Hank Sheinkopf

I caught up with State Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith at the Sheraton in midtown at the party for state Democrats. Asked about the Democrats' chances of retaking the State Senate, Smith demurred: “We don’t know yet. We’re optimistic." He said thinks he’ll know “hopefully by 10:30 or 11.”

 

Smith was trailed by an especially large entourage led by Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf.

 

In a brief telephone interview just now, City Comptroller Bill Thompson said, “It’s my intention to run against Mike." Then he soften his language, and continued, "It’s my intention to run for mayor, let me put it that way. And by the way, and I heard from people who don’t think it’s going to survive a legal challenge. I’m moving forward right now.”

Although Thompson quickly rephrased his initial remark, this is the strongest statement he's made to indicate that he might take on the billionaire mayor in next year’s mayoral election.

Hank Sheinkopf, who has worked as a consultant to Thomspon in two previous citywide races and may do so again, told me, “I would advise Mr.. Thompson to do what his conscience dictates. It’s not clear what will happen,” he added, referring to the outcome of the expected legal challenges.  read more »

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has been talking to political consultants who have laid out a road map for a potential mayoral candidacy, according to a consultant who has met with him.

The consultant did an analysis of the mayor's race over the last three months and shared parts of it with me. The written analysis lays out perceived vulnerabilities of the leading Democratic candidates—City Comptroller Bill Thompson, Representative Anthony Weiner and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn—and concludes that Klein's entry could create a situation in which Thompson wins the initial vote, but with less than 40 percent of the vote he'd need to avoid a run-off.  read more »

Political consultant Hank Sheinkopf—who's seen many, many primaries—indulged me with a few predictions about the outcome of some of today's competitive races:

Assemblyman Sheldon Silver by 10 points.
State Senate challenger Dan Squadron by 10 points.
Representative Ed Towns by 8 to 10 points.
State Senator Kevin Parker by only 2 points.

Agree? Disagree?

It's starting to look like Martha Taylor, who is running for the Queens City Council seat currently held by Jim Gennaro, has some unusually early (if unofficial) support from a couple of big names in New York politics--Bill Thompson and Malcolm Smith.

As Liz noted, Taylor currently works for Bill Thompson, and her consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, has ties to Malcolm Smith. Later, Crain’s reported that Thompson and Smith “support Taylor.”

And today, a local paper in Queens quotes one of Taylor’s consultants, Austin Shafran, saying Thompson and Smith are “very supportive of her candidacy.”

When I e-mailed Shafran, he explained, "No specific endorsements have been made as of this time.  read more »

One angle I haven’t considered yet regarding the Queens County Democratic Party endorsement meeting on Friday is what it means for State Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith.  read more »

So, how will today’s revelation affect Christine Quinn's political future?

Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf said, “We’re required to give Speaker Quinn the benefit of the doubt, especially since she announced today she was the person who alerted law enforcement to the problem.”

“We don’t know the impact because we don’t know what will occur here," added Sheinkopf, who has worked for likely mayoral candidate Bill Thompson. "The good news is, from a P.R. and political perspective, she got in front of the story. The bad news is that she’s in the story. And only time will tell if she remains in the story.”  read more »

During an interview on The Perez Notes last night, Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf delivered a hypothetical negative ad against Councilwoman Melinda Katz, one of the leading candidates for comptroller in 2009.

“I haven’t written it yet," said Sheinkopf. "I’m going to write it write now. Somebody can steal this and do what they want with it:

"‘Melinda Katz wants to be comptroller of the city of New York. Her credentials? Well, she was the Land Use Chair of the City Council. Here are some facts. During her Land Use [Committee] chairmanship, New Yorkers lost more affordable housing than in any other time in history. Rents skyrocketed. She’s taken millions from land lords. Some of those landlords'--lets do it this way--

"'She’s taken hundreds of thousands from landlords, slumlords, the worst kind of people. Those who want to jack up our rents and throw us on the street. So there you have it. Melinda Katz, for the landlords. Think she ought to be comptroller? Ha. Absolutely not.'

