combination of a unique series of resources that I'm not sure are replicable," Doctoroff said in an interview.

Apparently, the U.S. Olympic Committee was under a different impression, however:

"Two officials associated with two other U.S. bids said they were under the impression that a long-term commitment was vital to winning the USOC's support, and some board members indicated at the time they believed New York was prepared to bid twice if necessary."

There's some evidence, though, that this isn't just a negotiating stance, and that Dan is serious when he says he won't bid again.

Brian Hatch, no fan of the stadium, notes that the folks at NYC2012 must be serious about not bidding again, since they never bothered registering the URL www.nyc2016.org.

That was left to a quick-thinking NYC2012 volunteer, Dan Flax, who told us that he grabbed the URL in 2002 when he noticed that the people running NYC2012 hadn't.

"I figured if something happened, it would be better if [the URL ] was available to them," he said.

Tomorrow, Anthony Weiner will insert the subject into the mayor's race with a speech at Columbia University. According to the advisory, he'll be demanding the city "shut 'secret backdoors' to City Hall influence," and calling for mandatory public disclosure of donors to NYC2012.

As Anthony appears to be pointing out, the pressure some feel to give to NYC2012 is the high-rent equivalent of the nickel-and-dime pay-to-play stuff that has tarnished administrations from Koch's to Pataki's.

In part, the mayor is a victim of his own fundraising purity here. He does have a point when he argues that he doesn't owe donors anything. But the mayor's billions have also put him in a world of charity boards and fundraising on a scale that could buy and sell most political campaigns many times over. And purity of motive seems quite a bit to assume of donors in either arena.

Now it emerges that the Board of Elections has disqualified 8 Conservative Party officials in Brooklyn. That's because they're dead, in one case for 9 years.

(We have this from a conservative blog, Right Side of New York. We're a bit puzzled by the debate below on whether we're neocons or more traditional conservatives(!?), but we'll risk inflaming it further by admitting that we read conservative blogs.)

Anyway, the blogger who turned this up links to a nice .pdf image of one of the Board of Elections notices. He also notes that Brooklyn is Long's home borough.

"Remember, just because you died almost 10 years ago doesn't mean that you won't have a promising political career ahead of you in the Conservative Party."

White is the longtime head of a drug treatment program in Jamaica, and was forced out by term limits. But back in his City Council days, White earned a bit of reputation. Namely, for not showing up.

Jennings attendance has been an issue as well, though we haven't heard his colleagues complaining about his absences.

We were unable to reach Duran today, and the Hispanic Federation wasn't returning calls. But we hear that the departure may have had something to do with the relationship between the non-profit and Cablevision, the company that owns Madison Square Garden. Cablevision recently hired the Federation's executive director, Lorraine Cortes-Vasquez, as vice president for government relations, with the portfolio of helping with its campaign against the West Side Stadium.

We'd love some more details on Duran's departure, and were hoping that one of our correspondents up in Albany this weekend for the Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus meeting could help us figure it out.

We imagine they particularly liked this piece, headlined "The Mayor's Political Liabilities Are Assets for the City."

For some reason, they didn't send out this new Reuters story about the Olympic Village site. The title: "Toxic Mess."

Also, we hope the folks over at New York Press aren't seeking any tax exemptions anytime soon. Their cover story this week, in big black lettering, is "Olympics Go Home."

The results of our extensive research aren't encouraging for the former Bronx Borough President. The last mustachioed mayor, John P. O'Brien, was a Tammany man who served less than a year in 1933 before being thumped by the clean-shaven Fiorello LaGuardia. O'Brien had a modest, Ferrer-like 'stache. If Freddy does decide to stick with it, though, perhaps he should go all the way and grow what we'll call a Van Wyck in honor of the first Mayor of Greater New York.

Henry Stern, who follows such things, explained to us the disappearance of moustaches from American politics in the second half of the 20th Century.

"Moustaches were dealt a heavy blow in the 1940s by the Fuhrer and by Governor Dewey," he said. "Harold Ickes [the FDR aide] described Dewey when he was running against Roosevelt as 'the little man on the wedding cake.'"

We can think offhand of two major moustaches on the city's political scene, belonging to Bernie Kerik and to the News's Bill Hammond. Neither man, we venture, will soon be running for public office.

As for Stern, he was agnostic on whether the moustache affects Freddy's chances of getting elected.

"If it became an impediment, I'm certain he would shave it," he said.

CORRECTION: We're really slipping here. Dinkins, of course, had a moustache! Not a Van Wyck, but no missing it. Things are looking up for Freddy.

An official of the development company, Majik Development Corporation, told reporters that Charlie Rangel -- who has been channeling Federal development aid to Harlem forever -- would have attended but had prior commitments.

But when the press caught up with Rangel at another event an hour later, and three blocks away, the congressman said he'd never been invited.

