Intelligencer

The Ex-Green Cuomo Machine

Turncoats abound.

By Geoffrey Gray
Published Jun 25, 2006

(Photo: Debra Rothenberg/FilmMagic)

Mark Green has been squaring off in the state attorney general’s race against not only Andrew Cuomo but also several longtime allies turned foes. Shortly before the Democratic convention in late May, Scott Levenson, who worked for Green as campaign manager and chief of operations for five years before leaving under unclear circumstances in 1998, went to work for Cuomo tracking delegates. Levenson insists that taking the Cuomo assignment wasn’t personal: “My relationship with Andrew predates Mark.” Then there’s Joe Percoco, a former Green scheduler, now Cuomo’s political director; former Green media consigliere Ken Sunshine, who’s now counseling Cuomo; and top lobbyist and Dem official Emily Giske, a former Green consultant, who’s now Cuomo’s co-chair. One ex- Green volunteer not working for Cuomo, Jonathan Trichter, director of polling at Pace University, explains the migration this way: “Politics hath no fury like a political consultant scorned.” A Green rep, Mark Benoit, noted that hiring turncoats is “politics as usual.”