Given that the most pervasive criticism of Caroline Kennedy as a Senate candidate is that she is is a candidate mainly because she is a Kennedy, Ed Koch may or may not be helpful.  read more »

Last night, Michael Bloomberg hosted former mayor Ed Koch’s 84th birthday party at Gracie Mansion, where the focus quickly turned to the current mayor’s second re-election campaign.  read more »

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has returned to planet Earth. With a white-cheeked gibbon swinging from branch to branch and a Malayan Tapir drooping its head over a muddy puddle behind him at the Bronx Zoo, on Nov. 24, Mr. Bloomberg explained why, after all the talk over the last couple of years about the stratospheric national offices he could fill, New York needed him for another term.  read more »

Last night, after Hillary Clinton presented an award to Iris Weinshall at the 38th annual Women Write the World gala, Weinshall's husband, Chuck Schumer, explained how valuable his wife has been to his political career.

Taking the stage, Schumer recounted a night years ago, during Ed Koch's third term as mayor.  read more »

In order for his proposal to extend term limits to become law, Michael Bloomberg needs the support of 26 members of the City Council. At the moment, only 14 members are on record saying they will vote in favor of the bill. Five of the undecideds—Alan Gerson, Jessica Lappin, James Oddo, Helen Sears, and Peter Vallone Jr.—have been participating in this week's marathon term-limits hearings at City Hall.

Most of them claim to be hesitant to support the bill out of concern about the legal principle involved, although it seems more likely than not that the bill could stand up to legal challenges.  read more »

Former mayor Ed Koch started a fight on CNN just now, where he was appearing to discuss comments he made about Sarah Palin earlier this week-he called her “plucky, perky and scares the hell out of me.”

Here's what happened, according to my own transcription.

CNN anchor Carol Costello, who was hosting Koch, said some people may bristle at words like “plucky“ and “perky," hinting that they have sexist undertones.

Koch replied, “Oh please. Wow. It’s ridiculous. I mean you can’t compliment someone by saying they’re perky anymore?” He added, “Plucky is a compliment.”

To explain why she scares him, Koch referred to the rumor that  read more »

A new political party. From his email:

What we should do is improve on the reform model and create a new party which will state in its manifesto that it is running against the candidates of both the Democratic and Republican parties and has as its goal the sweeping out of Albany of all incumbents – the bad and the good – replacing them with the new party’s candidates. After two elections in which the new party is successful, it should agree to dissolve and allow the Democratic and Republican parties to once again take over, vying against one another on a philosophical basis, hoping they have learned their lesson and become functional.

Unlike most Democrats in New York, former Mayor Ed Koch is not endorsing Barack Obama, at least for now.  read more »

Are you morbidly minded and unsure what to do with your money in these grave economic times? Why not invest in a burial plot?

That's former Mayor Ed Koch's tongue-in-cheek plan, according to an article today in the New York Times. Sam Roberts writes:

He said he had recently paid $20,000 for the plot, a good investment, he explained, because the stock market, unlike the price of cemetery space, had since gone down.

 read more »

NY1 News tonight is going to be one big pile-on, judging by these quotes pulled from an advance transcript the network sent over:

“What he did was awful, it needs therapy to explain.”
            -former Public Advocate and Democratic Attorney Mark Green

“There are obviously deep psychological problems. You don’t comport yourself in this way given your knowledge of the criminal justice system.”
            -former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/reactions-green-damato-koch#comments Politics Al D'Amato Ed Koch Eliot Spitzer Mark Green Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:26:09 -0400 Azi Paybarah 66314 at http://www.observer.com