Iowa

Not every presidential nominee in the modern era has won both Iowa and New Hampshire. But they have all received a boost from at least one of them.

And therein lies Hillary Clinton's predicament: If she loses to Barack Obama on Tuesday night, she will have suffered back-to-back defeats in the lead-off states, both in raw numbers and in terms of media perception. Never, in either party, has a candidate endured such a fate and gone on to claim the nomination. And never has a candidate won both events—as Obama is poised to do—and been denied the nomination.

The same history applies to the Republican side, underscoring the do-or-die stakes of the John McCain-Mitt Romney contest in New Hampshire: the loser will have suffered clear losses in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Only one of them figures to emerge with the viability to challenge Mike Huckabee, Iowa's winner. And history doesn't smile at all on the waiting-game strategy being employed by both Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson.  read more »

Yesterday's Times report from Iowa was produced to an Allman Brothers soundtrack.  read more »

The Clinton campaign is playing up the idea that the results of Iowa have historically been an aberration.

"Well, you know Iowa does not have the best track record in determining who the party's nominee is," Hillary said earlier today. "Everybody knows that."

Except she's wrong.  read more »

An early dispatch from Very Special Correspondent Choire Sicha in New Hampshire.

Bill Clinton is pre-emptively downplaying the significance of any poor showing by his wife tonight and next week in New Hampshire, reminding everyone that he didn't win a primary until Georgia in 1992.

It's not an ideal analogy, though.

It is true that Clinton's first '92 win was in Georgia and that the state didn't vote until March 3. But it's important to remember two points:  read more »

Sometime on Thursday night, at least one Democrat and Republican will be declared “winners” of the Iowa caucuses. These candidates may or may not have received the most votes; the declaration will be a subjective judgment by the media.

And no matter what New Hampshire’s proudly independent voters say, history shows that this verdict will spill over into the first primary state, which will vote on January 8. Iowa’s results—or more precisely, the media’s interpretation of them—alters, sometimes profoundly, the New Hampshire electorate’s perception of the presidential field.

Every Iowa “winner” gets some kind of a boost in New Hampshire. But the type of boost varies dramatically, from staggering to inconsequential. The variable is the degree to which the Iowa outcome represents a surprise: the more the media is caught off-guard by the results, the more the media will hype those results and, thus, the bigger the bounce will be.

How will Iowa re-shape the ’08 race? For some guidance, here’s a look back at the media’s interpretation of past Iowa results and how it has spilled over into New Hampshire.  read more »

While Hillary Clinton delivered her closing argument to voters in Cedar Rapids, I asked Representative Anthony Weiner, who is out here campaigning for her, what he thought about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s criticisms of the presidential candidates today.

“If he thinks there is a vacuum for good ideas, I don’t think he has looked at the candidates carefully, including his own senator,” said Weiner, who is all but certainly running to succeed Bloomberg as mayor. When I asked him if he thought Bloomberg would run for president, he suggested the mayor would be shirking his current responsibilities if he did so: “Hillary will be our nominee and then we’ll see. If the mayor wants to run, that’s fine, some of us are focused on the candidate we support, and the future of the city.”

More after the jump.  read more »

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa--A semi-hoarse Barack Obama told a sizeable crowd in this western Iowa town Tuesday night, "Washington is in its last throes, as my cousin Cheney would say."

It was a notably pointed remark from Mr. Obama, who often gets more gently humorous mileage out of his distant shared heritage with the vice-president. But it played into the Illinois senator's broader closing argument in Iowa that he, rather than Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, is best placed to deliver change.  read more »

On Saturday night, after a quick misstep into a place called Scooters (fog machine, dance floor grinding) during a search for a TV showing the Giants-Patriots game, I found the bar of the Hotel Ottumwa, where the owner, Tim Schwartz, had also just returned from a Barack Obama event at the local high school.

“I could support him,” Schwartz told me, as he tossed some cocktail napkins on the bar. “He’s a dynamic speaker and he brings up some issues, but I’m probably going to caucus for Hillary.”  read more »

Hillary Clinton was on her game all day Sunday, hitting all the right notes, drawing huge ovations from voters, getting people to commit their support on caucus cards.

And yet, thanks to two of her surrogates, it ended up being a rough press day.