Anyway, here's a charming exchange from earlier this month on an Internet bulletin board called NYPD Rants, on the subject of "What's up with Hatzlolah" (the volunteer ambulance corps):

"BklynNorthsFinest: they are jews. they run the world. they do what they want.

ftj1: I know that silly! but I want the real answer

BklynNorthsFinest: you don't really want the real answer...they own the city and that includes us (you know the NYPD)....you can't handle the truth"

And the NYPD is the model agency for ethnic harmony!

Today, a club member writes in Newsday that Bloomberg was forced to cancel, and that he won't be invited to reschedule -- "at least, not until he extricates himself from the stadium morass."

This, obviously, is a sign of how the stadium threatens to overshadow the rest of Bloomberg's record among his natural supporters.

The BBC recently ran an entertaining, skeptical interview with Morris, who finds himself a key player in the movement to lead Britain out of the European Union.

"I think the greatest threat to democracy in the world is not terrorism but bureaucratism," he said, justifying his zeal for a party whose other goals include "zero net immigration" to the U.K.

His new associates are rather strange bedfellows for an old acolyte of the Third Way, and an odd match for a veteran of a Ukrainian revolution aimed squarely at joining the E.U. Until recently, Ukip was a fringe assortment of eccentrics and occasional extremists regarded by Labour and the Tories as the better-educated auxiliary of the far-right British National Party. It rose to prominence when Robert Kilroy-Silk, a kind of Oxbridge Geraldo, became its star. But Kilroy-Silk fell out with the old guard, and recently denounced his old compatriots.

His departure left a weakened party and left Morris, in Kilroy-Silk's words, in the company of "bloody Right-wing fascist nutters."

We called Jennings later to ask him about the protection, which he didn't exactly confirm or deny.

"I'm not going to discuss that stupid question," he told us, then abruptly broke off the conversation: "Listen, I have a little problem now."

We spoke to a Bloomberg aide last week, who sounded as confused as we were, but Bruce Lai, the extremely well-informed analyst on Gale Brewer's technology committee, has cleared things up a bit.

"211 is a referral service for non-profit social services, while 311 refers people who call with social service related issues to government agencies," he emailed us. Apparently, 211 operators need to know more than 311 operators, and is already up and running in places like Connecticut. "The City, led by DoITT, is in discussion with the United Way of New York City and other nonprofit organizations regarding how 211 and 311 could complement, not compete, with each other."

In case you were wondering.

"One of these days we're going to wake up and you'll have a female, Hispanic, Pentacostal Mayor saying that the public schools will have abstinence education," is how Tony Carnes, a Columbia University researcher, sees it. (His sympathetic November article in Christianity Today, "From Gotham to Glory," offers great details on the growing New York evangelical churches.)

Up in the Bronx, Ruben Diaz has been involved in overtly anti-gay politics for a while, but his stridency and his other political interests have limited his power, as has the fact that his contituency is basically limited to Spanish-speaking congregations.

The new addition to the scene is the City Action Coalition, an organization founded by a Brooklyn pastor named Joe Mattera. Its key players also include Central Baptist Church's Michael Faulkner. Like a lot of the churches it represents, the group is strikingly diverse. It's liberal on economic issues, but hard line on marriage and other "values" questions. Mattera et al. are still learning how to do politics, and their press conference Monday kept the crowd out in the cold rain long enough that Tom Ognibene ended up under gay-rights leader Alan Van Capelle's umbrella. They also don't yet know what to ask for, other than, you know, values.

But they'll figure out the details, and then watch out.

You'll be glad to learn that the Patakis' personal economic development policy apparently includes an office park...in Georgia. And that somehow a few New York State contractors turn up among the tenants.

"I don't think it's premature for an obituary," Baruch's Doug Muzzio told us, reflecting a growing consensus. "Forget it. The guy is not going to be President."

Based on our conversation yesterday with Pataki advisor Kieran Mahoney, we feel confident that he will consider both Muzzio and the authors of the article morons.

And you know it's political season when Verna Eggleston, the head of the city's welfare agency, returns from wherever she's spent the last three years. Never mind that her agency is widely viewed as adrift, as this Newsday article politely points out. It's election time, and she's introducing the mayor.

Bloomberg, looking happy and relaxed, laid out some campaign themes: "A leader not a politician...not only the tough decisions but the right decisions...optimism, integrity, and independence." The real theme, however, seemed to be volunteers, and Mike's newly launched website bears that out.

"I'm not asking for your money," he said. "I'm asking for your support, your dedication, and your commitment,"

And speaking of commitment, the elusive uber-guru David Garth made a personal appearance, and we had the pleasure of taking a bit of ritual abuse from a man who returns, say, 3% of our phone calls.

Garth was soon replaced at the door by Kevin Sheekey, who beamed at the crowd, which included his wife, a serious Democrat, who was even holding a sign. He promised to keep the bar open late, as the line stretched toward 7th Avenue and the mayor's sister thanked people for waiting and the mayor departed to what sounded to us like a new theme song: "Ain't No Stopping Us Now."

Nobody could give us a price tag for the event, which also included Mud Truck, the self-described "anti-establishment coffee machine of NYC's East Village," parked right outside. We asked the shaggy guy pouring tasty free coffee how much his services had set Mike back.

