Wow—random, you may say. But the important thing to keep in mind is that he has little to lose by this exercise and, potentially, something to gain.

For Stringer, currently the Manhattan borough president, the 2010 election cycle is an off-year, and he’s up for what’s expected to be a relatively easy reelection. So, unlike the House members from New York who have made noise about possibly challenging David Paterson's Senate appointee in a primary, Stringer wouldn’t have to give up his current job to do so. This also means Stringer can dangle the prospect of challenging her for quite some time without any real fallout.

Stringer’s political team has no allegiance to the governor that appointed Gillibrand. Among Stringer’s consultants are Josh Isay and the folks at Knickerbocker SKD, who spearheaded the unsuccessful bid by Caroline Kennedy.

And in terms of Stringer's actual prospects, it's kind of tough. Gillibrand's incumbency and establishment backing will count for a lot. But it's not nothing that the part of the world that Stringer currently represents, Manhattan, is a gold mine for super-prime Democratic voters. (There are more Democratic voters registered there than in any other county in the state, except Brooklyn [corrected].)

It should also be remembered, for what it's worth, that Stringer has demonstrated an ability to campaign (hard!) and win against female opposition. In the 2005 Manhattan borough president’s race, Stringer, with some help from the teacher’s union, took shots at another leading candidate, Eva Moskowitz. He suffered no ill effects.

For New York’s most prominent Democratic consultants and operatives, it’s been nothing less—an acquisition project so far-reaching that it actually threatens to dry up the market in experienced local campaign staff.

Yes, the mayor spent tens of millions of dollars in his past two campaigns, much of it on high-priced political talent. But there were still plenty of New York Democrats who simply wouldn’t go there. He was a Republican, and, well, they weren’t.

But the mayor has since registered as an independent (the better to market the idea of a possible bid for president last year). And now, with the inconvenient party label removed from around his neck—and with the ability, as always, to deliver a massive payday to anyone who comes along for the ride—there’s no longer anything stopping even the most pure-pedigreed Democratic consultants from signing up.

Take Howard Wolfson, whose former bosses include Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, New York’s Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He’s on board. Hank Sheinkopf, the bare-knuckled Democratic consultant who helped elect New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson to citywide office in 2001 and was expected to rejoin him again this year, has just been acquired by Mr. Bloomberg too.

“He could just about put every consultant in the country on retainer,” said consultant Jerry Skurnik.

Scott Levenson, a Democratic consultant not currently dependent on Mr. Bloomberg for any portion of his income, said, “I guess he’s trying to assemble the best team money can buy.”

And it’s not just the people who will actually end up working for Mr. Bloomberg. It’s also the people who, because of the mayor’s stockpiling of talent, won’t end up working for any Democrat.
(One Democratic contender, Representative Anthony Weiner, is expected to rely on many of the same out-of-town consultants he used in his 2005 race, including media guy Jim Margolis of the Philadelphia-based firm GMMB. Another, Mr. Thompson, is also expected to bring in out-of-town talent, possibly to work alongside the Harlem-based Bill Lynch Associates.)

The consultants drawn into the Bloomberg orbit also have professional and personal relationships with other individuals and firms who will, essentially, be precluded from actively working against the mayor.

Mr. Wolfson’s colleagues at the Glover Park consulting firm, for example, will almost certainly be off-limits to the people challenging Mr. Bloomberg. The same goes for the small but capable staff at Mr. Sheinkopf’s firm.

As one prominent Democrat put it, “I think he wants to hire anyone with a pulse and totally clear the field.”

Here’s a list of accomplished connected Democratic operatives who have been taken off the market this year by Mr. Bloomberg.

Bradley Tusk: Now installed as the mayor’s campaign manager, he worked as a spokesman for Chuck Schumer and then became a top aide to the mayor during the first Bloomberg term.

Howard Wolfson: Another distinguished Schumer alumnus, his Democratic credentials are impeccable: Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, New York’s Democratic Party.

Josh Isay: He’s yet another Schumer guy, and a founding partner of Knickerbocker SKD and partner at Squier Knapp Dunn Communications, which did print, radio and television ads for Bloomberg’s 2005 mayoral campaign.

Basil Smikle: Just a few months ago, this former Hillary Clinton aide was working for Mr. Weiner. Now, the AP reports, he’s signed on with the incumbent.

Hank Sheinkopf: The colorful and unflinching operative who was the general consultant on Bill Thompson’s 2001 citywide campaign for comptroller is not signing on for Mr. Thompson’s 2009 mayoral campaign. Now he’s on the mayor’s campaign payroll.

Doug Schoen: A founding partner in the firm that helped define its most famous client, Bill Clinton, Mr. Schoen has worked on both of Mr. Bloomberg’s previous campaigns.

Ken Strasma: A number cruncher who worked on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, he will focus on analyzing poll numbers and targeting a message to a niche audience.

Maura Keaney: A top aide to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, she did field operations for the mayor’s reelection campaign in 2005 and is returning this year in a similar role. Ms. Keaney is married to Democratic consultant Mark Guma, who worked on the mayoral campaign of Alan Hevesi in 2001.

