City Councilwoman Helen Foster of the Bronx, who, like Stark, is African-American, said, “I think it’s clear there is a lack of diversity in his administration, and if you just walk into City Hall and look on his side of the hall, outside of his security, you’re pressed to find a person of color. So, that part of it is very simple. There is a lack of diversity."

City Councilwoman Letitia James said that Stark was “an exemplary public servant, highly knowledgeable and a great caretaker of the city's finances.” She also said that “Mayor Bloomberg's administration is looking more and more like Rocky Mountain High.”

Bloomberg’s spokespeople did not respond to questions surrounding Stark’s departure, and whether she was asked to leave. For the record, Stark's departure leaves at least two African-American commissioners in the Bloomberg administration. They are Roger Newman at the Mayor’s Office of Veteran Affairs, and Patricia Gatling at the Commission on Human Rights [added].

But the "doomsday" budget proposed by Michael Bloomberg on Friday has yet to prompt a similar backlash--at least, not one in the form of an expensive advertising campaign--from labor and affected interest groups.

One labor leader said that unions are in talks about how to respond to Bloomberg's budget, which includes heavy reductions in the municipal workforce and reductions for senior centers and social-services programs. Although it's an election year in the city - which would normally make lawmakers that much more susceptible to the prospect of negative ad campaigns - that's not necessarily something that applies to Bloomberg.

"People recognize that no matter how much money you spend, the mayor has resources to spend many more times that," said this labor leader.

Political consultant George Arzt, who was the New York Post City Hall bureau chief during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, said, "Mike Bloomberg is much stronger than Abe Beame."

Arzt said Bloomberg has “the confidence of the bankers and the financial people. Abe Beame did not. Nobody thought that Abe Beame knew what he was doing.”

There's also a realization among labor advocates that Bloomberg can only do so much to mitigate the city's cutbacks without help from Albany. “The city's budget crisis is part and parcel of the state's," said a labor-allied operative. "So the unions that still have fight left in them will focus their fire on Paterson.”

"If Obama bails us out as promised, and Paterson restores cuts to New York City, Bloomberg's budget suddenly isn't so bad," this operative said.

Here's a clip from this morning's panel at the New School about Eliot Spitzer's political prospects for the rest of his first term.

In the clip, consultant George Arzt shares a not-so-public moment from a V.I.P. reception at a fund-raiser for Denny Farrell.

Some highlights:

Panelist Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice said "hallelujah!" about yesterday's results and said Democrats should be given a chance to control the entirety of state government.

Panelist Bill Cunningham, now of Dan Klores Communications, said that Albany's often-criticized "dysfunction" may actually be considered a form of "self-defense," protecting the public from the perils of an overactive legislature.

Jacob Gershman of the New York Sun said yesterday's election was not a referendum on Spitzer so much as it was a rejection of Republicans' argument that they should be in control of at least one part of government.

Moderator Elaine Rivera of WNYC recalled telling Spitzer that his honeymoon with the media won't last, and him replying, "What do you mean?"

George Arzt recalled Spitzer telling him that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver "just doesn't understand" how important it is to have the support of the state's newspaper editorial boards.

Panelist Bill Hammond of the Daily News said he experienced Spitzer's temper before he became governor, over a story that appeared in Hammond's newspaper but which Hammond had not written.

The event at the Woolworth Kitchen and Towers drew a number of notable attendees: Dan Gardonick, Eric Gioia, Dave Pollak, Hank Sheinkopf, Domenic Recchia, Diane Savino and George Arzt.

Press-shy top aides to Christine Quinn, Ramone Martinez and Chuck Meara, were also there, and probably weren’t thrilled when Weprin announced their presence over the microphone.

Asked directly about the possibility that funds raised tonight are at all connected with the prospect of a Senate campaign, Maloney's office was dismissive.

"New Yorkers already have two great U.S. senators who, working with the rest of our congressional delegation, are providing strong and effective representation for the Empire State on Capitol Hill," Maloney said in a statement read to me by consultant George Arzt.

"The funds that I am now raising will be devoted to preserving and enhancing the Democratic majority in the house as well as my own reelection to Congress."

