Spin Cycle

The reviews were not very good for the Senate Republicans' performance in submarining the special session last week to close the budget deficit, and offering no meaningful alternative to Gov. Paterson's proposed workforce, health and school aid cuts. Late yesterday, as James Madore of the Albany bureau reports, the GOP unexpectedly announced that it'll be coming back in December:

"Criticized for helping scuttle Tuesday’s special legislative session on the budget deficit, State Senate Republicans will reconvene the legislature’s upper chamber on Dec. 15 to consider rival spending cuts.

"Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre said Friday, 'The legislation that we will advance and act on will include significant spending reductions, recurring savings actions and important initiatives to maximize revenue.'

"He called on the Assembly to put forward a plan to reduce this year’s $2 billion budget deficit and for public conference committees to resolve differences between the Senate and Assembly plans.

"Skelos also said the Senate would take up a plan to reduce business taxes and overhaul the state’s troubled Empire Zones economic development program.

"Gov. David A. Paterson is set to unveil his 2009-10 budget the following day. Senate Republicans originally said they wanted to see next year’s budget before trimming this year’s."

That's pretty sketchy, without details to indicate whether they'll propose real cuts or phony cuts. But at least it's a sign that the GOP wasn't happy with it's current public profile -- appearing content to do nothing to cut spending and let Democrats take responsibility for making cuts when they (probably) take the majority next year.

After putting out a video on a meeting of the Energy and Environment transition team, Obama got a bunch of questions. So, here's the latest YouTube, answering some of them:

More cabinet leaks: Timothy Geithner of the NYFed to Treasury, Bill Richardson to Commerce following Penny Pritzker's withdrawal. A report from NBC:

Clinton's office issues a statement:

"We’re still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature,"

Worth a read, with the Hillary to State story apparently solidifying:

Even if you think she's up to the job, there's another worry -- that she will name layers of foreign policy loyalists who will still believe Obama is naive, resist his ideas, and bury them, according to this story:

"While the coterie of foreign-policy thinkers around Obama have been more liberal, in an aggregate sense — on issues like Iraq and negotiations with America’s adversaries — the Obama loyalists question the boldness of the Clintonites. They fear that Obama’s apparent embrace of Clinton represents an acquiescence to the conventional Democratic foreign-policy approaches that they once derided as courting disaster. Some wonder whether a Clinton-run State Dept. will hire progressive Obama partisans after an acrimonious primary.

"In addition, some Obama loyalists wonder whether the same people who attacked Obama on foreign policy during the primaries can implement Obama’s agenda from State Dept. perches.

" 'Look, Clinton and Obama are both smart people,' said one Democratic official who would not speak for the record, 'and I’m sure their one-on-one relationship would be OK. But when you hire a Clinton, you hire more than just that one person, you get the entire package.' If Clinton becomes secretary of state, it’s possible that the fissures between her loyalists and Obama’s would be a significant undercurrent of the administration’s foreign-policy decision-making."

Of course, if Hillary Clinton is herself a serious foreign policy thinker and conceptualizer driving the ship, this won't be a problem. But if she's just a concept around which various advisors congregate to shape her views, it could be........

The NYT adds its imprimatur to a story that was in a few other places this morning: Obama will offer State to Sen. Clinton, and she will accept.... Except, it won't be officially done until after Thanksgiving, which has to make it a little bit short of 100 pct., gold-plated certain.

We don't really cover stories like piracy. But this video is an interesting new approach from an interesting new website, www.good.is. Politics sometimes, and other stuff. Worth checking out:

In a moment that deserves to be stopped in time and captured in amber, departing Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, of the airport bathroom stall sex scandal, says farewell to departing Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, of the endless earmarks and multiple felonies:

"Uncle Ted, I'm going to miss you. This Senate will miss you, your state will miss you and America will miss you."

End of an era.

Catching up with Sarah Palin, after she pardoned a Thanksgiving turkey. Unfortunately, she didn't pardon all of them, and her cheerful outlook is not shared by the birds getting stuffed upside down into.... a dark place:

Commentators speculating on Hillary Clinton's potential departure to become Secretary of State continue to put Andrew Cuomo at the top of the list of potential replacements, on the theory that by naming him Gov. Paterson would remove a potential rival to his expected re-election bid in 2010.

