For a full recap of all the sordid tales of politics in the Empire State, click here.

Ex-Rep. Christopher Lee resigned yesterday only hours after reports of his attempted affair via Craigslist, replete with shirtless photos, hit the internet. Caputo, who would know a thing or two about crisis control, said that he believes Lee's resignation will prevent further harm to Lee's reputation and allow New York officials to focus on the very real issues they're currently facing.

"I think that regardless of whether it's true or not," said Caputo (ever the campaign manager). "Congressman Lee saw it as something that's going to distract from the business at hand in Washington, especially for his constituents here in New York. And by resigning, he converted a hot political issue into a personal issue, and now we move on."

He also talked about the special election that will be held to replace Lee, emphasizing the urgency of the situation.

"I think that we've heard a lot of people urge the governor to move that special election as soon as possible," he said. "There are a lot of people jockeying for the seat."

Caputo was managing Carl Paladino's campaign when the gubernatorial candidate came under fire for forwarding racist and sexually explicit emails, and later when he became embroiled in a scandal after reports surfaced that he had a ten-year-old child out of wedlock, unbeknownst to his wife.

"As most congressmen will tell you today, and certainly anyone who ran for governor," Caputo said--perhaps in a nod to his experience with Paladino--"no matter what you say or what you do, it becomes a scandal."

"This is a regrettable situation and it is sad that [Lee] had to resign,” Cox wrote in a press release. “We are fortunate to have an energized Republican Party and a deep bench of potential candidates in Western New York.”

At a Crain's breakfast forum with state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, Cox told reporters that he had not spoken to Lee before his resignation.

Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, who also serves as treasurer of the State Republican Party, and Assemblyman Jack Quinn III are among the names being tossed around as potential Republican candidates for the seat.

At the forum, Skelos was asked about another potential candidate, state Senator George Maziarz, but Skelos said that he did not believe Maziarz would run, based on what he had heard from other senators who had spoken to him.

"I believe in the end, Senator Maziarz, who is the president pro tem of the Senate, will be staying in the Senate," Skelos said.

Skelos added that even if Maziarz did run, he was confident the party could hold that state Senate district in a special election, based on its heavily Republican bent--an attitude echoed by Cox with regard to the congressional seat.

“I am confident that a very strong and qualified candidate will be selected to run who will continue to ensure that the people of the 26th District are represented in the Republican Majority in the House of Representatives in Washington," Cox said in his statement.

Here is the full statement posted on Lee's website:

"It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of Western New York. I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness."

"The challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, and so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately."

In Niagara County, John McCain lost to Barack Obama by 357 votes, compared to George W. Bush, who in 2004 lost the county to Senator John Kerry by 461 votes. (You, too, can have fun playing with the NYT's map.)

Does this mean McCain is a better candidate than Bush? Obama a worse candidate than Kerry? Or nothing at all, because it is in no way statistically significant?

"We did what we could in terms of get out the vote, and McCain performed very well in our county and we were pleased with the results," said Henry Wojtaszek, chairman of the county Republican committee. Two candidates that won down the line, incumbent State Senator George Maziarz and Chris Lee, who defeated Alice Kryzan for an open congressional seat, also helped.

The other red spot is Montgomery County, which surrounds the City of Amsterdam on the Mohawk River. McCain actually beat Obama there (he carried two dozen around the state) by a margin of 1,836 votes. That's 63 votes less than Bush's margin of victory of Kerry, but the difference in percentage points for each candidate (McCain won by a 9.4 point margin, Bush by 8.9 points) appears to have been caused by an increase in the vote for third party candidates.

Nick Langworthy, the former executive director of the Erie County Republican Committee, who managed Chris Lee’s successful congressional race, told me this morning that ousting Mondello is a bit beside the point.

He thinks the party should focus on local leaders. “The best message we can get going forward is not pointing fingers, but that this change is going to come from the bottom up,” he said in a brief telephone interview.

“We’re going to sink or swim on our own. As a local party, you’re going to be gauged not just by how your candidate for governor does, but you’re going to be judged by whether or not you got the vote out--did you run candidates for City Council, county legislature, mayor?”

Langworthy did say having a strong candidate at the top of the ticket would help kick-start local efforts. He cited George Pataki's gubernatorial campaign, which helped Republicans carry Erie County even though they are outnumbered. (In Erie, Democrats have 325,597 voters; Republicans have 175,986).

Could Rudy Giuliani, who may be eyeing a run for governor, win Erie County?