Response from Katz's office after the jump.  read more »

So what does it mean for Andrew Cuomo if (when?) Spitzer goes?

Cuomo ran for governor once already and, as attorney general, never really took his eyes off the possibility of higher office, according to people who know him.  read more »

Democratic consultant and former Spitzer campaign operative Hank Sheinkopf doesn't think Eliot Spitzer is necessarily through, but he admits the governor's situation does not look good at all. His fate depends, he said, on the decision of his Democratic colleagues.

"Never count Eliot Spitzer out. Let's have some pity for his family and himself. Someone else might have had a better chance of beating this, but he presented [himself] as the sheriff of Wall Street, the beacon of morality, but he was eaten by something deep inside. Is he done?  read more »

Here are some more reactions from the big Democratic victory in last night’s special election, which cut the Republican majority in the state Senate down to one seat.

Roger Stone:

“A coup in the Senate would be a power-grab but Malcolm Smith might find he doesn’t have all the Democrats. Remember the difference between a caucus and a cactus? With a cactus all the pricks are on the outside.  read more »

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Sally Goldenberg reports that Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf will be the lead consultant to Republican Jimmy Oddo’s campaign for Staten Island Borough President.

Oddo's likely opponent, Council member Mike McMahon, played Sheinkopf's reputation (he worked on Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, among many others) in a tongue-in-cheek effort to position himself as the earnest underdog.

"I am just a simple, plain City Councilman working hard to represent the people in my district -- I don't know anything about those high-powered consultants like Hank Sheinkopf," McMahon told the Staten Island Advance.

When I spoke to Sheinkopf, he told me he hasn't actually signed contract yet with Oddo. He also took issue with McMahon's comments.

"There's nothing high-falutin' about me," Sheinkopf said. "I'm an ex-cop with a C.U.N.Y. degree who couldn't afford anything else."

More after the jump.  read more »

OK, so let's assume for the sake of this exercise—or maybe just because we feel like it—that Michael Bloomberg is still actively considering a run for president.

Conventional wisdom was that Bloomberg would be more likely to run if Romney, who had fashioned himself the conventional, party-line conservative in the race, became the nominee, leaving moderate Republicans and Republican-leaning independents up for grabs. So now that he's not around to stand in the way of John McCain, a presumptive nominee with, presumably, much wider appeal, what effect could it have on Bloomberg's calculation?  read more »

Here's (half of) Hank Sheinkopf making odds for a Bloomberg presidential run.

I also asked him, somewhat randomly, about the New York Times' decision to no longer run local editorials and its effect on Eliot Spitzer--who has fared rather well in that paper's opinion pages. Sheinkopf, who has consulted for Spitzer in the past, said, “Politicians ought to breath a sigh of relief, now there’s one less place where they’ll be criticized on Sundays.”

[Tech note: What you see here is the sad result of my attempt to film using a camera with a broken view-finder.]

Last night at David Weprin’s fund-raiser for his city comptroller campaign, I learned that the City Councilman’s long-time chief of staff, Jack Rubin Friedman, is leaving in January to become the head of the Queens Chamber of Commerce. One attendee told me that Rubin might run for Weprin’s seat in 2009. (Rubin was standing nearby and interjected that it’s only a possibility at this point.)

The event at the Woolworth Kitchen and Towers drew a number of notable attendees: Dan Gardonick, Eric Gioia, Dave Pollak, Hank Sheinkopf, Domenic Recchia, Diane Savino and George Arzt.

Press-shy top aides to Christine Quinn, Ramone Martinez and Chuck Meara, were also there, and probably weren’t thrilled when Weprin announced their presence over the microphone.

Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant who previously worked for Eliot Spitzer, thinks that the governor is not to blame for the Democrats' loss in an upstate county executive's race, but that Democrats ought to be worried about the results in a few legislative races in Nassau County . 

Sheinkopf's take is after the jump.  read more »

The fact that Darren Dopp now has a job at Patricia Lynch’s lobbying firm seems to demonstrate, among other things, that he's viewed as a valuable commodity on the ground in Albany even after being named as a key figure in the biggest scandal to affect the Spitzer administration so far.