Patrick Brennan: He’s a former staffer in the Community Assistance Unit who traveled to various states to lay the groundwork for Mr. Bloomberg’s much-discussed hypothetical presidential race. He left City Hall to work at the Parkside Group.

Larry Scott Blackmon: He just left his job as chief of staff and deputy commissioner for intergovernmental affairs at the city’s Small Business Services Department to lead the campaign’s outreach to black voters.

Neil Giacobbi: A former chief of staff to Democratic City Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn and aide to Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, Mr. Giacobbi, 35, helped organize the Republican National Convention in 2004.

Micah Lasher: He’s not yet 30, but Mr. Lasher is among the most capable political operators in the city. He worked for Mark Green’s mayoral campaign in 2001 and worked until 2007 with Mr. Isay at Knickerbocker. He just left his most recent job, as an aide to Representative Jerry Nadler, to work for the city’s Department of Education. Which would seem to rule out a role on any Democratic mayoral campaign against his new boss.

Lasher emailed friends and supporters over the weekend to say he’s accepted a position at the Department of Education as executive director of public affairs.

Lasher had been working for Representative Jerry Nadler and prior to that, he worked at Knickerbocker SKD, the firm that helped run the mayor’s re-election campaign.

"She's like Sarah Palin," said the attorney general's former associate, according to Mr. Mercurio.

A few minutes later, a staffer to Carolyn Maloney came over to make the case for the Upper East Side representative, telling Mr. Mercurio, "She should be the choice."

"It's on a lot of people's minds," said Mr. Mercurio.

The rollout of Ms. Kennedy as a candidate to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate is now complete, and her powerful consultants and high-wattage supporters in City Hall, the Senate and beyond have succeeded in making her Topic A in political conversations across the state. The pros and cons are now firmly established: her closeness to Barack Obama versus her lack of a public record, her ability to raise money and deliver Catholic votes versus the undemocratic whiff of dynasty.

But in the absence of any reliable metric, there's still little consensus about whether the professionally handled unveiling of Candidate Kennedy has presented a flattering picture to Governor David Paterson, who is, after all, the only critic who matters.

Some political observers look at the mounting skepticism in the press as evidence of a botched campaign that put all its emphasis on lining up elite support to pressure Mr. Paterson. But people involved in the effort to win the appointment say the seeming missteps are a result of having to run a campaign that isn't actually allowed to be one.

"I know it looks messy on the outside, but there is an incredibly fine line to walk between it being a campaign and it not being a campaign," said one source involved in the effort to win the appointment for Ms. Kennedy. “You don't want to in any way box the governor in, and yet you have to be out there."

Read the rest here.

"She's like Sarah Palin," said the attorney general's former associate, according to Mr. Mercurio.

A few minutes later, a staffer to Carolyn Maloney came over to make the case for the Upper East Side representative, telling Mr. Mercurio, "She should be the choice."

"It's on a lot of people's minds," said Mr. Mercurio.

The rollout of Ms. Kennedy as a candidate to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate is now complete, and her powerful consultants and high-wattage supporters in City Hall, the Senate and beyond have succeeded in making her Topic A in political conversations across the state. The pros and cons are now firmly established: her closeness to Barack Obama versus her lack of a public record, her ability to raise money and deliver Catholic votes versus the undemocratic whiff of dynasty.

But in the absence of any reliable metric, there's still little consensus about whether the professionally handled unveiling of Candidate Kennedy has presented a flattering picture to Governor David Paterson, who is, after all, the only critic who matters.

Some political observers look at the mounting skepticism in the press as evidence of a botched campaign that put all its emphasis on lining up elite support to pressure Mr. Paterson. But people involved in the effort to win the appointment say the seeming missteps are a result of having to run a campaign that isn't actually allowed to be one.

"I know it looks messy on the outside, but there is an incredibly fine line to walk between it being a campaign and it not being a campaign," said one source involved in the effort to win the appointment for Ms. Kennedy. “You don't want to in any way box the governor in, and yet you have to be out there."

That means that Ms. Kennedy's consulting firm, Knickerbocker SKD, cannot drive a traditional campaign message, or have her deliver an important speech articulating her mission or beliefs. Ms. Kennedy's competition and critics are free to attack her, but her campaign cannot retaliate. She can't meet with editorial boards, and has the impossible task of satisfying the desires of political reporters for access without appearing to court publicity.

Hence, Ms. Kennedy’s counterproductive upstate debut last week, when she infuriated reporters by refusing to answer questions from a scrum of reporters, many of whom had traveled a long way to see her.

The source involved with Ms. Kennedy's effort acknowledged that it was a mistake not to have Ms. Kennedy speak to the press in Syracuse, and said that the tactical error was immediately recognized and addressed, pointing out that she answered questions later in Rochester and Buffalo.

But the initial reticence prompted a widespread criticism that she is being handled too preciously and has prompted the comparisons to Ms. Palin that Mr. Mercurio heard at the cocktail party. Representative Gary Ackerman, for example, one-upped an earlier comparison he had made between Ms. Kennedy and J. Lo by saying that her handlers had "Palin-ized" her.