“Oh certainly," Langworthy said. "But it’s not something you could take for granted. You’d have to work for it, have to spend time meeting people and traveling. But certainly he can carry it.”

Democrats won a decisive victory with a well-funded former aide to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Dan Maffei, who beat Representative Republican Dale Sweetland in Syracuse.

And the party stands on the cusp of picking off another incumbent. Absentee ballots in the race between Democrat Eric Massa, who has the enthusiastic backing of the progressive blogger set, and Representative Randy Kuhl, are still being counted.

Even though the A.P. already called the race for Massa, who is currently in the lead, neither candidate has either declared victory or conceded.

But Democrats fell decidedly short in the Buffalo-area race between Democrat Alice Kryzan and Republican Chris Lee, who were both seeking to fill the seat Tom Reynolds is retiring from.

Lee won with a decisive margin of 55-40, and no one seems to know why for sure.

"Kryzan was a better candidate, and she lost by a bigger margin. I'm looking for an answer, other than that it was a Republican district, and it behaved like a Republican district," said Kevin Hardwick, a political observer at Canisius College.

(The seat had been held by Reynolds since 1998.)

Kryzan herself told the Niagara Gazette that negative attack ads run by Lee, an Erie County businessman, which labeled her a "liberal trial lawyer," tipped the balance.

"All I can say is shame on him," Kryzan said.

But Hardwick points out that ads run by the DCCC against Lee, alleging his company outsourced jobs to China, were "over the top" and "actually may have hurt Kryzan."

Tuesday evening, Erie County Democratic Chairman Len Lenihan downplayed the odds from the start. "Keep in mind, Chris Lee had three lines and is a multi-millionaire."

There was also something of an enthusiasm gap. Kryzan surprised observers when she won the primary over Jon Powers, who had a great deal of support from blogs and raised $325,000 through progressive web sites.

Most of Powers' supporters got behind Kryzan, but slowly, and the excitement wasn't the same.

Also, even though Powers withdrew from the race (in a weird side narrative, he also sort of disappeared) and endorsed Kryzan, she was unable to take his place on the Working Families Party line, despite a lawsuit and an appeal.

It probably wouldn't have made much of a difference, though. Powers got almost 11,000 votes, but Kryzan needed more than 37,000 to close the gap.

For this reason, I wasn't expecting much from Forty Words for Fear (Gaff Music), the new CD by novelist Madison Smartt Bell and poet Wyn Cooper. Even so, the album's back story was tough to resist. Mr. Bell's novel Anything Goes , published last year, concerned the to-ings and fro-ings of a fifth-tier bar band. While writing the book, Mr. Bell asked his friend of two decades, Mr. Cooper, to help him come up with song lyrics for his fictitious group. (In rock circles, Mr. Cooper is best known for writing a poem, "Fun," that, with some modifications, became Sheryl Crow's 1994 megahit "All I Wanna Do.") Not only were the lyrics included in the book but, as a lark, Mr. Bell, who plays guitar, also set them to music and recorded a demo tape of the songs.

Thanks to the intercession of Gaff Music label head Scott Beal, that tape made it into the hands of producer Don Dixon, famous for his work with the Smithereens, Let's Active and R.E.M. Mr. Dixon liked what he heard, set up some studio time with long-time collaborator Mitch Easter (who engineered the record), recruited co-producer Jim Brock and hired some crack musicians-and before long, Mr. Bell's lark had become an honest-to-goodness record. This is what we in the journalism trade call a nice hook. But again, it's a novelist and a poet making a rock album; the precedents aren't tremendous.

Which makes Forty Words for Fear all the more surprising. Though no masterpiece, it's a thoroughly absorbing piece of work. Songs with titles like "The Here Below" and "What God Had Up His Sleeve" lay mordantly humorous lyrics and a general air of foreboding over rustic blues backdrops. Call it woodshed noir.

Mr. Bell won't win any singing competitions, but his gruff, quaky voice-reminiscent of the aforementioned Mr. Cohen, as well as folkmeister Greg Brown and the late Boston hipster Mark Sandman of Morphine-is just right for the music's thoughtfully ragged tone. (Mr. Cooper, on the other hand, limits his vocalizing to the recitation of a few stray lines.)