But Conrad Foa, a supporter who said he will be attending the party, seemed open to the idea that the money could be used for another possibility.

"That door is there for her to knock on," he said. "Maybe she stands first in line or very close to first in line to that door, but I feel that she has an unerring political sense to do what's best for her constituency. The question is what does she perceive her constituency will be, and I think she'll at least have the funds to do what's best."

Either way, tonight's event -- which will be held at her 92nd street home -- will only be the latest event to invite chatter about Maloney eyeing the Senate seat, according to one Democratic operative.

"There has apparently been fund-raising events the congresswoman has held so far where she has been introduced as 'the next U.S. senator from the state of New York'," the operative said, adding that whether or not the funds will be set aside for her own run, "what she would be able to do is use that money to raise her profile nationally."

Assemblyman Jonathan Bing, who will be attending the party tonight, told me he did not know how the funds would be spent. But he did say that he'd like to see Maloney in the upper Capitol chamber.

"I have no knowledge of what the money is being raised for," Bing said in an interview Friday. "I think certainly if Senator Clinton is elected president, Carolyn would make a wonderful U.S. Senator."

On Friday afternoon I talked to Andy Tulloch, Maloney's lawyer, and asked him whether he had discussed with her the possibility of converting money raised to a Senate fund.

"As to any legal work I've done or any conversations I've had with her, they're subject to privilege, and I really cannot discuss them at this time," he said.

Monsieur de Portzamparc's Web site says the program consists of three buildings with 3.2 million square feet of office, hotel and residential space between 59th Street and 61st Street. Well, that's the proposal. Mr. Arzt says a rezoning proposal will go to the Department of City Planning in a few weeks--and it doesn't sound like it will be the easiest rezoning.

According to figures from the Coalition for a Livable West Side, that amount would represent about 35 percent more built space than that envisioned under the original Riverside South master plan.

- Matthew Schuerman

"I think Hevesi wins. I think that Spitzer wins overwhelmingly, giving the Working Family Party the 50,000 they need to stay on the ballot. I dunno if they move up from the "F" line*. Kirsten Gillibrand will upset Sweeney. I think Reynolds will eke out a win in Buffalo. Sue Kelly will win. Fossella will win. Walsh will lose."

The Senate for Democrats, he said, "is a real toss-up."

* The Working Families Party is currently on Row E.

-- Choire Sicha

Revenue for lobbying has increased more rapidly then revenue for campaign consulting since 2001. Although there is fluctuation in some years--the number and intensity of contracts clearly affects this--the general revenue trend for lobbying is up.

In the top five earners, as revenue for each firm increases, the share derived from campaign consulting has become smaller. Overall, only three of the top ten firms make more than 30% of their revenue from campaign consulting. While those three are in the top five in overall revenue, numbers show a trend towards lobbying. In first and second place for overall revenue, respectively, are the two firms who increased lobbying revenue the most over five years, the Parkside Group by 98%, and Kasirer Consulting by 93%.

Since 2001, the top ten consulting/lobbying shops in total revenue (with the share of revenue from lobbying in parentheses):

1. The Parkside Group: $7,585,897 (70%)
2. Kasirer Consulting: $6,541,569 (89%)
3. Mirram Global: $5,275,157 (30%)
4. Hank Sheinkopf: $4,725,904 (11%)
5. The Advance Group: $2,773,644 (10%)
6. Constantinople Consulting: $2,343,968 (95%)
7. George Arzt: $1,784,163 (94%)
8. Wiscovitch Associates: $680,860 (79%)
9. Pryor, Cashman, Sherman & Flynn: $391,476 (79%)
10. Schnur Associates: $209,950 (70%)

—Nicole Brydson

UPDATE: As a bunch of readers noted, we could have been clearer about the sources and limits of this data. This is a list of consultants who work on city races and lobby city officials. The sources, Dadey emails, are the New York City Campaign Finance Board and the City Clerk's lobbying search database. So other sources of revenue, and other lobbying contracts, aren't included.

Up until Sunday’s first public debate, nothing had gone right for Mr. Ferrer. His decision to throw some oratorical haymakers when he got the chance was almost inevitable.

