Spin Cycle

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, for saying the stabbing death of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero would have been “a one-day story” had it occured in Nassau County.

2) Levy, who after taking a 48-hour beating for the “one-day story” remark, issuing a letter retracting the comment.

3) Suffolk Legis. Jack Eddington (I-Medford), who despite having backed Levy on illegal immigration, urged largely Latno audiences not blame politicians for the slaying.

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Last week’s winner (results not scientific): State Sen.-elect Hiram Monserrate (D-Corona), who cut a deal with the Senate Democratic leadership after threatening to back the GOP.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) State Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) and his short-lived Gang of Four, who threatened to hijack the newly-won Senate Democratic majority.

2) State Sen.-elect Hiram Monserrate (D-Corona), who scuttled the Gang’s plans by cutting his own deal with Senate Democratic boss Malcolm Smith (D-St. Albans).

3) Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who launched an effort to maintain power in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate, even after he campaigned heartily for John McCain’s GOP ticket.

Last week’s winner (results not scientific): Gov. David Paterson (94%), whose campaigning for Senate Democratic candidates enraged Republicans.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) Vice President Dick Cheney, who injected himself into the presidential race with a public endorsement of John McCain Saturday.

2) Gov. David Paterson, who enraged state Senate Republicans by campaigning for their opponents last weekend in Buffalo and on Long Island.

3) Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose new interpretation of the First Amendment called for protection of government officials against attacks from reporters.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. New York City Councilman David Yassky, who introduced the resolution calling for another referendum on term limits -- but once that failed voted for the council’s term-limit changes anyway.

2. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who blamed GOP officials for buying her $150,000 in clothes.

3. Suffolk Reps. Tim Bishop and Steve Israel, who kowtowed to the police union two weeks before Election Day by calling for Suffolk police to return to highway patrol duties.

Which was this week’s most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn.), who called on the media to investigate which members of Congress hold “anti-American” views.

2) Gov. Sarah Palin, who called small towns she’s visited the “pro-America” parts of the nation.

3) Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi said he’d “seriously consider” running for lieutenant governor.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), who compared GOP presidential tactics to those of segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

2) Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who said Barack Obama could win Indiana or North Carolina only “if they cheat us out of it.”

3) New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who like Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed her position on changing term limits -- in a way that could benefit both of them.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who during the Thursday press conference announcing his bid to change the city’s term limits law – just this one time, promise! – gave no hint of why three years ago he thought doing so would be an “absolute disgrace.”

2) Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who pounced on a relatively placid New York Times story about the nonassociation between Barack Obama and former Weatherman Bill Ayers by suggesting that Obama has spent time “palling around with terrorists.”

3) Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who responded to a union’s radio ad knocking his stewardship of the county’s 911 center with a press conference in which he accused union president Cheryl Felice of lying 14 different times.

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1) Arizona Sen. John McCain, who with great fanfare on Wednesday announced suspended his campaign only to keep his campaign offices open, continue to appear on television and then attend the debate.

2) Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, who, writing at National Review Online, called for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to remove herself from the GOP presidential ticket.

3) Late-night funnyman David Letterman, who after McCain cancelled a Wednesday night appearance, spent the rest of his shows last week mocking the candidate with tired jokes about McCain’s age.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who announced his zero-tax-increase budget on the backs of a shutdown of the county’s nursing home and the elimination of the Suffolk Police highway patrol unit.

2) Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco, who portrayed himself as the man holding the highway patrol bag when Levy gave him 90 minutes notice he was pulling Suffolk Police from the highways, though he still managed to have a full squad of deputy sheriffs in place.

3) Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel, the chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, who after paying $10,000 in back taxes on his Dominican villa, said he did nothing wrong and blamed a Republican “guerilla war” against him.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel, the chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the nation’s tax code, who blamed his failure to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic on “cultural and language barriers.”

2) Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who announced with fanfare that his 2009 budget proposal features a tax freeze, but offered no further details on the budget.

3) Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who when questioned about her insight on Russia, told ABC’s Charles Gibson, “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who spent her first week on the campaign belittling Barack Obama's celebrity while exploiting her own in front of adoring crowds.

2. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose GOP convention speeches decried their own big-city East Coast backgrounds.

3. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the rock band Heart who formally asked the McCain campaign to stop using their "Barracuda" during Palin's campaign stops.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1) Bill and Hillary Clinton, offering stirring speeches calling for unity among Democrats without disclosing that the disunity stemmed from their rhetoric on the campaign trail.

2) Barack Obama, moving the last night of the convention to the Denver Broncos’ 75,000-seat football stadium.