After Clinton finished her last event in Cedar Falls, the BlackBerries of reporters buzzed with an e-mail from the Obama campaign alerting them to the remarks of Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, who disparaged Iowa in a Columbia Dispatch story leading the Drudge Report.
 read more »

The dreary work of campaign field operations—knocking on doors, chatting up old people and cold calling for a candidate—is often carried out by eager college students wanting to make their first inroads into politics.

That was not the case on Ridgewood Street in Ames on December 15, when some of Hillary Clinton’s richest and most influential bundlers and donors—Hassan and Sheila Nemazee, Alan and Susan Patricof, and the former ambassador to Norway, Robin Duke—braved the icy elements and doorman-less ingresses of Iowa to proselytize for their good friend Hillary.

“Number one convert!” shouted Hassan Nemazee, a multi-millionaire investment banker who served as John Kerry’s New York finance chair in 2004. “I moved them from an Edwards to a Hillary.”

Mr. Nemazee, wearing iron-creased jeans, comfortable brown shoes, a blue winter coat and a red baseball cap emblazoned with a Ferrari stallion, was stepping cautiously along an ice-paved walk.

Across the street, Ms. Duke worked the even-numbered houses and was having a tougher time of it.  read more »

Hillary Clinton is a human being.

That may sound like an oddly obvious message for a presidential campaign, but for Clinton, who has faced six weeks of bad press coverage and 15 years of cartoonish characterizations from all across the political spectrum, it is an essential point that she is now emphasizing in an attempt to right the direction of her presidential bid with three weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

“Here in Iowa I want you to have some flavor of who I am, you know, outside of the television cameras when all the lights and cameras disappear,” Clinton said softly, in an unprecedentedly personal speech in Johnston this morning to announce a new web site called TheHillaryIKnow.com. “What I do when nobody is listening, taking notes or recording. Because it’s hard in public life to have that kind of sharing experience.”  read more »

DUNLAP, IOWA, Dec. 16—Hillary Clinton badly needed to change the narrative.

She kicked off a five-day sweep through Iowa yesterday by rolling out a new, more personal stump speech, pushing her freshly acquired endorsement by The Des Moines Register and introducing a campaign helicopter.

She is, she said, “pumped up.”  read more »

On the way to a John Edwards campaign event in Indianola, Iowa, yesterday, Jason Horowitz's taxi hit a flying turkey. Here is the grim result.  read more »

Last night, the entire Edwards family showed up for a campaign event in Indianola, Iowa. Edwards gave a stump speech and answered some questions, while his wife and parents sat behind him and his kids watched a movie on the campaign bus.

At one point, a man in a blue jacket, who identified himself as a former legislator and Kucinich supporter, asked a long question about health care in which he basically lamented the fact that none of the candidates—except Kucinich—advocated a single-payer health care system.

Edwards then gave a long, detailed answer about his plan. He argued that part of it was set up as single-payer, but that it also gave Americans, many of whom did not want a single-payer system, more of a choice. He kept repeating that basic point in different ways, being careful not to offend any given side, when his wife stood up behind him.  read more »

Fortune smiled on Mike Huckabee today.

The former Arkansas Governor, suddenly the front-runner in Iowa, was supposed to come under intense fire from Mitt Romney at this afternoon’s Republican debate in Des Moines—the last head-to-head encounter between the candidates before the January 3 caucuses.

And the set-up seemed perfect for Mr. Romney, whose Mormonism has probably contributed to the stunning rise of Mr. Huckabee, a personable Baptist preacher who may be more culturally compatible with Iowa’s formidable bloc of Christian conservatives.  read more »

So what if Hillary Clinton loses in Iowa?

A new conventional wisdom is taking hold that Barack Obama beats her there, he could run away with the nomination.

It’s a line of thinking the Clinton campaign should encourage.