"Can you really put a price on a person's soul?" he replied.

Bloomberg's 50,000 volunteers -- and we're assuming that these are real volunteers, not "volunteers" in the same sense that Mike's charity is "anonymous" -- would give him a great comeback to the inevitable attacks on his wealth. His aides have no doubt learned a lot about organizing from the Presidential campaigns. And we don't doubt that there are a lot of people in the city who'd like to be involved, and who like Mike.

One interesting side note, however, is how the Republican National Convention turns out to have been a useful prologue to the campaign. Kevin Sheekey, obviously, is running both operations. But we've also noticed that the head of volunteers for the Convention, Mike Tracey, has moved into the same position on the Bloomberg campaign.

Tracey, according to this story from his NYU student newspaper, was an intern at the Host Committee before going on staff there. He also appears to be an actual Republican, which may make him the only one on the campaign so far.

Sheekey told us Tracey wouldn't be able to talk before tonight, mostly because he's too busy organizing the event. He also told us that they're not using Convention volunteer lists for the campaign.

But they will be able to capitalize on some of the Convention's volunteer infrastructure.

We're told that groups -- young Republican clubs, things like that -- were asked last summer to send the Host Committee spreadsheets of volunteers, ranked A, B, and C according to reliability and dedication. The Convention put the spreadsheets together. But there's nothing stopping Tracey from going back to the same groups, and even asking them to hit "send" again on the spreadsheets. So far, we've seen a mass email from the Metropolitan Republican Club directing its volunteers to contact Tracey directly.

So maybe that whole Convention thing was just practice for the main event. (Just joking, Kevin.)

Anyway, the volunteer fun begins tonight at 5:30 PM at B.B. King's in Times Square.

The story's worth the read, full of interesting observations and sensibility and the occasional revealing quote. But not too revealing. Hints from Ickes, praise from the official strange bedfellow, Lindsey Graham. And not a single chink in Hillary's armor, not a glimpse into what's happening behind the curtain. Indeed, the writer is slowly converted to the Party Line: that Hillary can win.

To a reporter, the story is as much as anything else about how maddening Clinton is to cover. You look so closely that the object starts to disappear.

Charlie Rangel, the Walt Whitman of Congress, of course says it best:

"I don't have the slightest clue who Hillary really is.... I don't think you ever find out who the real person is. All I see is a gal who knew she was as good as anyone else, and she saw this guy she could make something of, so she forfeited Illinois and went to Arkansas. That's a hell of a move to make for a redneck, which is all he was.

"I've found that the human mind is so fragile, you can believe what you're doing is right if other people want you to do it...If I was going to confession, and I had to talk about what adjustments I've made in public life, I don't know what I'd say. I don't remember contradicting myself, though I assume hundreds of reporters would say otherwise. Life's a changing thing."

Popular suggestions included the ostrich, which might make an uncomfortable costume, though we hear the Working Families Party actually has one in a closet. Then there's the pig, if you want to be blunt about it. And the duck, if you like puns. Pete Sikora, being a bit loose with the word "animal," suggests Fred Dicker in a maid's costume. We admit we'd like to see that.

None of you literal-minded types seemed particularly interested in the Bushies' dolphin or our gorilla-in-a-gorilla-mask.

We did, however, have one reader suggest a goat. "If it isn't too busy producing yogurt for Libby."

We stress that our non-partisan interest here is in open government. All the same, over to you, Wolfson.

We once got obsessed with figuring out who was writing it, and failed utterly, other than to decide that the anonymous author is a conservative Jewish Democrat and to make Bruce Teitelbaum reject the Bruce-Teitlebaum-is-Enos-Throop rumor a couple of times.

We noticed the other day, though, that the site has been sporadically updating again, and that their latest link is to one of our own stories from January. Enos, is that a cry for help?

Anyway, we continue to deplore the dearth of good web coverage of New York City politics, and we'd like to see PoliticsNY back in time for the mayor's race.

Only she thinks it should be called 2-1-1. There's some kind of local/state/federal dynamic going on here, and you can be sure that the FCC is involved. But wasn't the point to have fewer numbers, not more?

(The poll is embargoed until tomorrow, but since they didn't actually send us a copy, we don't see how we're bound by the embargo.)

Apparently, if you ask New Yorkers what their top priority is, only six percent say "reforming Albany." This seems an odd way to go about asking that question; you could, for example, ask people if they think Albany is broken.

And indeed, we're told that the private polls that politicians around the state are doing on this issue are giving them the opposite result. Shelly Silver's leap into the "reform" camp, for example, only came after he saw the results of a Tom Kiley poll that showed reform as a hot issue.

One item we liked in the Pace Poll, lest the people who work in, and cover, politics take ourselves too seriously, was evidence that nobody in the real world pays any attention to the details.

"When asked which party controls the State Senate, New Yorkers are just as likely to identify incorrectly the Democrats (27%) as the Republicans (29%); 44% do not even hazard a guess."

The Commission -- following a line opened by the late Jack Newfield -- found that Feinberg directed "excessive and overly generous" fees to a friend.