Better still are the arresting sonic touches sprinkled throughout, courtesy, I assume, of Messrs. Dixon and Brock. The percussion underlying the album's opening track, "On 8 Mile," sounds like somebody banging metal garbage cans together, and probably is. The heaviest rock number, "Anything Goes," could almost pass for ZZ Top-except that the lead instrument is a banjo. Elsewhere, accordion, trombone and short-wave radio make memorable appearances. The creativity on display here is such that one can't help concluding a second career is within Mr. Bell's grasp, if the novel-writing thing doesn't pan out.

That's Not Phair!

If you're still somehow wondering whether Liz Phair has really sold out, I can tell you unequivocally that she has. Her new album, titled simply Liz Phair (Capitol), is about as transparent a bid for Top 40 radio play as you can get.

But what's wrong with that?

With her classic first album, Exile in Guyville , released in 1993, Ms. Phair gained the kind of street credibility that today's bespectacled Williamsburg nerds would kill for. Any further adulation from the fringes of society would be redundant. More to the point, she's a 36-year-old single mom, and all the rave reviews in the world won't buy baby a new pair of shoes.

The problem is that Ms. Phair's pursuit of commercial acceptance has diluted her personality, which is the reason we still care about her 10 years after her debut. Among the many people she hired to compile this album were the Matrix, the production team that gave the world Avril Lavigne's "Complicated," and, sadly, Liz Phair is much like that horrid teenager's simulated rock: pure pabulum coated with a thin layer of processed toughness that's as catchy as it is empty.

Ms. Phair, of course, trumps Ms. Lavigne when it comes to sexual forthrightness; her frequent use of dirty words heated up many a reviewer when she first arrived on the scene. On the new disc, she's still up to her old tricks, but the results are more stupid than sexy. The principal offender, "H.W.C.," features a refrain that some might view as risqué: "Gimme your hot white come." Yet the way Ms. Phair sings these words, in the la-di-da voice of a high-school talent-show folkie, removes any potential thrill. It's further proof that spaying and neutering, though helpful for pets, doesn't make for great rock 'n' roll.

Dull Dan

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the prime movers of Steely Dan, have been around long enough now that they seem like family-the two weird uncles you never had. Hyper-educated masters of insular jive talk, they seem to be enduring an endless midlife crisis. They're hopelessly cynical, yet occasionally blindsided by bouts of twisted romanticism, usually brought on by the temptations of much, much younger women. Or at least the characters they write about are, and have been since Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker started the band in the early 70's.

In this respect, they've stayed consistent; their latest release, Everything Must Go (Reprise), is full of guys like the sad sack in "Things I Miss the Most," who takes his mind off his lady love's departure by "building the Andrea Doria out of balsa wood."

As always, the Dan's barbed lyrics are nothing short of brilliant, and Mr. Fagen's acerbic New York whine remains the consummate vehicle for them. But the rest of the package is troubling. Over time, Messrs. Becker and Fagen have settled into a way too comfortable mid-tempo pseudo-jazz-funk groove. Everything Must Go 's rhythm tracks have a generic quality that renders them almost interchangeable with one another. At least two-thirds of Mr. Becker's noodly guitar fills could have been excised without harm. Worst of all, the tunes are downright predictable.

Most critics and fans view the antiseptic fern-bar soundtracks of 1980's Gaucho as Steely Dan's nadir, but in melodic and harmonic terms, that album's songs offer far more surprises than anything here. What happened to the dazzling twists and turns of "Glamour Profession" or "Aja" or-one of the most perfect pop songs recorded in the 1970's-"Rikki Don't Lose That Number"? Maybe that's as pointless a question as asking why Steely Dan don't rock anymore. But dammit, why don't they?

Get Thee Lee!

Finally, a brief word about New York singer/songwriter Chris Lee's new CD, Cool Rock (Misra). The critical boilerplate on Mr. Lee is that he's the inheritor of the late Jeff Buckley's mantle, and true enough, the two do share some vocal similarities, particularly a smooth, swooping falsetto. But the songs Mr. Lee writes don't have Mr. Buckley's rock edge. Instead, they're airy, urbane mélanges of jazz, soul and old-school pop, sharing deep roots with the 80's work of Everything But the Girl and Paul Weller's Style Council. It's a kind of music I didn't realize I missed until I heard Mr. Lee. That he plays superbly is welcome enough; that he ends the album with a heart-tugging rendition of Mississippi John Hurt's "Nobody Cares for Me" is fresh whipped cream and strawberries on the cake. Get Cool Rock .

