That is the question, which officials have answered with either their presence or absence at the Capitol today--David Paterson, who will give the speech, is managing to do both by miracle of a State Police helicopter.

Michael Bloomberg is not here, but I ran into Kevin Sheekey and Michelle Goldstein, who has been the mayor's representative here but will soon move to Washington. Carl McCall, the former state comptroller, is here as is New York City Comptroller John Liu. And Cyrus Vance Jr., the just-elected Manhattan district attorney, opted to attend the speech instead of Sutton's funeral.

"Obviously it was a tough choice," said Vance's spokeswoman Erin Duggan. "There are a lot of important issues that both the state and the legislature will be working on."

One of these, Duggan said, was domestic violence legislation, something on which Vance campaigned.