(As Wayne Barrett and Bill Hammond note, just because it's the biggest doesn't mean that it's that big.)

“Either Pat Lynch is the smartest person in the world, or the dumbest. And my bet is she is the smartest,” said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf.

Why?

More after the jump.  read more »

I asked Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf what he thought about the prospect of Independence Party activist Lenora Fulani getting into into the 2009 mayor's race.

His assessment: she would be "great fodder for any negative campaign."

UPDATE: Cathy Stewart, New York County Independence Party Chair emailed just now to say, “Negative campaigning is what voters rejected when they elected Mike Bloomberg twice. The issue in 2009  is whether we can keep the Bloomberg era of nonpartisanship going or whether the city is going to revert back to the days of clubhouse politics.” 

So, did anybody else think we’d see the day when Andrew Cuomo would side with Joe Bruno in the course of delivering a rough lesson to Eliot Spitzer on ethics and accountability?

Hank Sheinkopf, the Democratic consultant who worked for Cuomo’s main rival in the Democratic primary, said it was a predictable development, at least for people who understand turf battles in Albany.

“All kinds of forces that have an interest in weakening the governor are joining together, either directly or indirectly, to do so. So, it tells you about the lack of partisanship," Sheinkopf told me. "The partisanship no longer matters. It’s about ambition. Right? Protecting turf. The Republicans in the state Senate and the attorney general essentially have the same agenda right now. Think about it.”

They want to see a weakened governor?

“They both want to see him gone. They want to see him weakened and gone so they can protect their own turf. Think about it. If Spitzer is weakened, what happens to the Democrats' ability to win the senate in 2008? It declines somewhat.”

He added, “If reform is the argument, then Andrew is positioning himself as the reformer while the senate Republicans do their best to weaken the governor’s position as a reformer.”

Andrew Cuomo isn’t doing interviews. (Really.)    read more »

Also in this week's paper, I look how Andrew Cuomo is winning over critics in uncharacteristic fashion: by doing his job and not letting self-promotion get in the way.

"What we're seeing is a guy who sees the value of letting the work speak for itself, as opposed to engaging in gratuitous public relations," said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who spent the 2006 election cycle tauntingly referring to Cuomo as "Andy" on behalf of Mark Green.

Toughguy Republican consultant Rob Ryan put it this way: "Maybe the guy's better suited for the job than I thought."

-- Azi Paybarah

The Spitzer for President chatter, which I touched on here, gets a bit of new life at the tail end of this article in the Sun about why the governor is undecided about moving up New York's presidential primaries.

Mr. Spitzer could be waiting for other large states to make their move before he proceeds. By keeping his options open, he also preserves a bargaining chip that could come in handy in his dealings with the national Democratic Party.

Mr. Spitzer, who is widely believed to harbor presidential ambitions, also must be considering the impact an earlier date would have on his own chances in six or 10 years.

"It's not just about Hillary," said a Democratic political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, who was an adviser to President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and also worked for Mr. Spitzer's first successful bid for attorney general in 1998. "To presume that's how he's thinking about it is wrong. He's thinking about it in a larger context."

-- Azi Paybarah

Now that Eliot Spitzer has withdrawn his endorsement of Eliot Spitzer, is there a chance Hevesi can still win inside the voting booth?

"Sure there is," said Hank Sheinkopf, a consultant who doesn't usually get along with Hank Morris and his clients.

"Callaghan did not equip himself well for that debate, and you can't beat nobody with nothing. Undecided benefits the most from the endorsement withdrawal, and Eliot Spitzer, because he proved he is willing to go up against the nominee of his own party."

With so much controversy surrounding the current state comptroller, I called the former state comptroller, Carl McCall, to get his thoughts on the situation.

"I'm running out the door to go to New York 1 to do just that," he told me.

Great.

Tune in at 7 for that.