The reason is simple: If the Clinton Machine has a firewall anywhere, it’s in New Hampshire, where the combination of her husband’s lingering sentimental appeal and an unprecedentedly relentless and well-organized pursuit of the Democratic establishment gives her a considerable leg-up on the competition.  read more »

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign debuts its first commercial in Iowa today: a 60-second spot titled "Invisible."  read more »

We've always known Rudy Giuliani faced a tricky-to-impossible balancing act among Iowa's rabidly pro-life caucus electorate – the same folks who gave Pat Robertson 25 percent of their vote (well ahead of the sitting Vice-President of the United States) in 1988.   Indeed, this is one of the chief reasons the former mayor has opted not to contest next month's Ames Straw Poll, a traditional test of early organizing strength in the state.

But he's not giving up on Iowa altogether, knowing that a strong second (or even third) place showing in January might still be interpreted as a momentum-building "win" that would bolster his standing in subsequent primary states.  And, for that matter, he doesn't seem to be giving up on the Christian conservatives in the state.

Campaigning in Council Bluffs yesterday, the heart of conservative western Iowa, Giuliani pledged to appoint "strict constructionist judges, because judges interpret the Constitution. They should not be allowed to make it up."   The language is significant because, well, can you think of a single pro-choice politician who has ever talked of appointing "strict constructionists" to the courts?   Only after making that point did Giuliani add that “the abortion question is not a litmus test. Roe against Wade is not a litmus test; no particular case is a litmus test."

Many would consider those statements flatly contradictory, since it is generally understood that "strict constructionists" favor rescinding Roe. Giuliani, of course, used the "strict constructionist" line earlier this year, before his campaign realized that he would have to come clean about his pro-choice position, which he finally did back in May.  

The most likely explanation for what Giuliani is doing now is that he sees an unexpected opening among social conservatives.  

Of the big-name Republican candidates, John McCain had the most reliably anti-abortion record; but he's tuna fish now, and anyway the right never completely trusted him for other reasons.   And there are still questions about the sincerity of Mitt Romney's "conversion" on the abortion issue – and on so many others – in 2004.  Most notably, though, is that the news of Giuliani's remarks in Iowa coincides with confirmation – finally – that Fred Thompson, who was supposed to fill the vacuum on the right, was indeed a paid lobbyist for an abortion rights group last decade.

In that context, no one is perfect.  Giuliani seems to be calculating that for conservatives sympathetic to him on other issues, his position on abortion will be good enough.  read more »

Before Rudolph W.  read more »

Al Sharpton really enjoys making candidates beg for his endorsement.   And yet they come.  read more »

Saturday

9 a.m. Assemblywoman Ellen Young will host a tax free preparation day for low-income clients at the YWCA, 42-07 Parsons Boulevard in Flushing, Queens.

10 a.m. Rainbow PUSH Coalition of New York will hold a Bridge Building Rally for Justice at the Metropolitan Community United Methodist, 1975 Madison Avenue at 126th Street.

10 a.m. Council member Bill De Blasio will sponsor a three-day electronic waste drive at J.J. Byrne Memorial Park, Fifth Avenue and 4th Street, in Brooklyn.

10:30 a.m. Hispanic Federation and Entergy will host a health fair at the Broad Street Ballroom, 41 Broad Street between Exchange Place and Beaver Street.

11 a.m. Animal rights groups will protest opening day of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden, Seventh Avenue near 33rd Street.

12:30 p.m. Immigrants will be offered free legal help on citizenship applications at The Chinatown YMCA, 100 Hester Street between Eldridge and Allen streets.

6 p.m. Barack Obama will be speaking to constituents in an online video conference for his Community Kickoff, marking the beginning of his grassroots community organizing campaign. Supporters and fundraisers will host parties in their private residences and in bars all over the city. For more information, visit My.BarackObama.com.

Hip-hop producer Timbaland hosts a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in Miami, Florida.

John Edwards fundraises in Cary, North Carolina.

Barack Obama campaigns in Iowa.

Joe Biden campaigns in Sumter, South Carolina.

Sunday

12 p.m. The Nation's Alexander Cockburn will speak about his life and career on C-SPAN2.

Barack Obama campaigns in Sioux City, Iowa.

