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A Prominent Republican is joining a prominent Democrat in predicting that Gov. Cuomo will become President Obama's running mate for vice president next year. Former New York GOP boss William Powers, credited with playing a key role in electing Rudy Giuliani mayor and George Pataki governor, was effusive in his praise of Cuomo's successes in the just-ended legislative session, and in his prediction of the freshman governor's political future. "Andrew had a fabulous session. It was fabulous. A property-tax cap, ethics reform and, for Democrats, gay marriage," said Powers.

Ex-Senator D’Amato under fire for tilting election to Gillibrand at Republicans’ expense Published on May 27, 2010 by Official Wire (OfficialWire) WASHINGTON, DC While the media continues to call the New York Senate race a done deal in favor of Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand, shady subplots involving her rise to prominence remain unexamined. America Outraged Political Action Committee has been seeking to expose what it calls “an egregious case of political cronyism” involving former Republican senator and political power broker Al D’Amato and Gillibrand, the daughter of a prominent lobbyist. Among the connections: Gillibrand's father, Doug Rutnik, a contributor mostly...

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile) Thursday, October 29th at 8:53PM EDT 4 Comments I am told reliably, but have not yet confirmed, that Governor George Pataki endorsed Doug Hoffman tonight at a Conservative Party event. As Matt Drudge would say: Developing . . . If this is so, this is huge. Pataki routinely won NY-23 by huge margins. He remains quite popular up there.

Eliot Spitzer, the Governor of my state, has achieved a thing I would have though impossible: He has made me yearn for the days of George Pataki. Spitzer's latest wheeze, to give state driver licenses to illegal aliens, was actually state policy for most of Pataki's term as Governor, until Curious George changed the rules in 2003 (causing 150,000 illegals to lose their licenses). Oddly, under the pre-2003 Pataki rules, illegals could get licenses without showing a Social Security number provided they supplied documentary proof that they were ineligible for Social Security. Under Spitzer's proposed change, an illegal no longer...

ALBANY, N.Y.--The recent midterm election was bad news for Republicans, but it was even worse for New York Republicans. The GOP lost all three statewide offices by wide margins; its gubernatorial candidate did not even break 30%. Its sacrificial lamb for Senate did only slightly better, and representation in the state's 29-seat congressional delegation fell from nine to six seats. The most prominent state Republican is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat who, shall we say, wears his party affiliation lightly. What a contrast with 1994, when George Pataki, a little-known Republican legislator, defeated three-term incumbent Gov. Mario...

Gov. George Pataki has nine weeks remaining in his final term, and a sizable number of Western New Yorkers are ready to say goodbye. Thirty-one percent of local adults consider Pataki to be New York's worst governor since 1959, according to a new Business First-Goldhaber Research Associates Poll. That's the highest negative rating for any governor since Nelson Rockefeller. The runner-up in the survey, Mario Cuomo, received about half as many unfavorable votes as Pataki did. "At the end of the day, if people are unhappy, they're going to blame someone. Many Western New Yorkers are unhappy today, and they're...

As pre-ordained, Mayor Bloomberg was voted in as chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation yesterday. While waiting for the inevitable, my mind wandered back to late last year and this. Following the 9/11 money (from a New York Daily News editorial, originally published on December 10, 2005) No one knew how much money the city was going to need and for what purposes. Sen. Chuck Schumer presented the best guess to Bush in the Oval Office, and the President said, "You got it." So programs were created, and grants, loans and tax incentives began arriving to meet immediate...

Instead of someone who actually cares about 9/11—its dead and living victims and heroes—and remembrance of the day America was attacked, someone with less interest, without the time, and with an obvious conflict of interest is about to be left in charge of the memorial and museum at Ground Zero. Mayor Bloomberg’s choosing culture over remembrance, arrogant indifference for human remains, sabotaging all prior fundraising for the memorial, and callous disregard for thousands of living victims of 9/11 renders him unfit to serve as the chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. More than five years after 9/11, a...

Reader Scot Silverstein alerts us to the rally for Israel outside the United Nations earlier this week: Some 35,000 people rallied across from the United Nations to protest Ahmadinejad’s presence at the world body. The crowd also wanted to show solidarity for Israel and implore the United Nations to enforce Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s war this summer with Hezbollah and calls for the release of three Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference, referred to Ahmadinejad’s Tuesday night speech to the General Assembly, in which he portrayed...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — State worker unions could get "significant leverage" in contract negotiations with Albany under a bill passed by the Legislature with little notice, a government watchdog group said Wednesday. The bill was one of many agreed to in the waning days of the legislative session that is scheduled to end Thursday. The labor bill passed last week says that if the state is proven to stall or otherwise fail to bargain "in good faith," the state — and its taxpayers — must automatically award a 1-percent raise to union members. If the state continues to stall, an...

