Ryan Toohey

At the Crain's business breakfast breakfast this morning Representative Anthony Weiner spoke about "saving" New York's middle class, a theme that is likely to be at the center of his mayoral campaign.

The crux of Weiner’s speech, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, focused on job development. He did not rule out raising taxes, but did say that high taxes stymie job development. He defended the policy that prevents Wal-Mart (but not other big box stores), from coming into the city because it does not pay adequate wages. And he said that the city has to do a better job of offering incentives to keep business in New York City, since New Jersey has lower business taxes and can still access the city's workforce.  read more »

Before leaving a rally in Washington Heights yesterday, Eliot Spitzer insisted that there was "no cover up" by his campaign over the drunk driving arrest of his close campaign advisor Ryan Toohey.

"We have addressed it," said Mr. Spitzer. "We didn't know about it, we didn't know about it until two nights ago."

--Jason Horowitz

Spitzer campaign manager Ryan Toohey confirms that Christine Anderson is joining the campaign as communications director.

Anderson had her hands full as Teresa Heinz Kerry's spokeswoman on that campaign and then, for a time, as the spokeswoman for the Democrats' legal operation in the tense run-up to the election. She also did time at NYC2012.

I met Anderson at a Starbucks in Fort Lauderdale, where she came to yell at me after she learned I was staking out the strip mall containing the Democrats office from another (slightly nicer) strip mall down the road. She wound up, grudgingly, giving me a tour, which wound up in this story.

All their hard-work, skill -- a number of partners at top New York firms, among many others, flew south to watch the polls -- and secrecy, of course, were in vain, as Bush wiped Kerry out in Florida. But at the time it felt vital.

Other trivia: Anderson is married to Bill Clinton's last White House press secretary, Jake Siewert.