The difference is, in New York state certainly, President Clinton has big numbers. In New York state, no one knows who Al Pirro is and, frankly, very few people know who Jeanine Pirro is.

The heavens continue to smile on Eliot Spitzer.

The mailing issue injured him tremendously. Because while he was beginning to get some voter recognition, it became more negative than not. It wasn't helpful.

He's an easy target. New Yorkers are centrist by nature. One has to presume Senator Clinton is a candidate for president and the strategic imperative here (in 2006) is to pile up big numbers.

His job is to keep out of her view, and her job is to go after him. By not engaging her, she appears shrill, a voice screaming in the wilderness. It's tactically smart.

Clearly, what he did at D.M.I. was to prepare for a mayoral run, and to sound out themes of a mayoral run, ... That's not unheard of, for people to find a sinecure while seeking public office.

Incumbents are re-elected the vast majority of the time, so a challenger like Freddy needs an overwhelming emotion argument in his ads and on the street for why the mayor should be fired. Freddy never went negative, but he had nothing to go positive with, either.

The fact that you do this kind of race gets you tremendous cachet because it's very hard to do. You can expect Anthony Weiner to loom large in city politics for some time to come.

Snyder waged a tough campaign. But the edge usually goes to the incumbent in elections.

It's an attempt to get her core fund-raising base energized and prepared for what will be a very serious attack to stop her from being president.