The Surrogate's Court, which administers the estates of people who die without a valid will, is a patronage plum in a political system that makes the courts a cash cow for connected lawyers. If Feinberg is removed -- we're told that process, in the hands of the Court of Appeals and Chief Judge Judith Kaye will take about 6 months, though he could be suspended sooner -- Governor Pataki will appoint an interim replacement. That appointment would be a remarkable opportunity to choke off some of the money flowing from the courts to Brooklyn's politicized legal establishment, which in turn writes checks to the politicians who make the judges.

In a twist that would surely madden, not to mention impoverish, various Brooklyn lawyers, we've heard the name of a Brooklyn insurgent and Newfield favorite, Margarita Lopez-Torres, floated as an interim Surrogate or as a candidate in the next election.

Now there's so much to ask.

So it's just a matter of time before somebody steps into that great American political tradition, dons an animal suit, and starts following the Governor from event to event to make this point. A frustrated reporter, perhaps? Dicker himself?

The only question is which animal to choose. The Bush campaign must have some spare Flipper-the-dolphin outfits around, though they were looking kind of frayed by November. The chicken suit is an oldie but a goodie. And we've been partial to gorilla costumes since we were told this unwritten movie plot: A town is terrorized by a murderer in a gorilla suit until our hero subdues him, pulls off the mask, and reveals...a gorilla.

But we digress.

Pataki needs an animal. What should it be? Please email us your suggestions.

Azi, fortunately, was there with his camera. So, in honor of Valentine's Day, their affectionate grin-and-grip -- or, rather, look-pained-and-grip -- is here.

Also there will be Rudy Giuliani, County Leader James Ortenzio (who likes nothing better than bantering with Arnold in Austrian German), and another Republican Governor whose star lately seems to be falling as fast as the California Governor's rises.

Just this week, Gorman told us, he received an anonymous offer of $5,000 for the domains, which he happily accepted. Not a bad return on an investment of less than $100. And in case you're in a speculating mood, welovemike.com, bloombergrules.com, votemikein2005, and mikekicksbutt.com are all available.

Gorman, a registered Republican who lives in Bensonhurst, told us he's "generally supportive," of the Mayor. But, like any wise investor, he hedged a bit. Now he's hoping some interested Democrat will take dumpbloomberg.com off his hands.

Meanwhile, a candidate with somewhat shallower pockets, C. Virginia Fields, has a cybersquatter problem of her own. Fields2005.com is currently occupied by an anonymous, and extremely vitriolic, enemy.

UPDATE: It's been pointed out to us that Virginia's critics are less anonymous than we'd thought, though no less vitriolic. The site is registered to the hard-to-please folks over at TenantNet.

Expect to see Azi at those far-flung evening political events you insist on conducting, particularly in Queens, where he dropped in on the Northeast Queens Republican Club last night in time to witness the Mayor picking up the second-string Queens Republican endorsement.

Azi tells us State Senator Frank Padavan did his best to convince the mayor that his was the real endorsement, representing "more than 100,000 of the 192,000 votes you got in Queens last time." OK.

C. Virginia Fields has clearly considered this political problem, and her response is admirably simple. "Who you gonna believe," she seems to be saying in the following press release. "Me or your lyin' numbers?"

Here's her response to the Preliminary Mayor's Management Report:

"This litany of statistics doesn't paint the full picture of city services. What I hear from New Yorkers as I travel throughout the city's various neighborhoods, doesn't add up with the Mayor's version. Additionally, I think it's highly ironic that the Mayor would say city services are improving, following a subway fire that exposed outdated equipment, lax security, and too many versions of what went wrong.

"If the Mayor wants to know how our city is really doing, he should stop and talk to average New Yorkers instead of relying simply on statistics."

Well, sure. But about those statistics...

We're not sure if this represents a change in the way New York City Transit views the universe. There was something depressingly fatalistic about the notion that every delay is unavoidable. It added metaphysical injury to the insult of being apologized to by a machine.

Mark Groce, a spokesman for New York City Transit, didn't get into the metaphysics with us.

"We stopped using the word 'unavoidable' so that we can give out more information," he said. "The conductors now explain what the delay is."

That's the best Mike could do after a weekend during which he hit the phones personally -- and apparently unsuccessfully -- to ask mid-ranking Queens Party officials for their support. We spoke to one of those officials, who described how awkward it was to explain to the mayor that he wouldn't be winning the Party's endorsement.

The politics of Republican Queens are hugely entertaining. The factions represented by Serphin Maltese and Frank Padavan, respectively, have been at drawn daggers for years. And picking up the endorsement of the wrong faction (Padavan's) is not, it's safe to say, a major coup.

UPDATE: Mike will be at Bella Serra at 8:00.

We learned this up in the Bronx this morning, where State Senator Ruben Diaz led a meeting of Evangelical pastors outraged by the recent same-sex marriage ruling.