Representative Pete King, her potential Republican opponent in 2010, called her a "People magazine celebrity" on Face the Nation, and Geraldine Ferraro, a former New York representative, vice presidential candidate and critic of Mr. Obama, said a senator “who knows the process” would be better for the state. Meanwhile, some basic research into her voting record resulted in news reports that she had failed to turn out for several New York primaries since registering here in 1988.

"It's the ultimate irony that the place where Hillary Clinton landed from Mars with nary a peep from these people now has all this faux outrage about Caroline Kennedy," said one Democratic consultant who is not working for any of the candidates for the seat.

The consultant said that Ms. Kennedy had clearly lost some of her abstract novelty appeal since she publicly announced her interest in the seat, but also said that the media skepticism would probably matter less than the heavyweights who were lining up behind her.

"Paterson is going to do what is politically most advantageous for him, and he doesn't want to upset the powerful political actors who are going to affect his reelection," said the consultant. "I thought Schumer lining up with her was the single most important thing."

Mr. Schumer is officially not supporting any candidate, but Ms. Kennedy's hiring of consultant Josh Isay, who worked as Mr. Schumer's former chief of staff, is widely seen as a signal of Mr. Schumer's tacit ascent.

Also working behind the scenes on Ms. Kennedy's behalf are Kevin Sheekey, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's chief political aide, and Mr. Paterson's former right-hand man, Charles O'Byrne, a longtime confidante of the Kennedy family who was forced to resign from state government this year because of a tax scandal.

The Kennedy camp's calculation, in short, is that political support will trump media sniping as the governor weighs his appointment. The source involved in Ms. Kennedy's Senate effort also said that there was a hope in particular that Mr. Paterson would take into account the tactical limitations of the campaign in dealing with the press as he digested the unfavorable accounts.

With the Kennedy campaign essentially muted, and prominent Democrats like Mr. Schumer reluctant to offend every Democrat not named Kennedy by taking a public position, Mr. Bloomberg (a non-Democrat) is one of the prominent public figures coming to Ms. Kennedy's defense.

At a Dec. 22 press conference, the mayor talked up Ms. Kennedy's intelligence and competence, arguing that her "illustrious" family name should not be held against her, and asserted that she would "do just fine."

"The governor should make a decision reasonably quickly because this is just getting out of control," said Mr. Bloomberg, "And everybody’s focusing on the wrong things."

Sure enough, the mayor’s words, intended as a boost for Ms. Kennedy, quickly became grist for her critics as well.

On Dec. 23, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver turned Mr. Bloomberg’s support into an attack.

"I think the undercurrent would be, if I were the governor, to see that she's being promoted by the mayor and by his deputy mayor," Silver said. "If I were the governor, I would look and question if this is the appointment I would want to make, if her first obligation would be to the mayor of the City of New York rather than to the governor."

Other political observers said that Ms. Kennedy's establishment support, even among actual Democrats, could start to be seen as a drawback.

Referencing a questionnaire sent to Ms. Kennedy by Politico, to which she failed to say whether she would support the city's Democratic nominee for mayor, Doug Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College said, "When the question was asked, is she not supporting the Democratic nominee, the answer is no, because she can't say it, because Michael Bloomberg is one of her chief patrons."

(Her spokesman has since said that she would.)

"I don't assume a backlash," said one Democratic official. "But there's a point at which it is no longer humble. That is the tipping point question: When is it a flaunting of power."

There isn’t much evidence yet that the crucial point has been reached. A Quinnipiac poll released on Dec. 23 showed that 33 percent of voters think Mr. Paterson should appoint Ms. Kennedy, while 29 percent of voters think he should appoint her closest prospective competitor—and former in-law—Mr. Cuomo. In any case, 48 percent think Mr. Paterson will pick her.

"At this stage of the game the numbers look good for her," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

As for her rocky public introduction, well, that seems to be an inevitable part of the routine, too.

"You don't run for office in this town without going through the washing machine," said Borough President Scott Stringer, who has not endorsed a candidate to take Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. "You are going to get favorable press and unfavorable press, that's just the way is."

Mr. Stringer, who hired Mr. Isay for his successful race for borough president, praised her choice of consultant, but said, “Caroline Kennedy has to touch the governor in some way. I believe at the end of the day, knowing David, it's going to be what he thinks."

But now it looks like she was merely ahead of the curve.

Nick Confessore just reported that Caroline Kennedy will openly seek the Clinton seat, and that she too has hired political professionals to help her effort.

A knowledgeable source I spoke to confirmed that she will campaign for the seat and that she has hired Josh Isay's consulting firm, Knickerbocker SKD, to help.

Lasher, 25, co-founded Knickerbocker in September 2002 at the ripe old age of 20, along with another veteran of the Andrew Cuomo for Governor campaign, Josh Isay.

Knickerbocker has also made some recent acquisitions, partly as a reaction to Lasher's departure.

Lasher will join Nadler's staff as a West Side community representative, according to Nadler's chief of staff Amy Rutkin.