Intelligencer

General Confusion

Loyalty tug-of-war over the attorney-general race.

By Greg Sargent (Email)
Published Jan 8, 2006

Although the last few elections suggest that New Yorkers may not feel much affection for Democratic AG candidates Mark Green and Andrew Cuomo, they’re both state-party “made men,” leaving power brokers caught between conflicting loyalties (or competing senses of dislike). A guide to the tangled web of alliances.

(Photo: Peter Kramer/Getty Images)

Dan Klores
Top execs at Klores’s PR firm are split: John Marino’s a Cuomo man, and Joe DePlasco’s a longtime adviser to Green. But Klores is firmly behind Cuomo.

(Photo: Richard B. Levine)

David Dinkins
Appointed Green his Consumer Affairs chief, and they remain friends. Still, he gave Cuomo a key anti-homelessness job, helping qualify him for the federal Housing post later. May be leaning Green but likely to stay nonaligned.

(Photo: WireImage)

Ken Sunshine
The PR superfixer has been a pal of Green’s since the seventies. But Sunshine is a close adviser to health-care union Local 1199 leader Dennis Rivera, perhaps Cuomo’s most important supporter, so Sunshine’s troops are with Cuomo.

(Photo: Richard B. Levine)

Chuck Schumer
He backed Carl McCall against Cuomo in 2002, though that may have been more to solidify his hold on blacks than out of dislike for Cuomo. Schumer has, though, tangled with Green, whom he beat in the 1998 Senate primary. Likely to remain neutral.

(Photo: Richard B. Levine)

Eliot Spitzer
Both Cuomo and Green want wink-and-nod backing from Spitzer. He might quietly prefer Green, seeing Cuomo as more likely to undercut him once he’s governor. But Cuomo as AG nominee could help boost Catholic turnout for Spitzer’s gubernatorial bid.

(Photo: Richard B. Levine (Hillary Clinton); Ryan Remiorz/AP (Bill Clinton))

Bill and Hillary Clinton
Cuomo was Bill’s Housing secretary. But the Clintons also have close ties to Green, dating back to 1988. Green invited the Arkansas governor and First Lady to events in New York—introducing them to top donors and helping launch them as national figures. Unlikely to decide.

(Photo: Keith Spakocic/AP)

Chris Heinz
Wealthy, fund-raising son of Teresa Heinz Kerry is indebted to Green for coming out early for Kerry in New York. Still, Cuomo turned over his donors from his 2002 gubernatorial campaign to the Kerry campaign, so Heinz has helped raise money for both sides.

(Photo: Richard B. Levine)

Ed Koch
Is said to blame the Cuomo clan for the “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo” slogan used against him in the Koch–Mario Cuomo 1977 mayoral race. But he also has feuded with Green, backing Ferrer for mayor in 2001, twelve years after Green supported Dinkins over Koch.