Bob Morgenthau

I have an exclusive Pace Poll of "prime" Democratic voters, which shows Freddy strong, Gifford rising, and has some interesting results in down-ballot races as well.

Also, Jason Horowitz watches as Bob Morgenthau gets into the swing of retail politics.  read more »

Chris Lehmann and Joe Conason slap Bush over New Orleans. And Andrew Rasiej has a sweet new apartment.

Well, the Times's endorsement of Leslie Crocker Snyder did get Bob Morgenthau's attention. His ad, drawing attention to her greatest weakness -- her record as a tough, sometimes conservative, pro-death penalty judge -- went up instantly.

Snyder is pushing back with an amusing new ad called Breath, taking shots at Morgenthau and mocking his refusal to debate.  read more »

And maybe that will get some traction. When I was on yesterday with WNYC's judicious Brian Lehrer, I was a bit surprised by how exercised Brian was with the DA. Morgenthau, he told his listeners, was "ducking" requests for an interview, and wouldn't "deign" to face Snyder.

The main message of Bob Morgenthau's new television advertisement (QuickTime movie can be downloaded here) seems to be that the district attorney is very much alive. He's pictured out on the streets, mixing it up with the voters, generally doing things that require a pulse. Which is part of why this is such an odd race: that may, literally, be all Morgenthau has to prove to win re-election.

The spot also follows the general campaign line of giving him credit for the drop in crime over the last 30 years. (Does this mean that he should have been tossed out of office when crime peaked in the early 1990s?)  read more »

And it leads with a quote that, though it may not please Jeanine Pirro, has to play rather well: "Bob Morgenthau is the best prosecutor in the nation."

The speaker? Eliot Spitzer.

There should be some prize for political consultant ubiquity.

And if there were, one reader notes, PR man and former Koch spokesman George Arzt would have picked it up on Saturday, when he was quote twice on the same page of the Metro Section.  read more »

He gets extra credit, of course, for putting two opposing spins on the same topic, political money, in his two quotes:

On the Mayor's race: "The Democrats obviously need money to at least be competitive with Bloomberg - this is not a terribly good showing," said George Arzt, a Democratic political consultant. "They'll need to pick up very soon. It's very difficult to raise money against a mayor who many think is going to win.'" On the Manhattan District Attorney's race: "Does it matter that she has raised more money?" asked George Arzt, a spokesman for Mr. Morgenthau's campaign. "Not really. It doesn't matter because Bob Morgenthau is so well known and his record is well known. And, the truth of the matter is that a lot of her money comes from her law firm."

Since the March 16 shooting of Patrick Dorismond, the Haitian-born security guard who was killed in  read more »