But as we've mentioned here before, that line of analysis seems to ignore the impact of Cuomo's disastrous 2002 challenge to Carl McCall for the Democratic nomination. Aside from running an immature campaign, Cuomo's decision to try to take the nomination away from a longer-serving official striving to become the first African-American elected governor in NY was badly received from the start.

Challenging an incumbent in a primary involves the same kind of too-much-in-a-hurry chutzpah. Challenging an African-American appointed incumbent who is trying, again, to become the first black man elected governor would arouse the same resentments.

Unless Paterson's next 12 months are such a disaster that he appears unelectable, Cuomo won't make the same mistake twice. Paterson, knowing this, probably doesn't view him as a serious rival in 2010. And if he doesn't, the logic of putting him in the Senate disappears.

Cuomo, who is the voter favorite to replace Clinton in polls, should certainly be on the list of possibilities. But the political logic of naming him is less obvious than it may appear on the surface.

A new Marist Poll finds that Bloomberg's approval rating has dropped by 9 points in the wake of his decision to ram through a term limits extension for himself while rebuffing a voter referendum on the change.

But the drop, while significant, is also non-threatening: Bloomberg was at 68 percent favorable before term limits, and now he's at 59. That's still a pretty strong number, so if public opinion solidifies at that level, he'll still be in pretty good shape going into 2009, and his political gamble will have paid off.

Term limits is pretty clearly the drag: By 43-30, voters say the term limits extension was a bad thing. By 48-42, voters say the courts should overturn it. And 40 percent say it makes them less likely to back Bloomberg for reelection, compared to 19 percent who say it makes them more likely. Still, he polls over 50 percent and holds a healthy lead in head-to-head matchups with prospective Dem opponents.

Here's the real danger sign: NYC voters have become much more pessimistic, with 47 percent feeling the city is on the wrong track, compared to 45 percent who think it's on the right track. In March 2006, Marist found that 64 percent thought it was on the right track, and 30 percent wrong.

The shift reflects the national mood, and voters probably don't blame Bloomberg personally. But still: Unhappy voters are always a risk factor for an incumbent.

Back in 2001, in the aftermath of the Marc Rich pardon, Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy, now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was appalled. From columnist EJ Dionne:

"Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was no less angry. 'It was a terrible pardon,' he said. 'It was inexcusable. It was outrageous. ... Here was a man who was involved in a huge swindle and has shown absolutely no remorse.' Usually, Leahy added, pardons go to those who have paid at least some penalty for their crime. Rich's penalty? He's been living 'a life of luxury' in exile in Switzerland and Spain."

If it was a terrible, inexcusable, outrageous pardon, wouldn't that probably mean you'd harbor a few concerns about the Deputy AG who went outside normal DoJ channels, overrode the line prosecutors and gave the White House a personal stamp of approval? Well, apparently Leahy doesn't.

Righteous to a fault on Bush administration blemishes, Leahy has given Obama's apparent AG nominee Eric Holder a full-throated endorsement, giving no sign that he even plans to raise his role in Rich at confirmation hearings:

"I have known Eric Holder for many years. If he is President-elect Obama's selection to be the next attorney general, Mr. Holder would bring the kind of leadership, temperament, experience, and judgment we need to restore the rule of law and rebuild the reputation of the Department of Justice so that it is worthy of its name."

And thus, touching the right bases in the Washington salons, Holder of the outrageous, terrible and inexcusable pardon comes out as restorer of the rule of law with leadership, temperament and judgment.

Obama cuts a radio ad for Democrat Jim Martin, who's in the runoff for a Georgia Senate seat against Saxby Chambliss:

Democrat Graham Long of Glen Cove was welcomed back to work at the Nassau County Planning Commission on Thursday after taking a leave of absence to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Peter King.
As the commission convened publicly at the Teddy Roosevelt Building in Mineola, Chairman Jeffrey Greenfield — perhaps symbolically — asked Long to lead the audience in the pledge of allegiance.
“He won’t be going to Washington anytime soon,” Greenfield said with a smile.