Monday

11 a.m. Congressmen Gregory W. Meeks and Anthony Weiner, Assemblymen Audrey Pheffer and Michele Titus and Councilmen Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr. and James Sanders, Jr. will start their Rockaway listening tour in Queens at the Church of God Christian Academy, 1332 Central Avenue followed by stops at the Sea Side Hammels Seniors, 90-01 Rockaway Beach Boulevard, at noon; the Far Rockaway Chamber of Commerce, 253 Beach 116th Street, at 1 p.m.; the P.S./M.S. 333 Goldie Maple Academy, 365 Beach 56th Street, at 3 p.m.; and the Rockaway Development and Revitalization Corporation, 1920 Mott Avenue at 4 p.m.

The Empire State Pride Agenda, New York's statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights and advocacy organization, will launch a new blog.

-- Gillian Reagan

Hillary Clinton's campaign just sent out an email from former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack explaining his reasons for endorsing her for President.

For one thing, he says, it was simply a matter of returning a favor:

"When I first ran for governor of Iowa in 1998, many people didn't give me much of a chance. But not Hillary. She told me she'd do everything she could do to help, and she followed through."

Full letter (and fund-raising solicitation) after the jump.  read more »

--Jason Horowitz

Another Hillary update from Niall Stanage:

Hillary Clinton's campaign swing through Iowa brought her to a biotech company on the outskirts of Des Moines this morning - and brought Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez unexpectedly into her crosshairs.

The first question she received after a speech to employees of the Pioneer Hi-Bred International facility in Johnston raised the issue of the Chavez government. The former first lady assailed the Venezuelan president for fomenting "anti-Americanism across Latin America" and returned, in unusually personal terms, to one of the themes of her speech - how energy independence could prevent the transfer of American dollars to anti-American regimes.  read more »

"My late father was a child of the depression and he never left a room without turning out every light. Well, now I go around turning out the lights," she said.

"If we said, 'Turn off that light because we don't want to send any more money to Chavez in Venezuela,' that would make a difference."

Niall Stanage sends in this dispatch from Dubuque:

Hillary Clinton faced the question that won't go away yet again last night - this time at an otherwise successful campaign event at the University of Dubuque, Iowa.

A male member of the overflowing crowd condemned the former first lady's standard response to attacks on her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq. The man charged that the senator's oft-repeated explanation - that had she known then what she knows now, she would have voted differently - seemed like "a way of saying 'I'm not responsible for my vote'."

Hillary countered, "I have said many times that I take responsibility for my vote." But she quickly moved on to criticize the president's tactic of a troop increase in Iraq.

Referring to the Bush plan as an "escalation policy", Clinton asserted that the strategy amounted to nothing more significant than "putting a fist in the water. When it goes in you'll see the ripple effect, then it will close around your fist. When you pull out, you'll see the ripple but it's not going to change much."  read more »

She added, "The Iraqis have to decide they want to stop killing each other."

Go ahead and call Hillary Rodham Clinton the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomin  read more »

9 a.m. City Council's Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus and education advocacy group Directions for Our Youth will be conducting a dropout prevention summit at Baruch College at 55 Lexington Avenue, 14th Floor.

10 a.m "Live from City Hall with Mayor Mike and John Gambling" airs on WABC Radio - 770 AM.

11 a.m. Congressman Charles Rangel helps distribute kosher food packages at the Jewish Community Council in Washington Heights.

11 a.m. Boy Scout troops help map invasive plants at the Hunter Island Sanctuary in the Bronx.

Noon. Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm A. Smith will give a speech about Black history at a reception sponsored by the New York State Inter-Agency Black History Committee at the State House.

6:30 p.m. Park Slope Greens host a community forum at St. Cyril's Cathedral, 401 Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn.

7:30 p.m. A gala reception in honor of Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke will be held at the New York Marriott Brooklyn Bridge Hotel at 333 Adams Street in Brooklyn.

The New York City Independent Budget Office will release a report comparing actual city capital spending to the most recent 10-year capital strategy plan, covering the years 2006-2015.

Hillary Clinton headlines a fundraiser in San Francisco.

Tom Vilsack campaigns in Iowa.

Barack Obama campaigns in Austin, Texas.

-- Gillian Reagan

In the comments section, numbers man Jerry Skurnik raises a good point, and politely tells me to stop getting so excited about all these 2008 presidential polls.

"Since candidates have won when polls have shown them down by 20 points a week out, can we just agree right now that no poll a year and a half before an election with a margin of less than 20 means anything?"

