Posted on 03/02/2006 6:43:25 PM PST by neverdem
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Democrat Mark Green formally launched his campaign for attorney general on Wednesday, saying his career as a consumer advocate and public interest lawyer in New York and Washington made him the candidate best suited to succeed Eliot Spitzer.
“New York state needs a people's lawyer in more than name alone,” Green said in a park outside the state Supreme Court building in Manhattan, pledging to battle corporate excess and business corruption in the Spitzer mold.
Spitzer, who is running for governor, is well known for his high-profile investigations of Wall Street firms, mutual funds and the insurance industry.
“If Eliot Spitzer's been the sheriff of Wall Street, I hope to be looked back on as the sheriff of health care fraud and corporate abuse,” Green said, promising to fight Medicaid fraud and probe questionable business practices of pharmaceutical companies.
Green, 60, spent 10 years in Washington as top deputy to consumer activist Ralph Nader before entering New York politics as the Democratic challenger to then-Sen. Alfonse D'Amato in 1986. He lost that race but was elected New York City public advocate in 1993 and 1997. He narrowly lost the city mayor's race to Republican Michael Bloomberg in 2001.
Green called the loss “wounding but educating” and said he felt optimistic about his chances this time.
“There's an expression in Hollywood: ‘Failure is not when you fall down but when you don't get back up,”' Green told reporters. “I don't know how to quit. I can't quit. I never have.”
With his announcement, Green joins a crowded field of candidates vying for the Democratic nomination to replace Spitzer. The primary is Sept. 12.
Other candidates include Andrew Cuomo, the former secretary of U.S. Housing and Urban Development and son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo; former Buffalo U.S. Attorney Denise O'Donnell; state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky; housing advocate Charlie King, and former President Clinton's aide Sean Patrick Maloney.
Former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who dropped out of the race to challenge Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., after an embarrassing set of missteps, is the only Republican in the field.
Cuomo, with his high name recognition, is thought by many to be the front-runner, but analysts say it's too early to handicap.
“It's a wide open race - you have plenty to choose from as Democrats,” said Lee Miringoff, pollster for Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion. “Green has a following in New York politics, and he is successful at mobilizing core supporters. He is clearly a player in this.”
Green said he was running for attorney general as a “destination office, not a stepping stone office” - a possible jab at Cuomo, who ran for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2002 before dropping out of the race shortly before the primary. The winner of the Democratic primary, former state Comptroller H. Carl McCall, went on to lose badly to Republican George Pataki.
Green refused to say whether he believes Cuomo or any other candidate viewed the attorney general's race as a stepping stone.
Green currently heads a nonprofit policy institute, the New Democracy Project, which he founded in 1981.
He recently has taught part-time at the New York University Law School and its Arts College. He and his wife, Deni Frand, have two adult children.
Oh noooooooooooo not him again.
I remember him as a host on "Crossfire," back when CNN was all we had. What a knucklehead.
Is he that weirdo who is to the left of Jane Fonda?
ping
Yes, that's him alright.
He's run for office countless times and lost. He really should give it up.
If it's the same Mark Green.
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