Emma Gray and Christopher Lee

Met: April 1998

Engaged: July 5, 2001

Projected Wedding Date:

Sept. 7, 2002

They met in the Polo Lounge of the big, pink Beverly Hills Hotel.

Emma Gray was a painter from London, on holiday visiting family. Chris Lee, who was working the celebrity beat for People magazine, had been recruited by her stepsister to take them on the town.

"There was plastic surgery everywhere!" said the lanky, brown-eyed Ms. Gray, 31, who had donned a checked gray wool Trilby hat, a fitted blazer and Manolo Blahniks for the occasion.

"I thought she was uniquely stylish," said Mr. Lee, a tall, 31-year-old hunk. "She kind of peered up at me, half-smiling, from beneath the brim of the hat."

They piled into her stepsister's Volkswagen and cruised around, bonding over their shared passion for Muhammad Ali, Norman Mailer and Nikes.

"I felt a lot better about my bachelorhood knowing that cool women like her were in the world," said Mr. Lee.

When he was assigned to interview the actor Ewan McGregor in London the following year, it was Ms. Gray's turn to play tour guide: a Jackson Pollock show at the Tate Modern, absinthe at the Chelsea Arts Club .... Before parting, they exchanged one wee, dry kiss.

An intercontinental penpalship ensued. "I'd run to the mailbox every day, and I'd put all my smarts as a writer into writing love letters to her," said Mr. Lee, now an associate editor for Gear .

By summer, he'd decided to attend the Columbia School of Journalism, and she'd decided she might get truly "fuddy-duddy" if she remained in London any longer. So she got a job at the Anton Kern Gallery, and they moved into a one-bedroom with a little roach problem (Mr. Lee likes to cook) on the Lower East Side.

She's now wearing two rings: a "ghetto-fabulous" one spelling "Emma" that they got together in a moment of whimsy, and the 1.28-carat platinum-set Tiffany diamond he bought to appease her very proper family.

They'll be married where Mick and Bianca did it, on Kings Road in London, celebrate beneath fireworks at her aunt's house near Bath, and honeymoon in Turkey. "Chris and I could just sail off into the universe together and be entirely happy," said Ms. Gray.

Bridgette Almstead and Bruce Gavioli

Met: July 24, 1999

Engaged: March 9, 2002

Projected Wedding Date:

May or June 2003

Girls, if he loves you first thing in the morning, he'll love you always .

"I had the weirdest dream last night," mumbled Bridgette Almstead to her longtime bedmate, Bruce Gavioli, one perfectly ordinary a.m. "What did you dream?"

She was dressed for sleep in a blue-and-white plaid nightgown, contact-less, makeup-less, deep conditioner in her hair. He was wearing boxers.

"I was dreaming about spending my life with you," said Mr. Gavioli in his Staten Island drawl. "As a matter of fact, would you marry me?" He pulled out a white-gold ring with a round 1.5-carat diamond and baguettes.

That was an eye-opener!

"I looked like Edith Bunker!" complained the blond, beautiful Ms. Almstead, 29, an employment recruiter for a staffing firm in midtown.

Her Archie is a bespectacled 31-year-old senior manager at Deloitte & Touche. She approached him after he walked, unsuspecting, into a bar one frisky girls' night out on the Jersey Shore.

Their first actual date was also at a bar. And their second. And their third. "There are a lot of bars in this story," said Mr. Gavioli, who calls himself a simple "beer and pretzels" kind of guy. "Sometimes we go out and there's a couple sitting at a table next to us, and they're mute .... But we're not like that. We laugh. We entertain each other."

They live in a two-bedroom in Hoboken with sweeping views, right near the PATH.

"I can sit on a couch next to him and have the greatest time," says Ms. Almstead, who was raised in Oklahoma. "I'm so lucky."

"She's not 'New York City,'" said Mr. Gavioli. "There's a certain coldness that you develop being in the city, but Bridgette has a kindness about her that people sometimes seem to lose here."

Coralie Charriol and Dennis I. Paul

Met: Aug. 21, 2000

Engaged: Feb. 15, 2002

Projected Wedding Date:

Winter or spring 2003

Brace yourself: They're gorgeous and rich.

She is Coralie Charriol, 25, the honey-blond, almond-eyed heiress to the Charriol luxury-brand empire, which is kind of like the Cartier of Southeast Asia. She designs her own eponymous line of handbags, with lots of bright colors. She was born to French parents, raised in Hong Kong, schooled in London-"international," if you know what we mean. When she'd come to Manhattan, there'd be dinner parties every night of the week.