In a quick telephone chat, Skurnik elaborated.

"Two weeks before the Iowa caucus, Howard Dean was ahead. And came in fourth," he said. Skurnik said even locally, early polls are not too reliable.

"Michael Bloomberg wasn't ahead of Mark Green in any polls until the very end" of the 2001 mayoral race.

Wonder if this'll slow the pace of all the 2008 polls we're seeing?

-- Azi Paybarah

Observer alum and South Carolina native Andrew Rice emails with an addendum to my post about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the black vote, pointing out that the analysis -- in particular an observation from David Bositis about the lily-white electorate in Iowa and New Hampshire -- overlooks the importance of his home state.

From the email:

There is one major primary among the "first four" in which there are a huge number of black voters--South Carolina.

According to 2005 census numbers African Americans make up almost 30 percent of SC's population--way, way above the national average of 13 percent. Statistics from the 2004 primary show that African Americans made up 38 percent of registered Dems.  read more »

But if you look at who actually voted in the primary, blacks turned out in far greater numbers than whites--106,917 to 77,371.

Question: How seriously should we be taking Hillary Clinton's apparent lead over Barack Obama among African American voters?

Certainly, the Clinton name is worth an awful lot among black voters, and Hillary has already moved to lock down some of the most influential members of the African-American political establishment.

But at first glance, it all seems at least slightly reminiscent of the New York governor's race in 2002, when Andrew Cuomo -- who also came from a well-known liberal family and had important friends in the African-American political firmament -- was running against Carl McCall for the Democratic nomination and was actually shown leading among black voters in early polls. But by the primary election -- even before Cuomo's preemptive withdrawal -- said voters lined up squarely behind McCall.

I asked a couple of longtime observers of minority politics about that analogy, and about how Hillary might prevent a similar hemorrhaging of support among African-American voters if Obama proves to be a credible candidate deep into primary season.  read more »

"For Carl McCall to have had any success in that race he would have had to appeal to an African-American base, and I think in many of the same ways you are going to see that situation with Senator Obama," said Walter Fields, a political consultant and the vice president for government relations at the Community Service Society, a non-profit public policy research organization focused on poverty. "The challenge is that McCall had a longer relationship with the African-American community in New York than Senator Obama does with blacks around the country."

As she figures out how to cope with the shifting field in the 2008 Presidential contest, Hillary Cli  read more »

John Edwards put down his fork and pointed at Hillary Clinton.    read more »

John Edwards put down his fork and pointed at Hillary Clinton.  read more »

John Ruskin, the English art critic, never consummated his marriage because on his wedding night, he  read more »

John Ruskin, the English art critic, never consummated his marriage because on his wedding night, he  read more »

This hasn't been a great stretch for George Pataki hopes of going national, what with the departure of key staff in Iowa and a swift boot on the way out the door from Eliot Spitzer.

But a reader familiar with how Albany works notes that the special legislative session scheduled for December 13th gives Pataki a chance to breathe life into his presidential hopes.

Lifting the cap on charter schools and passing a civil confinement bill for sex offenders are the kind of bread and butter accomplishments Iowa and New Hampshire voters are sure to like.

Then again, the law creating charter schools in New York only passed when Pataki agreed to a pay raise for legislators, which is one more knock against his qualifications as a fiscal conservative.

So maybe the guy just can't win.

-- Azi Paybarah

Rudy Giuliani created a presidential exploratory committee.

One Rudy adviser said a decision about whether the former mayor will actually run will be made after the New Year.

A 60-second Draft Rudy radio ad is currently running in Des Moines, Iowa and Manchester N.H.

Hillary Clinton wants the 2008 Democratic convention in New York.

Charlie Rangel explains why he wants to reinstate the military draft.

Democrats in congress take over some Republican office space.

The leading contender to be the next MTA chairman is an executive at a company that currently has $198 million in contracts with the MTA.

George Pataki transferred money from his state campaign committee to the PAC he uses to pay for his his nationwide travel.

And City Comptroller Bill Thompson criticized the no-bid contracts awarded by the city's Education Department.

-- Azi Paybarah

The White House's use of wiretaps without warrants is expected to be investigated by the new Democrat-controlled congress.

Ken Mehlman is stepping down as head of the RNC.