Diaz is a Pentacostal minister and the leader of a group representing hundreds of Hispanic Christian congregations in the Bronx and around the city. A rally last year at the Bronx courthouse brought out thousands. This morning, their outrage, in particular, was directed at Freddy Ferrer, who pressed Bloomberg not to appeal the gay marriage verdict.

"Freddy Ferrer has rejected us, the Evangelical Hispanic movement in the City of New York," said Diaz, who was on his way to City Hall for a meeting with the Mayor. "We could ask the whole community to sit the election out."

Subtracting this big chunk of the Hispanic base that Freddy's relying on would, obviously, be a blow to the candidate. We asked Diaz if this was something he'd seriously consider.

"It's an option," he said.

Ontario County emergency management chief Jeffrey Harloff told us at the time: "If it's the federal government asking me, it is for the intended purpose of W.M.D. incidents and HazMat incidents. In reality, we're going to use it for everyday stuff in our office."

Now, Hillary has always been the master of the rich new field we called "security pork," and her press release yesterday couldn't have demonstrated the contradiction more clearly:

"SENATOR CLINTON ANNOUNCES OVER $2.6 MILLION IN FEDERAL FIREFIGHTER GRANTS FOR NEW YORK AND EXPRESSES SERIOUS CONCERN ABOUT DEVASTATING CUTS TO FIRE ACT IN BUSH'S BUDGET PROPOSAL"

Where are these grants going?

Albany (of course), Cayuga, Chenango, Clinton, Columbia, Erie, Jefferson, Kings, Montgomery, Nassau, Niagara, Onondaga, Oswego, Otsego, Suffolk and Wayne Counties.

We realize Senators see it as their job to fight for pork, but when it comes to the Department of Homeland Security, perhaps New York's representatives would be able to press the case for the city more convincingly if they weren't so busy handing out checks in Otsego County, where the top terror target -- we're not kidding, this is what they told us -- is the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hillary couldn't quite bring herself to say that this is actually anti-terror spending. The best she could do in the press release was, "Every dollar that our local communities receive means extra resources not only to help them fight fires but to help them respond to other emergencies and ensure public safety."

But perhaps this money could be found somewhere other than the Department of Homeland Security, which we'd (we know, vainly) hoped was busy guarding actual terror targets. Like our city.

So if this is a program that directs federal security money to places like Chenango County (pop. 51,401), we say: Cut away!

"An excellent point indeed. If it were true," Engquist writes. "Which it isn't."

Apparently, the last time Hynes claimed this, the New York Times printed it -- then ran a correction!

"Given the size of the public investment and the importance of the site, there should have been a competitive process to determine what would have been the best opportunity and the best investment for the City."

We think this is a bit different from calling for open bidding, but we'll leave it up to you to decide who is the deeper believer in free markets.

Meanwhile, in the same-sex marriage section of the Ferrer-Miller originality sweepstakes (read all about it in the comments section here), the argument is reversed: Freddy notes that he was in favor of gay marriage 20 years ago, and Gifford's backers wonder where he was last year.

City Councilman John Liu has been hammering a Hot 97 morning show host, Miss Jones, since she played a stupid, offensive song making fun of Tsunami victims a couple of weeks ago.

Now, we don't mean to say that Miss Jones didn't deserve hammering. But the tone of the press releases just gets more and more hysterical. A recent one insisted, "They must pay dearly for the hurt they have inflicted in New York and across the world."

Across the world?

Here's the latest:

For Immediate Release
HOT 97 DEFERS RETURN OF MISS JONES
CM Liu: "Scheduling Miss Jones' Return on Asian Lunar New Year Day is Another Example of Emmis Corp's Irresponsibility"

Hot 97 Radio has decided to defer the return of Miss Jones to their Morning Show. Emmis Communications, owner of Hot 97, had announced last week that Miss Jones would go back on air February 9. February 9, 2005 is the first day of Asian Lunar New Year.

Council Member John Liu stated, "Emmis Communications demonstrated how utterly irresponsible they are in originally scheduling Miss Jones' return on Asian Lunar New Year Day. By deferring Miss Jones' return they have saved themselves from another level of community outrage."

CM Liu added: "Emmis' corrective action in this case doesn't absolve them of overall responsibility for their outrageous hate programming broadcast over the public airwaves. Emmis must accept full responsibility, and do so by donating one week's revenue - about $10 million - to tsunami relief charity."

WCBS-TV's Andrew Kirtzman was a close friend of Friedman's, maybe the only one who spanned both Phil's political world and his downtown social scene. Kirtzman's eulogy last week captured a lot of what made Friedman both so dear and so frustrating to his many friends. We quoted from it a couple of times in the piece, but here's a bit more from the relatively public sections:

"I met him at the peak of his career, when he was managing Andy Stein's campaign for mayor, and I watched it all come crashing down. For the 12 years that followed, Phil continued to live like the wealthy man he once was, even though he often didn't have a nickel. He swore never to work in politics again, and the idea of taking a job, or renting an apartment, was anathema to him. Phil could never accept the idea of living a modest life. I argued with him a hundred times about it. But he disdained the idea of joining the middle class. The very words sent a chill up his spine.

