...or does this just mean that he talked to Joe Biden's son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden? (Note: Halperin seems to have belatedly familiarized himself with the spelling of Beau's first name, thus making it clear to whom his post refers. His earlier version featured a different spelling, suggesting some kind of cryptic allusion involving former two-sport athlete Bo Jackson.)

Last night, Time and ABC News political analyst Mark Halperin was talking to an audience at the at Barnes & Noble on West 82nd Street about his new book, The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President.

He said that his new book is geared toward people who "aren't particularly political," focusing less on the campaigns themselves than on "who can do the best job."

"I tried to say, with the information we have about the candidates, who would be the best," he told the audience of about 60 people. "I did what I thought a conscientious voter should do."

Unfortunately for Mr. Halperin, the audience did indeed seem like "political people," most of them retirees who admitted to having lots and lots of time to absorb political coverage. And most of the crowd seemed to be decided indeed, in favor of Hillary Clinton.  read more »

At an appearance this morning in midtown at the Personal Democracy Forum, he gave a lengthy policy speech without once referring to the fact that he's not technically governor yet.

Spitzer's talk on New York's "digital divide" and the need for state government to facilitate universally accessible, affordable broadband technology went over well enough, drawing repeated applause in an auditorium filled with people balancing computers on their laps.

He went on to lay out a vision of the near future that was heavily inspired, by the sounds of it, by Personal Democracy founder Andrew Rasiej: upstate farmers remotely controlling milking machines, fire and police dispatchers receiving marching orders from anywhere in the field and constituents complaining to their elected officials through wireless broadband technology.

Still, it's a nice problem for him to have: a genuine wonk, he's talking about governing half a year out from the actual election, even before his policy platform is fully formed.

"The future of New York," Spitzer said, "doesn't belong to the armies of the status quo."

I've spent this morning at the New School, where two panels of senior aides to the five major Mayoral candidates went back over campaign decisions, first the primary and then the general election, steered by ABC News's Mark Halperin.

The event featured a little news: Bloomberg aide Bill Cunningham says of Mike's spending, "Inflation adjusted, we might actually be spending less money [than in 2001]."

He also blew a little kiss to Shelly: "We sent flowers to Shelly Silver," after he killed the stadium, he said. "Big red roses."

Ferrer's aides, mostly excepting Roberto, meanwhile, mostly conceded that their candidate is not a great communicator -- "at a certain point, people don't change," said Ferrer campaign manager Nick Baldick -- and that the campaign mishhandled the Diallo episode.

"The politically convenient way would have been to apologize and to say it was a crime," Jef Pollock said. "[Freddy] and others rejected it...as it dragged on the performance got angrier and that didn't really help."

Andrew Kirtzman, meanwhile, defended the endless coverage of the story: "You crafted this incredibly lawyerly, vague answer that neither defended it or apologized....You guys kept it alive by evading the central question."

The conversation detoured briefly into Virginia's flyer flap. Henry Stern offered that the flap was "a substitute" for "people who had a low regard for Ms. Fields' abilities."

Fields campaign manager Chung Seto pointed the finger at consultant Joe Mercurio, who responded in kind:

"London ws bombed by terrorists the same day and they managed to continue the story."

Jim Margolis marvelled a bit at the endlessness of the flap, and pointed out that the use of stock footage is common in television spots.

There was also some debunking Primary night mythology. Anthony and Freddy didn't speak, and there wasn't really any pressure brought to bear on Anthony to drop out.

"The last thing we wish to have in the campaign is affirmative action," Roberto Ramirez said.

(Margolis said he and Pollock did talk that night: "Jef was less than enthusistic.")

Concluded Mark Mellman: "The single most brilliant act by a campaign was to turn... a landslide defeat into a moral victory."

More to come...