Before announcing his presidential run yesterday, the Democratic governor of Iowa called 2008 front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Charlie Rangel didn't quite apologize for making an insulting comment about Mississippi.

Hillary also gave some advice on how to be a political spouse, and "maintain a private sphere," to Silda Wall Spitzer.

Eliot Spitzer announced his transition team, and jokingly -- or not -- noted that he still has subpoena power.

Newsday reports on how Spitzer and Mike Bloomberg compared "wish lists" over breakfast.

Joel Klein may not be happy with how the city's new contract protects some incompetent teachers.

Apparently, there is a high school for senators. James Madison High School has "three alumni from three separate parties elected to the U.S. Senate at the same time."

The Daily News has a list of do's and don'ts for the new congress.

The editors of The Sun, which did not endorse Alan Hevesi for comptroller, say that removing him after his "landslide" victory at the ballot "would be a mistake."

Fred Dicker sees the still-unresolved Hevesi situation as another example of George Pataki's legacy.

-- Azi Paybarah

The Times notes that Hillary Clinton's has carefully skirted the presidential battleground states of Iowa and New Hampshire in the course of her travels, and reports on her prediction that many Republicans will be voting for Democrats this year.

Some of John Spencer's donors gave in excess of the $2,100 contribution limit. The campaign may have enough money for a modest media buy.

Brian McLaughlin, the former labor leader, is expected to surrender on federal corruption charges today.

Eliot Spitzer said the city should pay about $1 billion to fund the CFE decision, and that reauthorizing mayoral control of schools could be a negotiating tactic. He also said that "the city is technically a subservient political entity to the state, and the state could just mandate that the city's contribution be X."

Joe Bruno said the state Republican Party was hurt because George Pataki has been in "exit mode" for more than a year.

Jeanine Pirro cut into Andrew Cuomo's lead, and said she hasn't read the New York Magazine cover story about her marriage to Al Pirro.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mike Bloomberg are not only twins but, apparently, best friends.

And Quinnipiac has a poll today showing Democrat Sherrod Brown with a 12-point lead over Mike DeWine in the Ohio Senate race.

-- Azi Paybarah

Hillary Clinton will debate John Spencer in Rochester on October 20th, which is the best and worst thing to happen to Spencer's campaign so far.

On one hand, it'll put Spencer within camera-shot of the country's biggest political star, giving him a level of exposure he has never enjoyed before and may well never experience again.

But the fact that Hillary has agreed to a debate -- Clinton's office says that other possible debate dates have yet to be determined -- reduces Spencer's 'she won't debate me' argument to a 'she won't debate me enough' argument. Not such a persuasive line of attack, as Tom Suozzi can attest to.

Still, Rob Ryan tries to make the case in this colorful letter [full text after the jump].

Wouldn't a Rob Ryan-Howard Wolfson debate be so much more fun?

-- Azi Paybarah UPDATE: Bingo! This just in from our friends at NY1:

You'll have to wait until Oct. 20th to see Hillary Clinton and John Spencer square off on NY1 but tonight watch Howard Wolfson of Clinton's camp appear with Spencer's top campaign aide, Rob Ryan. It will be a segment on "Inside City Hall" with Dominic Carter you won't want to miss! Tune in at 7 p.m. and at 10:30 p.m. tonight.

UPDATE II: Hillary and Spencer will have a second debate October 22.

Hillary Looking Shaky

To the Editor:  read more »

If you accept that Al Gore is itching for an excuse to run for President again—a proposition no mo  read more »

Hillary Looking Shaky   To the Editor:    read more »

If you accept that Al Gore is itching for an excuse to run for President again—a proposition n  read more »

This much can be said right now about the early 2008 primary and caucus schedule for Senator Hillary  read more »

This much can be said right now about the early 2008 primary and caucus schedule for Senator Hillary  read more »

Before Governor George Pataki even had a chance to deliver his energy-policy speech at the National  read more »

Here's a blast from the past: a 1997 ad featuring George Pataki introducing the new Metrocard Gold. (Does anybody even remember the blue cards?)

With dramatic music and the happiest people The Politicker has ever seen emerging from an elevated train station, Pataki closes the ad with, "Metrocard