The tactic was not a total failure. Although some of his attacks seemed lumbering, there were enough sharp jibes at Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the challenger to claim a narrow victory in the battle of the sound bites. Mr. Ferrer’s strong showing also brought a spark of interest to a contest that had been soporific.

Unfortunately for Mr. Ferrer, however, such “victories” are little more than cosmetic at this stage. His shots at the Mayor scored points, but they didn’t come close to delivering a knockout.

It now appears that nothing except a monstrous gaffe by Mr. Bloomberg can save Mr. Ferrer from becoming yet another Democratic loser in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.

Whenever Mr. Ferrer or his aides are asked about their failure to gain traction in this campaign, they immediately cite their relative poverty by comparison with Mr. Bloomberg. That is not just an incomplete explanation; it is a disingenuous one.

Mr. Ferrer has, in fact, been undone by fundamental, self-inflicted problems that have bedeviled both his campaign this year and his career at large.

The Democratic challenger has tried hard to present himself as the archetypal man of the people. The closing line in many of Mr. Ferrer’s television ads is: “He’s not like Mike. He’s more like you.”

This, in turn, feeds into Mr. Ferrer’s Big Idea—that there are two New Yorks, one affluent and satisfied, the other impoverished, maltreated and discontented. He is the man to stand up for the embattled denizens of the latter, he contends.

Alas, Mr. Ferrer’s rhetoric and record rub against each other here. The use of the “Two New Yorks” theme is intended to position him atop the moral high ground. But any leader who wants to claim that territory needs a past that bespeaks conviction and constancy. Mr. Ferrer falls far short. He has a long, inglorious history of taking the most expedient course.

Mr. Ferrer’s flip-flops are notorious. In 1997, fighting for the Democratic Mayoral nomination in a field that was crowded on the left, he lurched toward the center.

His blanket opposition to the death penalty was jettisoned. His erstwhile support for abortion rights now came wrapped in rhetoric more suited to the religious right: “Every time a mother hiccups, that’s no reason to abort a child,” he remarked on one occasion.

The 1997 challenge fizzled and died. Come 2001, Mr. Ferrer apparently decided there were political gains to be made by a return to the left. The “Two New Yorks” theme was duly trotted out. He lost again.

Mr. Ferrer saved his most egregious display of spinelessness until earlier this year. The Amadou Diallo fiasco played as big a role as anything Mr. Bloomberg has done in bringing Mr. Ferrer to his current, near-hopeless predicament.

The facts, lest we forget, are that Mr. Ferrer, addressing the Sergeants Benevolent Association in March, opined that the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo by NYPD officers was a “tragedy” but not “a crime.” He also asserted that there had been an effort to “over-indict” the officers involved. Mr. Ferrer later tried to distance himself from the comments without disowning them. The mess was never cleared up.

“He lost the moral argument when he lost the Diallo argument,” political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said. “When that happened, he became like any other politician.”

Mr. Ferrer’s handling of the Diallo episode was destructive because it went far beyond standard political clumsiness. Diallo was an unarmed, young black immigrant, killed by 19 of the 41 bullets that the NYPD fired at him. Could there be a starker example of a citizen of “the other New York” meeting with brutal injustice?

But Mr. Ferrer betrayed Diallo’s memory in a brazen effort to expand his own political acceptability. Such lapses are not easily forgiven or forgotten. Nor should they be.

The Ferrer campaign has had other problems too, of course—not least a general lack of purpose, urgency and direction. In fact, Mr. Ferrer has only harked back to the “Two New Yorks” idea quite recently, perhaps out of desperation to find something captivating to talk about.

Some analysts believe that the “Two New Yorks” motif was never likely to form the basis of a winning strategy. “It’s not so much that I find [the theme] divisive as I find it exclusionary,” Democratic consultant George Arzt said. “He should have been talking about trying to lift all boats.”

That may be so. But Mr. Ferrer’s boat has been sinking for a long time, holed below the waterline by his own actions.

There was no reason to believe he would patch those holes in time for Tuesday’s final debate.