Richard Grasso

In King of the Club, Charles Gasparino, a correspondent for CNBC and former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, traces the rise and fall of “The Little Guy in the Dark Suit.”  read more »

The Times raises the curtain on Cuomo vs. Pirro, which promises to be the most entertaining, if not the ugliest, race of the general election. We even get a "cackle" from Cuomo.

The News calls his smile "unsinkable."

John Faso visited all five boroughs of New York yesterday and challenged Eliot Spitzer's prosecutorial record, saying that the attorney general's cases against Maurice Greenberg and Richard Grasso were "misguided." For good measure, he also took a shot at Spitzer's family.

"I am the son of a Catholic-school janitor and he is the son of a rich real estate operator who still gets a million dollars a year from his father," Faso said.

John Spencer hopes to bridge a massive fundraising gap in his Senate race with Stop Hillary money. And in a predictable comic turn, he is now demanding debates after dodging KT McFarland during the primary.

Hillary Clinton calls for billions in long-term medical assistance to Ground Zero responders who suffered illnesses in the days after the attack. In doing so, she also gets to take a shot at the President's highly politicized anniversary speech. "Enough with that. They don't want our speeches. They don't want our flowery rhetoric. They want our help," Clinton said.

Apparently City Councilwoman Yvette D. Clarke's mother was a guiding force in her hairsbreadth victory over David Yassky and the rest of the field in the Major Owens Congressional primary. So, of course, was 1199, which actually helped guide voters to the polls on her behalf. The News reflects on the brutality of the race.

Don't look know, but the Bloomberg for President talk is back. Kevin Sheekey's grand experiment is now being tested in a FOX News/Post poll. The mayor fulfills the public's appetite for independent party candidates, but gets trounced by Rudy Giuliani or Hillary Clinton.

Remember all that fun talk about converting Governor's Island into another Manhattan playground? Apparently, that's all over with for now.

And the quick-witted former Texas Governor Ann Richards is dead at the age of 73.

--Jason Horowitz

Before ruling that it's okay for Eliot Spitzer to sit on a charitable trust which is regulated by his office, a member of the State Ethics Commission, Karl Sleight, got a little help on-line. And of course, Sleight covered his track by switching some pronouns. [hat tip: Spin Cycle]

"Here's one I could use some help with folks:Assume the following facts.The head of a state regulatory agency with investigatory and prosecutorial powers serves on a non-for-profit entity/trust which her agency has jurisdiction over...Anyone want to take a shot at this? Thanks ! Best regards, Karl"

John Faso caught Eliot Spitzer's attention after saying the case against Dick Grasso is "phony."

Someone who should be endorsing John Faso, fellow Republican Michael Bloomberg, is staying out of state races.

And Ben has a look at ads from Andrew Cuomo and Mark Green.

-- Azi Paybarah

A correction in this week's New York Magazine: "In 'The City Politic: The Suozzi-Spitzer Showdown'...the head of the New York Stock Exchange compensation committee that gave final approval to the 139.5 million exit package for Richard Grasso should have been identified as Carl McCall, not Ken Langone."  read more »

It didn't seem quite right to ask the Nassau County Executive to do the interview via instant message, as has been the Friday routine on The Politicker, so I got myself slotted into his extensive call list, as he launches his version of a pre-campaign listening tour, which he expects to extend for somewhere between "several weeks and two months."

Suozzi said his "New York a United State" tour would give him a chance to "travel throughout the state and talk about management, fiscal discipline, and government reform" as well as "my experience at solving complex governmental problems" and the problems of various New Yorkers. And he said that he'd like to start talking about the issues right away, offering a general framework that you find the money to cut taxes, spend more on schools, upstate jobs, and housing, by cutting Medicaid fraud.

Then we talked some politics.

Suozzi said he wasn't worried about his outsider status. (Being an official maverick has got to be the next best thing to having lots of support among insiders!)

