"I’m not trying to be coy about it," Yassky just told me. "I want to stay in government. I love this work. I think I’ll want to keep doing it after my term is over. And I think I’ll be in another election," but 2009 is "too far away and I have not decided. We’re not there."

Though there are at least five candidates, it's not that outlandish for Yassky to calculate that there may be room for one more. The list of announced and likely candidates for comptroller include Simcha Felder and James Brennan of Brooklyn, and John Liu, Melinda Katz and David Weprin of Queens, if I'm not missing anyone. The pool of voters in Manhattan, in the absence of another entrant (Scott Stringer, maybe?), are anything but locked down.

Yassky is popular with the New York Times and with Michael Bloomberg, who has already held two fund-raisers for Felder, but has shared national TV time with Yassky. So, if he can line up backing uptown and in his part of Brooklyn... who knows?