-- Azi Paybarah

For years, the more politics-minded denizens of the ritzy co-ops on the Gold Coast and Central Park  read more »

Veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf is entering new territory: early last month a group of 10 of the largest companies at Willets Point in Queens hired him to do public relations for their group, the Willets Point Industry & Realty Corp., which is facing the possibility that the city may try to take their property under eminent domain to make way for a new office/hotel/convention center district. -Matthew Schuerman

Chris Lehmann recaps his night at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Jason Horowitz parties with Conservatives.

Hank Sheinkopf thinks times are a changin'.

Matthew Schuerman reports on how Larry Silverstein may have gotten the best deal on Ground Zero.

And Niall Stanage thinks the MTA might be getting off a bit too easy in its negotiations with the Transit Workers Union.  read more »

Consultant Hank Sheinkopf has a very funny turn as the voice of the Democratic establishment in this clip from the Daily Show about Paul Hackett (click the "Couldn't Hackett" link.)

"He didn't fit the matrix," says Sheinkopf.

That odd KT McFarland campaign filing, whose entries for golf with Rudy got broken (twice!) by the News, has another interesting thread. She bought meals at the Union Club for three political consultants: Roger Stone -- best known around here for work with Sharpton and Golisano; Reagan guru Ed Rollins; and Hank Sheinkopf, a Democrat now working for Mark Green, among others.

Also, 162.93 at Cosco for "HALLOWEEN WITCH OUTFIT."

Rollins got the gig, and the $5,000 monthly retainer.

Tonight on the Daily Show, political consultant Hank Sheinkopf will be interviewed by Ed Helms about Paul Hackett.

On the agenda for tomorrow in Albany is Education Lobby Day, hosted by the UFT.

And later, New York Law School hosts a discussion on the Patriot Act, the wiretapping program and their implications on freedom and security.

—Nicole Brydson

Citizens Union's Dick Dadey emailed over revenue numbers for the top New York political consulting and lobbying firms for the past five years that give a strong sense of how political consultants' main product line is increasingly...lobbying. It's not a new trend, but it's a worrying one for good-government groups, as the question of whether influence is being peddled depends largely on the consultants' personal integrity. In the worst case, the political work is basically a loss leader for the core lobbying business.

Revenue for lobbying has increased more rapidly then revenue for campaign consulting since 2001. Although there is fluctuation in some years--the number and intensity of contracts clearly affects this--the general revenue trend for lobbying is up.

In the top five earners, as revenue for each firm increases, the share derived from campaign consulting has become smaller. Overall, only three of the top ten firms make more than 30% of their revenue from campaign consulting. While those three are in the top five in overall revenue, numbers show a trend towards lobbying. In first and second place for overall revenue, respectively, are the two firms who increased lobbying revenue the most over five years, the Parkside Group by 98%, and Kasirer Consulting by 93%.

Since 2001, the top ten consulting/lobbying shops in total revenue (with the share of revenue from lobbying in parentheses):

1. The Parkside Group: $7,585,897 (70%) 2. Kasirer Consulting: $6,541,569 (89%) 3. Mirram Global: $5,275,157 (30%) 4. Hank Sheinkopf: $4,725,904 (11%) 5. The Advance Group: $2,773,644 (10%) 6. Constantinople Consulting: $2,343,968 (95%) 7. George Arzt: $1,784,163 (94%) 8. Wiscovitch Associates: $680,860 (79%) 9. Pryor, Cashman, Sherman & Flynn: $391,476 (79%) 10. Schnur Associates: $209,950 (70%)

—Nicole Brydson UPDATE: As a bunch of readers noted, we could have been clearer about the sources and limits of this data. This is a list of consultants who work on city races and lobby city officials. The sources, Dadey emails, are the New York City Campaign Finance Board and the City Clerk's lobbying search database. So other sources of revenue, and other lobbying contracts, aren't included.

So the question in the Attorney General primary has been which candidate would take the first direct, on-record whack at Andrew Cuomo.

And the answer is...Mark Green.