"So for a decade or so, Phil Friedman was the most glamorous homeless man in New York City. His chutzpah was an amazing thing to behold, and it would have shocked us all the more if he hadn't been seducing us at the same time....

"He was beyond colorful. I was as close a friend as he had at the time, yet I never knew where he lived or what he did all day. A dinner out with him was a singular experience. It was always at a great restaurant, he always picked up the check, and yet he never really paid for it. He knew all the maitre d's, and had a limitless tab with them, even though he never settled a one. His relationship with money was astonishing: I remember eating dinner with him once on the Upper East Side when a messenger arrived with a manila envelope filled with hundred-dollar bills. Where did it come from? Who knows?"

On the Right: We hear that the Queens County Republican endorsement of Tom Ognibene is due Thursday, though it remains unclear if this is more than a handshake and a photo-op. In particular, it's unclear whether they'll do the drudge work of carrying the petitions he needs to get on the ballot. An Ognibene ally in Queens tells us, "It's not just going to be a paper endorsement."

The goal, he said, is to avoid "the path of economic polarization where we are a city of those of vast wealth and those who struggle just to get by."

Here's the key passage:

"I've spoken in the past about two New Yorks. Let me be clear: I am still committed to solving this problem. In my heart, I know that this is a reality we still face. I see it when I ride the subway. I see it when I visit schools. We don't want a city that's an island of the vastly rich surrounded by a struggling mass of working poor desperately trying to get into the economic and social mainstream."

This election may turn on whether Mike can convince people that the city is doing fairly well and that their lives are likely to improve. Or whether Freddy or another rival can successfully make the case that there's a lot of suffering just below the statistical surface, and that he can help.

The Times finally gets Majority Leader Joe Bruno's spokesman, John McArdle, on the record on this question. And while we're a little disappointed that Bruno hasn't yet realized that his stance on this issue is a major blow to his attempt to cast himself as a reformer, we have to admit we kind of admire John's style:

"'There is no timetable for the funds to flow,' Mr. McArdle said."

"I seek to restore the Giuliani tradition to New York City government."

It's still an open question whether somebody who looks a lot like a protest candidate can get people to write him checks, or give him votes, in the hope of confining Bloomberg to "Lenora Fulani's extremist 'independence' line only."

But Ognibene told us he thought he'd already had his effect in, among other things, pushing Mike to appeal the gay marriage decision.

"I put him in a squeeze," he told us gleefully.

Tom was also eager to correct any suggestion in our earlier post that there's any personal animus between him and Queens Republican leader Serphin Maltese. He also denied threatening Serph with taking away his chairmanship if Queens didn't endorse his mayoral campaign. Serph, he told us, might have been under that impression at some point, but Tom told him not to worry.

"When it devolved to this point in Hunts Point, we would probably say, 'Your mama!'"

Perhaps there's a Camus connection.

Consider:

Freddy comes out against the stadium. Gifford (sort of) does the same months later. Freddy calls for a referendum on the stadium. Gifford does the same thing four days later. Freddy calls for open bidding on the rail yards. Gifford does the same thing two days later.

You can see how Freddy and his friends might be a bit irritated about this. All the more so because all they can do is write letters and hold press conferences. Gifford can convene hearings and pass legislation. Today, for example, Dan Doctoroff is doing Miller the great political favor of appearing in person to spar with him over the stadium. After a rough run with his unruly City Council, Miller seems finally to be getting his money's worth out of being the second-most-powerful pol in town.

Meanwhile, who will remember that Freddy got there first? (Other than certain obscure bloggers, we mean.)

"Dear President Bush,

I invite you to come to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Here you will meet the young people of today, the people for whom you intend to create 'voluntary personal accounts.' Look at them—they are shabbily dressed, they have no steady jobs, they are hung over and infected. Do you expect these young people to accept responsibility for their own futures? That would be a grave mistake. These hipsters need the Nanny State....

"Don't tamper with Social Security, Mr. President. Strengthen it by raising taxes on our parents."

(belatedly, via Wonkette)

The first nominee is, of course, the State Republican Chairman, Steve Minarik, who responded to the State Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling with a press release that we read like this:

"San Francisco ... disgusted ... despicable ... perversion ... values ... marriage."

You can read the unabridged version here, but we fear it won't help.

A couple of the contenders for City Council Speaker, Lew Fidler and Bill de Blasio, turned up at the Highway Democratic Club in deep South Brooklyn last night. Just a bit before de Blasio's entrance, one of their colleagues, Dominic Recchia, introduced Fidler as "the next speaker," engendering a bit of muttering among de Blasio partisans. (For the record, the other two names we keep hearing are Comrie and Quinn.)

Hank Sheinkopf, who was honored at the Brooklyn event, had this to say:

"Anybody who says they can predict the outcome of the next speaker's race is just an idiot."

This will no doubt be in the courts for a while. In the meantime, we wonder whether this will force Mike to take a clearer position on gay marriage. As we recall, his current stance is that he's against marriage, period. He won't get married, and he won't perform marriages. This always struck us as a little flip -- the point is that he has the choice.