TVC ASKS PATAKI TO STOP HARASSMENT June 21, 2006 - Washington, DC – The Traditional Values Coalition asked New York Governor George Pataki to rein in a state agency which is threatening legal action against an Accord, New York skating rink because it plays Christian music during a “Christian Music Skate” party. The New York Division of Human Rights threatened Len and Terry Bernardo, owners of the Skate Time 209 rink in Accord, with an investigation because the rink plays Christian music during certain hours. The agency also threatened to charge a local newspaper which advertised the event for “aiding...

May 29, 2006 -- TOP backers of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld's bid for the Republican nomination for governor are increasingly pessimistic about his chances of defeating John Faso, The Post has learned. One prominent Weld backer conceded yesterday that the once-front-running candidate has yet to line up the 51 percent of the vote he'll need to emerge from this week's GOP convention as the party's official choice for governor.

Gov. George Pataki remained hospitalized Monday nearly a week after undergoing a surgery to correct a postoperative complication related to an emergency appendectomy. Pataki, 60, continued eating some food Monday but also remained on intravenous nutrition and antibiotics to reduce the risk of an abscess... `The governor's doctors have indicated that there has been a slow return of normal digestive function because of the ruptured appendix,'' ... Pataki was originally to be released two days after the Feb. 16 appendectomy. ``The governor continues to be in good spirits and is reading, walking around and conducting state business,'' ...

Gov. George Pataki, showing no improvement five days after surgeons removed his appendix, was transferred Tuesday to a New York City hospital and underwent another operation. Doctors operated to alleviate a blockage in Pataki's digestive system, said his spokesman, David Catalfamo. Afterward, the governor was "awake, alert and resting comfortably," ... A blockage following abdominal surgery is relatively rare, said Daniel Herron, an assistant professor of surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan.

Imagine being A fly on the wall hearing Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno telling Jeanine Pirro that she can't beat Hillary Clinton, seeing her camera-ready profile melt into a curt smile. Or a bug on the windshield last week as Pirro drove to a quiet power breakfast with outgoing Governor George Pataki, who endorsed her just two months earlier. "Right now, I am a candidate for United State Senate," Pirro declared after the meeting, with all the confidence of someone asking to be drafted into another race. (PirroforAg.com directs visitors to her Senate campaign website. Hmm.) In a pink suit...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Lawyers for 12 sex criminals who are being held in mental hospitals after their prison sentences ended complained to a judge Wednesday that the state is holding them illegally, a charge the state's lawyer denied. The sex offenders were ordered held by Gov. George Pataki, who had sought for years to get a law passed that would allow civil confinement of sex offenders when their sentences end. Pataki's plan extends the state's involuntary commitment law, normally used for the mentally ill, to sexual predators. It requires offenders nearing the end of their sentences to undergo an...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Gov. George Pataki will veto legislation that would allow women to buy the "morning-after" pill without a prescription, a decision described by abortion rights advocates as "sheer political expediency" to build conservative support for a 2008 presidential run. Pataki disclosed his plans Sunday night through spokesman Kevin Quinn. "Consistent with his record on women's reproductive issues, the governor plans to veto the legislation primarily because it provides no protection whatsoever for minors," Quinn said. "If this and other flaws in the bill are addressed, and a responsible version of the bill is advanced, the governor would...

Note to Republican presidential primary candidates: Don't underestimate George Pataki. There was a time when the pundits said he couldn't win a freshman's run for mayor of Peekskill. They also said that about him when he ran for the Assembly and then the State Senate. In each instance this quiet, thoughtful man proved himself an astute politician who could read his constituents far better than the pollsters and the political analysts. Not only did he run and win but he was able to position himself in such a way that an expanding circle of voters genuinely welcomed him as a...

New York's Medicaid program pays more than a million claims a day, feeding a $44.5 billion river of checks to radiologists and ambulance drivers, brain surgeons and orderlies, medical centers and corner pharmacies. Many who get those checks pocket more money than they deserve, and millions of taxpayer dollars are believed to be lost every day to theft and waste. Skip to next paragraph Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Falling Behind: Boxes of cases in the attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, where the size of the staff has failed to keep up with the program's growth. PROGRAM DISORDER High...

In a heartening advance with national reverberations, the Republican-led New York State Senate approved a bill on Wednesday that will permit local pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception to women who do not have a prescription. The surprising 34-to-27 vote, which followed easy approval by the Democratic-led Assembly, catapults the issue to a noncommittal Gov. George Pataki. Mr. Pataki has no principled course but to sign it. Skip to next paragraph Readers Forum: Today's Editorials The measure is a necessary response to the ideological gridlock at the Food and Drug Administration. The F.D.A. is still stalling over granting all American women...