In an email to supporters today, the campaign forwards a note from his new consultant, Hank Sheinkopf.

Excerpts:

"On the merits, Mark is head and shoulders better qualified than Andrew Cuomo.... If "the best rationale wins," as Mario Cuomo always said, then on the merits Mark's a winner...

"Andrew Cuomo does have a modest head start in polls, almost entirely because of his last name recognition upstate...but then he also had that same head start in 2002 before quitting once voters began paying attention.  read more »

"Last week's Quinnipiac Poll, showing both Mark and Andy defeating Jeanine Pirro, was interesting in this context. Among Democrats statewide, which is our "primary" concern, Mark had a 33% favorable vs. a 9% unfavorable, for a 24 percentage point net favorable -- while Andy had a 31% vs. 14% unfavorable, for a 17 percentage point net favorable. So where people know both, Mark's measurably more appealing."

"Andy." Just like old times.

Mark Green's campaign for Attorney General just announced that consultant Hank Sheinkopf has signed on as chief strategist.

Sheinkopf, who is joined there by pollster Joel Benenson, brings along with decades of experience a key asset: The ability and willingness, honed on the McCall campaign, to get under the skin of Andrew Cuomo. ("Andy" to Hank.)  read more »

The editor of The Brooklyn Rail, formerly the press guy for Norman Siegel's campaign, pens a post-mortem love letter to his candidate, with a slight hint of conspiracy:

"Why had Norman's candidacy clearly rallied the city's power elite into action? Perhaps because as the Post had said in its earlier editorial, Norman would be 'more focused on principles than practicalities'—a threatening perspective to those in power..."  read more »

He also claims that Hank Sheinkopf (Shein-cough?) coughed on him. Wetly.

With a who’s who in New York politics endorsing her and what’s left of the city’s  read more »

With a who’s who in New York politics endorsing her and what’s left of the city’s Democratic m  read more »

The Politicker took some heat a couple of weeks ago for suggesting that Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum was ducking a televised debate moderated by WCBS's Andrew Kirtzman.

We were not, it turns out, wrong.

Now another station, WABC, has sent this email to the other candidates about its own debate, set to air August 21:

"The participants will be [Andrew] Rasiej, Norman Siegel and Jay Golub.... Betsy Gotbaum has declined our invitation and will only do the two required of her by the Campaign Finance Board."  read more »

Gotbaum consultant Hank Sheinkopf tells us only that she's complying with the law.

"Why would anybody want to be on a stage with Norman Siegel, whose whole style of campaigning is to scream and yell and be negative?" he asked.

As  read more »

The oft-quoted political consultant Hank Sheinkopf has reached the peak of pop culture glory: the Daily Show. In this very funny report on Republican porn star Mary Carey (you can watch the clip here -- click on "Popping the Big Tent"), Sheinkopf tells Stephen Colbert that Democrats need the blacks and the Jews, but "we don't need the pornographers. We can live without 'em."  read more »

Everybody seems to want Gifford Miller's job.

A couple of the contenders for City Council Speaker, Lew Fidler and Bill de Blasio, turned up at the Highway Democratic Club in deep South Brooklyn last night. Just a bit before de Blasio's entrance, one of their colleagues, Dominic Recchia, introduced Fidler as "the next speaker," engendering a bit of muttering among de Blasio partisans. (For the record, the other two names we keep hearing are Comrie and Quinn.)  read more »

Hank Sheinkopf, who was honored at the Brooklyn event, had this to say:

"Anybody who says they can predict the outcome of the next speaker's race is just an idiot."

Two veteran Democratic political consultants who tried and failed to unseat President Bush are getti  read more »

There were several Democratic politicians at the anti-war march down Broadway over the weekend of Ma  read more »

You may have read that renowned political observer Tina Brown has written a characteristically weigh  read more »

Standing before a dozen television cameras, demurely accepting recognition as financial officers fro  read more »

They were old friends whose relationship survived the ruthless world of political consulting, two am  read more »

Only a few weeks ago, the nation's top media consultantswere convinced that there would be no Democr  read more »