"I've always been in a position where I had to run against the establishment," he said. "It gives me some independence to focus on government reform and change and solving problems without the baggage of the establishment holding me back."

He also said he expects state party leaders to try to prevent him from getting on the ballot. "I expect that. It makes it tougher."

As for Eliot, no scorched earth here.

"I have nothing bad to say about Eliot Spitzer. He deserves the reputation he enjoys." As? "As one of the top Attorney Generals in the country."

But what about that little case involving one of your constituents, a Mr., um, Langone?

"That's not my province.... I haven't read any papers or anything like that.... Ken Langone is a Nassau County resident who supported me for my position as County Executive and has offered to support me."

He also put a novel, but sharp, spin on Langone's money.

"He doesn't want anything from me as far as government goes," Suozzi said.

Just to kill Eliot, right? "Yeah," he chuckled, before continuing:

"He just wants me to win and do a good job. In a way, that's actually liberating. I'd rather have that kind of support than support from lobbyists who want me to help their clients."

What about Dick Grasso's $139.5 million payday?

"It seems like a tremendous amount of money, but that's a private sector company.... The interesting thing about it is the courts will have to decide what's appropriate here. It would be great if that case could be resolved as quickly as possible.... If Eliot wins the case, the money will go back to the millionaires who own the New York Stock Exchange anyway."

Would he like to debate Spitzer?

"Debates are great for voters. The more the better."

(Earlier today, I'd asked Eliot about debating Suozzi. "I've always believed debates are part of a healthy Democratic process and I look forward to them," Spitzer said, without committing more specifically.)

I also asked Suozzi about some of the problems in his own administration, including one Deputy County Executive indicted and another who left under a cloud in a timesheet scandal.  read more »

"Every large organization has problems and you've got to judge people based on how they address those problems," he said. "We now have a Deputy County Executive for Compliance. It was a very difficult, but a very important, learning experience."

Ken Langone is set formally to launch his crusade against Eliot Spitzer at a speech to the Cato Institute today, Reuters reports.

Not exactly helpful to Spitzer, as Langone can presumably raise quite a bit of money for Tom Suozzi, creating a real primary.  read more »

On the other hand, the image of enraged, stymied tycoons pledging to crush the meddling Attorney General does nothing to dispell the image of Eliot as a crusader for ordinary citizens. It's sort of a cartoon, in fact. One wonders whether Langone will wear a top hat for the occasion.

And it's hard to see Eliot losing public relations points on the specific substance of his dispute with Langone: Dick Grasso's compensation from the New York Stock Exchange. When asked about the case on NY1 a few weeks ago, Suozzi raised some general questions; but Suozzi will have at some point to talk about whether he thinks Grasso's pay was appropriate.

Tom Suozzi has been telling people for a long time that he'll primary Eliot Spitzer for Governor, and Spitzer adversary Ken Langone apparently takes him at his word.

"How much does Ken Langone hate Eliot Spitzer?" Newsweek asks today. "So much so that the billionaire financier is telling friends that he is looking to raise tens of millions of dollars to finance a long-shot candidate to challenge New York's corporate-crime busting attorney general in his race for governor in 2006."  read more »

Langone also says this about his own legal troubles with Spitzer, relating to Dick Grasso's pay package: "You tell Spitzer that if he's going to try this case, he should try it himself because my lawyers will beat him like a rented mule."

This is, basically, good news for Suozzi's bid. The potential pitfall is that nobody outside Nassau County has any idea right now who Suozzi is, and Lagone opens him to the risk of being introduced as the pawn of guys Eliot prosecuted.

For several years, those of us with a heart and a sense of fair play had been worried that Richard G  read more »

In the business world, the story of the early 21st century is bleak indeed.  read more »

Many New Yorkers are being asked to share the burden of lifting the city out of its budget morass.  read more »

Last summer, the New York City Economic Development Corporation quietly circulated a glossy brochure  read more »