3) John McCain trying to steal Obama’s thunder by announcing his vice presidential choice on Friday, the day after the close of the Democratic National Convention.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. State Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith telling lobbyists — jokingly, he says – they should contribute now because it will be more expensive to win favor with Democrats when they control the Senate.

2. State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos saying, “That’s thuggery, and I think that’s totally inappropriate.”

3. Carey Campbell, head of a Virginia third-party movement, putting Michael Bloomberg on his state’s ballot as a potential spoiler.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Will Bower, a founder of a group that insists on nominating Hillary Clinton rather than Barack Obama at the Democratic convention, saying: “What we want... is to save the Democratic party from itself.”

2. Obama, agreeing to a symbolic roll-call vote with Clinton’s name before the convention, saying this “will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history.”

3. Rep. Bob Barr, Libertarian Party candidate, saying Sen. John McCain doesn’t show “he believes in dramatically shrinking the size and cost of the federal government.”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, saying of Sen. John McCain: “It’s John McCain who wears $500 shoes, has six houses and comes from one of the richest families in his state.”

2. Lt. Col. Mark Wright, Pentagon spokesman, saying of the surpassing of 500 U.S. military deaths in the Afghanistan war: “In terms of miletones, it’s important to point out that no casualty is more significant than any other.”

3. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) saying a boost for offshore drilling would send the message “America is serious about becoming independent of foreign oil.”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Suffolk Executive Steve Levy saying of the so-called Montauk monster: “If this could be certified as the Suffolk version of the Loch Ness monster... we'd sell tickets and get a lot of revenue.”

2. Nassau Executive Tom Suozzi spending industrial-development funds to promote local tourism at a Manhattan news conference — alongside singer Ashanti.

3. Nassau Legis. Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa) saying of the tourism expenditures: “This does nothing more than promote Tom Suozzi.”

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Barack Obama, for an overseas tour that had a " White House feel," as Politico.com noted.

2. Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, for announcing an upstate tour to campaign for a property-tax cap - where he'd likely need support if he ran again for statewide office.

3. John McCain's campaign blog, for using Obama's wreath-laying at the Holocaust Memorial in Israel to attack him for once saying the U.S. can't always use troops to prevent genocide.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Gov. David A. Paterson, who’s called New York’s accidental governor, asking his audience at the NAACP: “Why was this non-illustrious title held all these years for me?”

2. Sen. John McCain drawing a standing ovation by saying, “I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that."

3. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Bronx,Queens) saying he is disappointed by the pace at which the government of India is moving on the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Democrat, saying, "Barack (Obama) has been talking down to black people. I want to cut his ---- off."

2. Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, a GOP adviser to Sen. John McCain, complaining, “We have sort of become a nation of whiners…This is a mental recession.”

3. U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) claiming that U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) “is running the Alaska Democratic Party” through his chairmanship of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Rep. Anthony Weiner saying of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, “He’s had a lapdog press corps.”

2. Wealthy upstate maverick Tom Golisano letting it be known he may get involved in the fight for the state Senate by backing candidates he favors with $1 million each.

3. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who was a Hillary Clinton supporter, tweaking Sen. John McCain by saying: “I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion?

1. Sen. Joseph Bruno, in his farewell speech as majority leader, tweaking Sen. Kemp Hannon’s rebellion on a final bill that Bruno tried to sneak through the house, saying: “That’s the love-hate part of what goes on around here...Love-hate, love-hate.”

2. Hannon, health committee chairman, rising and angrily declaring of Bruno’s parting maneuver: “In seven years of discussion ... I have never heard of this...I was told we weren't going to do this.”

3. Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe organizing grass-roots “persuasion armies” to convince swing voters to back the Democrat.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Susan Rice, top foreign policy advisor to Sen. Barack Obama, warning that John McCain would “give us a stupid approach to the war on terrorism for four more years.”

2. Fred Dalton Thompson, acting as campaign surrogate for McCain, saying of Obama: “He has come up as a typical young man in a hurry.”

3. Thomas Suozzi, Nassau County executive, Suozzi, championing a property tax cap by donning a cap with the number 74 — the percentage of New Yorkers found in a poll to favor the idea.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion?

1. E.D. Hill, anchor on Fox News, suggesting a fist bump between Barack Obama and wife Michelle could be seen as a "terrorist fist jab."

2. The “Media Matters” organization starting a petition demanding an apology from Hill.

3. Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell fighting the Islander East natural-gas pipeline proposed for the Long Island Sound between her state and Wading River.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady) proposing legislation that would give senior citizens a $200 tax rebate and provide tax credits to replace old fuel tanks.

2. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D- Jamaica Estates) saying he will back Barack Obama, but would not do so prior to Hillary Clinton’s withdrawal because he and other supporters were “waiting for the leader to hand over the sword,"

3. The Rev. James Lisante of the Rockville Centre diocese endorsing Republican candidates during opening prayers at GOP events over the past three years.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi hosting a press conference with Suffolk social-services leaders to warn of the dangers of mothers co-sleeping with their young kids.

2. Scott McClellan, former Bush administration spokesman, claiming retroactively to have objected to the way policies were shaped.

3. Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole condemning McClellan as “a miserable creature” for doing so.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Brookhaven’s Democratic supervisor, Brian Foley, running for the state Senate seat of veteran Republican Caesar Trunzo, saying he will “bring a new level of energy” to representing the district.

2. Jesse Garcia, Brookhaven GOP chairman, calling Foley “a failure as town supervisor.”

3. Rep. Joseph Crowley, Queens Democratic chairman, dumping state Sen. John Sabini to support NYC Councilman Hiram Monserrate for the job.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, citing a contentious atmosphere in Albany to conclude: “Labor is in a good place.”

2. Nassau Independence Party Chairman Bobby Kumar expressing satisfaction at recent judicial cross-endorsements by the major parties, suggesting that “good judges” deserve new terms.

3. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stepping onto center stage on the school pension issue by scheduling a public hearing with state legislators for Thursday on Long Island.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Gov. David Paterson saying he couldn’t condone civil-disobedience that halted traffic in protest of the Sean Bell shooting case.

2. Democrat Tracey Cline — after winning a primary to succeed disgraced ex-Raleigh DA Michael Nifong — saying: “This was not about the Duke lacrosse case...This was the healing after the lacrosse case...”

3. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, asked if he’d encourage Hillary Clinton to stay in the presidential race, responding: “I'm not going to get into it.”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman and delegate Joe Andrew abandoning the candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton and saying he expected to be attacked for it.

2. Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh downplaying expectations about his help for ally Clinton in Tuesday’s primary, saying: “My connection to the people of Indiana is personal, it's close. But it's hard to transfer that.”

3. Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island) saying after he was arrested for drunken driving: “Last night, I made an error in judgement.”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota announcing a crackdown on reckless drivers.

2. LI County executives Steve Levy and Thomas Suozzi threatening to pull county police from highway patrol if the state does not fund them.

3. Seven LI Assemblymen proposing to suspend the state's gas tax from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self promotion by a power player?

1. Clinton-administration-flack-turned-ABC-moderator George Stephanopoulos remarking: “The questions (in Wednesday’s debate) were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant.”

2. Barack Obama remarking: “Last night I think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people.”

3. Bill Clinton remarking: “I didn't hear her whining when he said she was untruthful in Iowa.”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. New York State’s chief judge, Judith Kaye, suing for pay raises for her colleagues.

2. Assemb. Harvey Weisenberg’s $5,000 member item for the Long Beach Polar Bear Club.

3. Elton John, who's British, declaring in support of Hillary Clinton that he’s amazed “at the mysoginistic attitude” in the U.S.

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Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) announcing a lawsuit against the Bush administration, seeking documents and testimony related to dismissals of 9 U.S. Attorneys last year.

2. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) calling the suit a “partisan political stunt” and “a complete waste of time.”

3. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn asserting that a controversial practice of holding funds in reserve “continued against my instructions” and allocations to fictitious groups pre-dates her role.

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Sen. Hillary Clinton calling her account of dodging sniper fire in Bosnia mistaken — after videotapes showed it to be totally fictitious.

2. Sen. John McCain shifting emphasis after saying of borrowers as well as bankers: "It is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly.”

3. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor, saying: “The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans.”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. New York City Buildings Commissioner Pat Lancaster proclaiming after the arrest of an employee who allegedly faked an inspection of the E. 51st St. crane that collapsed, killing 7: “I do not and will not tolerate any misconduct in my department.”

2. Gov. David Paterson saying if it turned out he did not pay back his campaign for a hotel room he used for a tryst with a woman friend “I will do it now.”

3. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver praising Paterson’s disclosure of infidelities, saying: “The governor said ‘let me get a budget done, I’m putting this out of the way.’”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1.Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer apologizing and resigning but saying “I and the remarkable people with whom I worked have accomplished a great deal.”

2. Former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro saying, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.”

3. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick calling news stories that he lied about a relationship with a staffer part of an “illegal lynch mob mentality.”

Which was the most fevered lunge for self-promotion by a power player?

1. Hillary Clinton declaring we need a president “tested and ready to be commander-in-chief on Day One.”

2. Barack Obama saying “The Clinton campaign has been true to i