Free Republic

Showing their fund-raising prowess, the Democrats Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Rodham Clinton have collected millions of dollars in recent months, many times more than their Republican opponents running for governor and United States senator. Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking her second term in the Senate, has about $22 million cash on hand, 100 times the amount for either of her Republican rivals, John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers, and Kathleen Troia McFarland, a Reagan-era Pentagon official, according to numbers provided by their campaigns yesterday. Mr. Spitzer, the attorney general, who began raising money for his campaign for governor nearly...

After a stormy political winter, New York Republicans are suddenly speaking to donors, party activists, and reporters about a candidate for governor who just might help their chances to win this fall. Oh, and did they mention he was a Democrat? The candidate, Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, is receiving a lot of Republican love these days because he is trying to do what the Republicans have failed to do over the last year: bloody the leading Democratic candidate for governor, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who sits atop a 50-point lead in the polls. Mr. Suozzi and Mr....

The Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, will announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor on Feb. 25, aides to his campaign and his administration said last night. He will face Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who has a huge lead in early fund-raising, opinion polls and endorsements. As a moderate from the suburbs, Mr. Suozzi poses a counterpoint to Mr. Spitzer, who is a liberal from the city. Also yesterday, in another contested Democratic race, H. Carl McCall, the former state comptroller and 2002 Democratic nominee for governor, bypassed some better-known candidates in the race to succeed Mr....

The general assumption among New York Democrats is that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer will be the party's candidate for governor next year. He announced his bid in December and has been busy raising millions and building alliances to reclaim the office for the Democrats for the first time in 12 years. But, to the delight of Republicans and annoyance of Spitzer allies, another Democrat has recently confided to prominent party members that he is preparing to run, arguing that his profile as a suburban Italian Catholic moderate and reform-minded Albany outsider would make him a strong candidate in both New...

With all the attention focused on the re-election of President Bush and the record voting for New York State's senior United States senator, Charles E. Schumer, the hidden winner of last Tuesday's election may well have been the Working Families Party, which established itself as an emerging political force statewide by getting a little-known candidate elected district attorney in Albany County. The small grass-roots party, which has strong ties to labor, had already helped defeat an incumbent in the Assembly, elected a member of the New York City Council and pressed the State Legislature to pass an increase in the...