He is Dennis Paul, 29, tall (6-foot-5), tan, with a dark pompadour and a money-management partnership with Salomon Smith Barney. He walked into Le Bilboquet on East 63rd Street one night-"It's where we go to look for cute Eurotrash girls," he said-and saw Ms. Charriol flanked by eight men, like Scarlett O'Hara at the barbecue.

"You were too beautiful to talk to," he told her later. He sat at another table, trying to make her jealous by chatting up other women. She didn't notice him.

Later in the week, their paths crossed again at Bond Street, the NoHo sushi restaurant. On a whim, he cornered her and planted a kiss. "It was very take-charge," she said. "I like that!"

After a steamy weekend together in London a month later, she returned to Geneva, smitten. There, an acquaintance happened to tell her that he'd spent the weekend consoling a heartbroken friend, miserable on account of a certain louse. "Perhaps you know him?" he asked. "His name is Dennis Paul."

Uh-oh! Ms. Charriol did what any right-thinking heiress would do: ignored Mr. Paul's phone calls and took off for the South of France to race cars on ice. She won the female division in the Formule France competition ( vr-room! ) ... but victory was lonely.

"I don't know why," she said, "but I ended up calling Dennis."

When she arrived in Hong Kong the next day on business, she found champagne, strawberries and a masseuse waiting in her room. By the end of her trip, she decided to hop a plane to New York and surprise him. "In a middle seat in economy class," she said. "It was all that was left!"

But he wasn't in his office when she got there. A cooperative building manager called Mr. Paul's cell phone to tell him he had a "huge package" waiting for him, but he was busy lunching with his identical twin brother (true story).

"Just put it in my office," Mr. Paul instructed over the cell phone.

"I can't," said the building manager. "It's big, and it's leaking."

He left his brother and ran to the office-and there she was, in the corner with her massive suitcases.

"She was like a tornado in my life," said Mr. Paul. "She'd roar in, rip everything to pieces, then disappear."

A few Roman holidays together tamed the tornado, though, and the pair began keeping house in a sunny two-bedroom near Central Park.

This winter, they took a ski vacation to Ms. Charriol's family chalet in Megève, France. On the plane (business class this time), she never noticed the little matchbox stuck in Mr. Paul's sock, which contained a Graff ring with over five carats' worth of diamonds in a platinum setting that he'd designed himself.

When he presented the box to her by a babbling brook, she pushed it open and thought she'd found a Kinder surprise -Eurospeak for Cracker Jack prize.

Michael Graber and Audrey Ormsten

Met: March 20, 2000

Engaged: Nov. 4, 2001

Projected Wedding Date:

June 16, 2002

As Michael Graber puffed through his fourth New York City Marathon, he kept patting down a little bulge-no, not that little bulge-stuck into the waist pocket of his very short shorts. Still there? Still there. Still there? Yup. Phew!

Near the 18-mile mark at First Avenue and 81st Street, his girlfriend, Audrey Ormsten, was waiting with friends to cheer him on. When he reached her, he stopped and wobbled a bit as he tried to get down on one knee. "My equilibrium was a little off," he explained.

"I thought maybe he was having a heart attack!" said Ms. Ormsten.

When he finally achieved the desired position, out came the gold ring embedded with a sapphire and a diamond-a family heirloom that had been sitting in a safety-deposit box for three decades.

The crowd around them roared as Ms. Ormsten agreed to join her swain in the marathon of life. Then she grabbed his hand and they loped together up the avenue to announce the news to his parents, who were waiting eight blocks up.

Mr. Graber then went on to complete the last eight miles, clocking in at 4 hours, 53 minutes.

"I like that he wanted to achieve both goals-proposing and finishing the marathon," said Ms. Ormsten, a human-resources consultant.

"The whole thing probably made me lose 15 to 20 minutes," said Mr. Graber, 33.

But think what he's gained!

The auburn-haired, green-eyed Ms. Ormsten, 32, met this muscular, goateed mensch (he used to work for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and plans to teach public-school math in the fall) at a Purim party hosted by the Manhattan Jewish Experience, a cultural center on the Upper West Side, two years ago. They were both uncostumed in a crowd that included folks dressed as football players, firemen and several Old Testament characters.

"He was towering over all the shorter Jewish men," said Ms. Ormsten.

They live in Forest Hills and are planning a wedding at the Swan Club in Nassau County, officiated by a lady cousin of Mr. Graber's who is also a rabbi.