But he does make one exception: He'll preside at the weddings of former mayors. We asked him to follow this thread out once at a press conference: Dinkins is married, Mike said. Rudy and Judy, whose marriage he performed, seem happy. Then he came to Koch, and kind of changed the subject.

Meanwhile, we wonder who's less happy about this ruling, Republicans who oppose it or Democrats who blame the gays for their election woes. So we may be alone in being glad that this issue has reemerged, though we wish the legislature had the guts to hold a debate and vote on it, rather than defaulting to the courts.

UPDATE: You've got to love the mayor's timing. Today, gay marriage.

And tomorrow night at 7:00, you can catch Mike at the Waldorf with Queer Eye star Carson Kressley. It's an event for Human Rights Campaign, the leading national gay lobbying group.

Bloomberg speaks at 7:45, and we assume that by then he'll have figured out what to say.

Some have taken this for the natural result of Ognibene's old friendship with the county leader, State Senator Serphin Maltese.

But we're told by a well-informed Republican that Maltese and Ognibene are no longer on good terms, and that Maltese would prefer to back the mayor. But Ognibene and his ally, City Councilman Dennis Gallagher, threatened a coup, and Maltese wasn't sure he could hang on to power. Meanwhile, the Queens Republicans haven't gotten the kind of patronage from Mike that they got from Rudy, so the lower-level party officials are partial to Ognibene.

So Maltese backed down.

But this doesn't look like a done deal to us, and the rift between Maltese and Ognibene could be an opening for Bloomberg.

But our coverage of the State Senate's screwing of Bronx and East Harlem residents who had the temerity to elect a Democrat has gotten the attention of the Daily News Editorial Board, whose voice, we suspect, is heard a bit more clearly in Albany than ours:

"It's bad enough when state legislators hand out pork-barrel grants to local causes while campaigning for reelection, essentially bribing voters with their own tax dollars. But to renege on those grants after an incumbent loses - as Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno appears to be doing - is nothing short of shameless... Pork-barrel politics don't get much more piggy than this."

State Senator Jose M. Serrano's office has given us a list of the organizations that got, as one of their leaders said, "screwed."

They include everyone from the Harlem Drummers, Steppers and Flag Team, which lost a $10,000 grant, to El Museo Del Barrio, which lost $30,000.

Also on the list is Presbyterian Senior Services, which had been awarded $15,000, according to an October letter from Mrs. Mendez. The grant would have gone toward everything from a copy machine to field trips to the theater and the park for members of the cash-strapped Highbridge Senior Center in the South Bronx, the group's executive director, David Taylor, told us.

"I am pleased to inform you that I have been able to secure" the grant, Mrs. Mendez wrote. "I am delighted to have been able to support your organization."

But on December 17, a little over a month after Mendez lost her election, the organization received another letter, this one from the state's Office for the Aging. It acknowledged the grant was included in the state budget.

"[H]owever, we were notified that this grant has been put on hold by the legislative finance committee and is not available for use by your organization," wrote James Foy, the agency's assistant director.

Pretty blunt, no?

"She loses and they take it away," said Taylor. "So what am I supposed to conclude? They're buying our vote."

We're just a little blog, and our Albany bureau is a bit understaffed. But Taylor would love to talk about it more. And shouldn't somebody be asking Joe Bruno about this?

But wait. We thought this was over. After all, the ref -- that's Adam Nagourney -- blew the final whistle yesterday, one which we chimed in on.

ABC News's The Note christened it the "Wolfson primary," suggested Wolfson was the only "uber-consultant" in town, and generally managed to signal to us that, as usual, they knew something we didn't.

Now, Wolfson tells us, he and Georges will be working for the New York State Democratic Party, doing "communications, political, strategic consulting, and serving as spokespeople."

We suspect they'll also be finding a way to get under Mike Bloomberg's skin.

Newsday's website beat us to the punch with the story, and this odd detail:

"One 20-something Dem -- who works for a possible Bloomberg adversary and has never volunteered for the mayor's campaign -- got his invite on a government-issued cell phone this week. The Bloomberg campaign worker on the other end emphasized that the food would be free and said the party would celebrate 'what the mayor has done to lower crime and taxes and the city.'"

"You seem to have an agenda," Bloomberg responded.

Henry works for Bloomberg News.

The Syracuse Post-Standard reported today that, before the election, Nancy Larraine-Hoffmann promised grants to various groups, things like a local waterline extension in the town of Sennett.

She lost, and suddenly the grants -- which had already been promised in writing -- evaporated.

Now we're told the same thing is happening in East Harlem, where Jose M. Serrano beat Republican Olga Mendez.

"From the minute I got into office, I've been getting phone calls to my staff from different local organizations who are very concerned about grants that they were promised by Olga Mendez. Suddenly they're not getting them," Serrano told us.

"I really would rather hold harmless any of these groups that were looking to get support from the State Senator," he said. "It's pretty cynical."

"Let me be clear," Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) told over 130 seniors at the center. "I do not support the privatization of Social Security, I never have and I never will."

It seems unlikely he's defying Bush. Vito has the most loyal voting record of any Republican in the state. Perhaps he just means he won't use the word "privatization."

In any case, he was forced to comment in response to a flood of senior citizens' calls to his office, apparently triggered by a round of anonymous robo-calls warning that Vito would take away their Social Security benefits.

This issue isn't going away: blogger Josh Marshall, a real player in the grassroots Social Security fight, is taking a look at Vito too.

WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has an uncanny ability to elicit damning quotes. Here's one from Roland Betts, Bush pal, Chelsea Piers mogul, all around macher:

"He hasn't really given up the reins of 2012, so the amount of time he's spent on 2012 and the Deputy Mayor's job basically means he's basically been working two jobs."

Two other notes:

"On the NYC 2012 website, Doctoroff is listed first on the staff list. The holiday card from NYC 2012 is signed by 'Dan, Jay and the NYC 2012 team.'"

"Soon after Howard Dean took a solid lead in the race to lead the Democratic National Committee on January 31, Senator Hillary Clinton fainted in Buffalo."

Lots of jucy stuff in there, but don't miss this extraordinary quote from supermarket magnate and, for a minute, mayoral hopeful John Catsimatidis:

"A lot of the people who write the big checks are not happy about the Dean situation.... If you look at the 400 or 500 D.N.C. members, somebody told me that only [a handful] have written a check to the Democratic Party, which is ridiculous. I mean, they're good Democrats, but they don't have a stake. But we who write the checks, we don't get a vote!"

If New York or, say, America had an effective Democratic Party, that party would be launching a coordinated campaign against President Bush's Social Security plan, putting a scare into Republican members of Congress that a vote for shifting Social Security money into private accounts could lose them their jobs.

The Dems aren't quite up to it, but the small, effective Working Families Party is doing just that.

You can see the elements of their campaign here, and it's textbook. From one flyer:

"Where does Vito Fossella stand? Call him today and demand to know if he supports the plan to privatize social security. ...Tell Congressman Fossella you don't want to gamble on your retirement."

This kind of thing can really scare local pols, and Working Families does it very well, as they showed when they pushed State Senate Republicans into backing a higher minimum wage.

But our favorite comparison comes from a friend who described the race as a latter-day version of The Breakfast Club. You know, the John Hughes flick about the five high school kids who get stuck in detention together one Saturday morning and spend the day torturing each other (until, of course, they discover that they all really have a lot in common).

Here is the cast for the re-make:

Howard Dean - Judd Nelson (The Rebel)
Donnie Fowler Jr. - Emilio Estevez (The Jock)
Simon Rosenberg - Anthony Michael Hall (The Brain)
Tim Roemer - Molly Ringwald (The Prom Queen)
David Leland - Ally Sheedy (The Basket Case, who showed up for detention because she didn't have anything better to do...)
Martin Frost --The Principal (Our friend actually neglected to assign Mr. Frost, who just dropped out of the race, a role in the film, so we took the liberty of doing it ourselves. But we think it works pretty well and can almost hear Mr. Frost telling Mr. Dean, "Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.")

Having spent the last few days shadowing these guys at the Roosevelt Hotel, we think that this scenario makes good and solid sense. But we just have one question for our friend: Does this mean that Tim Roemer will give Howard Dean his earring? We're on the edge of our seats.

The new information they have comes from Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's schedule, obtained through the Freedom of Information Law, which show -- surprise! -- "that he frequently finds himself meeting and talking about city business with those who are also being asked to ante up Olympics contributions."

The piece also fills out some of the details of the repeated appearance of a conflict between Doctoroff's official duties and his Olympics crusade:

"On April 1, 2002, Doctoroff and Kriegel crossed the Hudson River to Jersey City to talk to top officials at American Express. The giant financial firm had been forced out of its downtown offices by the 9-11 attack, and was seeking governmental assistance in relocating. But that's not what the meeting was about, Kriegel said. The two men simply wanted to thank CEO Kenneth Chenault and Amex for its earlier contribution of $300,000 to NYC2012, he said.... About six weeks after the meeting, Amex was awarded $25 million from city and state agencies—a decision that would have moved across Doctoroff's desk—to help it return downtown."

WNYC's Andrea Bernstein, who worked on the Voice piece, will be doing a series of radio reports on the subject, the first at 5:40 p.m. today.

"Some things never change. Like good, old-fashioned Bronx County politics," a correspondent emails. "Some things do change. Like names."

Here's the deal: the race features two guys named Serrano, neither of them related to Congressman Jose E. Serrano or to his son, Jose M. Serrano, who is vacating the Council's 17th district for a State Senate seat.

We also have Maria del Carmen Arroyo -- daughter of Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo -- whose name, until recently, was Maria Aguirre.

The Serranos and other power players -- including Local 1199 SEIU-- were backing George Torres (one of two guys named Torres) -- until he got tossed off the ballot.

We love this race! The vote is February 15.

Post: The Politicker will, however, link to New York Post editorials that mention us by name.

For an explanation of the first item, see the second.