Occupiers marching on Wall Street

What a difference a week makes. The weather was unseasonably mild on Friday afternoon, and as The New York Observer strolled around Zuccotti Park, the atmosphere still had the feel of a Ren Faire that had wandered into the wrong neighborhood. But there was definitely something different in the vibe over at Occupy Wall Street H.Q. Since the unions called out the troops last Wednesday, marching in solidarity with the protesters, the demo has skewed older—for instance, a pair of women standing in the front of the park looked as though they’d qualify for discount movie tickets. They held signs that read “Pissed off Grey Hairs say ‘Jail the Wall Street Bastards.’”

A transformation was underway. What had once seemed like a hastily assembled urban shanty town, thrumming with organized chaos, was, by Friday, beginning to look like a semi-permanent encampment, with every section of Liberty Plaza maximized for efficiency.

The twice-daily General Assemblies had become so large, the “human microphone” would have to repeat each line twice, the words rippling outward. By the weekend, someone would create a closed-captioning system, projecting the speakers’ words on a screen.

Tourists had found the place—now a must-see on any visitors’ itinerary—and with them vendors from Times Square and the nearby World Trade Center site, hawking miniature Wall Street bulls, snow globes, pins of African-American leaders. (For now, there were still no “I Occupied Wall Street” T-shirts or tambourines printed with the Guy Fawkes mask—someone should get on that.) The food trucks flanking the park weren’t seeing much action, but the occupiers did not seem to be lacking for sustenance. There was a food donation area for dry goods and such, as well as a “food fund,” sponsored by the Alliance for Global Justice (where OccupyWallSt.org has been registered as a nonprofit). Monetary donations could be made at WePay.com. Pizzas were delivered on a regular basis from Liberatos Pizza, a few blocks away, which early on set up a deal by which sympathizers could order the special “Occu-Pies” online and have them sent to the park. On most days, the food served for free in Zuccotti Park leaned toward the vegetarian sprouts-and-couscous type fare that one would expect to see at a Liberal Arts college co-op. Whole Food runs are not unheard of.

There were also stacks of bottled water, and an irrigation system opposite the food line—part of the compost and waste disposal system set up by a group called Mobile Design Lab.

Around the perimeter of Liberty Plaza, various advocacy groups had set up folding tables, seemingly out of nowhere. They offered services ranging from green-energy alternatives (communityenergyinc.com, a renewable-power company that has partnered with ConEd, an arrangement the group had “mixed feelings about,” according to a spokesperson) to a “Free Law Counsel” area, where a passer-by could pick up an information packet about applying to CUNY’s law school.

There was a group called Coaching Visionaries, which was formed less than a week ago, comprising Certified Professional Coaches who were a little bit murky on whom they were coaching and to what end. “Our website doesn’t have a lot of stuff on it yet,” one of the women behind the desk admitted. Another woman thrust a piece of paper in front of us. It read “Johnson & Johnson Suspected in Attempted Murder,” and directed readers to FlossRings.com. We also encountered a representative from AVAAZ.org, an online petition group that broadcasts in 14 different languages and promised to have a ticker of the total number of signatures running soon.

Over near the food trucks we ran into Chris Martenson, Ph.D., who was telling people about his new book, The Crash Course. While he opined about the crisis in the global economy, we realized that the cameraman filming us wasn’t from a network; he was doing a documentary on Dr. Matenson that we had inadvertently consented to be in.

Farther into the park, near General Assembly’s growing media center, Richard Brodsky, the former New York assemblyman, was talking to a man with a fake Fox News camera made of cardboard.

“Look, this is the best thing since sliced bread,” Mr. Brodsky said, gesturing to the park, “There is no structure, it’s more of a statement on how people should be treating each other than an institute of public policy. Change isn’t made through public policy wonks, it’s made organically.” Then he left us to go find someone from ABC with whom he had a real interview scheduled.

We began to wonder if anyone realized that that Fox News camera was fake. (So was that Sarah Palin impersonator walking around.) While demonstrators encountered during the first week sometimes struggled to articulate a vision, everyone at the park now seemed soundbite-ready, and could discourse about their particular cause at the drop of a Rasta cap. Zuccotti’s demographic was less 99 percent that afternoon and more 50-50: half journalists (or citizen journalists), half protesters. Sometimes the two groups would switch parts, and the person being interviewed would lift cameras or cell phones and start firing questions at the news teams.

This was what democracy looked like three weeks into the occupation: less Bonnaroo, and more “college job fair.” The movement newspaper, The Occupied Wall Street Journal, published its second edition right on schedule, and added one in Spanish. The president had weighed in. Things were humming.

The shift away from the free-wheeling anarchy of the early days of the movement—way back in late September—has not left everyone happy.

“A lot of the original protesters are pissed that the Libertarians are joining up,” one General Assembly regular told us, insisting on anonymity and going on to warn darkly that “there are some Tea Party people here too.” This floating fear of being usurped by an influx of hard-core right wingers seemed to be based more on the media’s theorizing than in reality: several articles comparing the Occupy movement to the Tea Party had lead to what a ’60s counterculture radical might call “a bad scene.” We spent all day looking for a possible Tea Party member or Ron Paul sympathizer and came up empty-handed. (Maybe they only show up during the marches.) On Sunday, though, the Slovenian philosopher (and friend of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange) Slavoj Žižek told the assembled that they should try to actually try to openly recruit Tea Partiers to the cause, not dismiss them. “They may be stupid,” he said, “but don’t look at them as the enemy.

Though Occupy Wall Street has no official religious affiliation, sympathizers of the movement held a Kol Nidrei Service for Yom Kippur on Friday night that drew hundreds of mostly 20-somethings to the plaza in front of the Brown Brothers Harriman building, across the street from Zuccotti. Four rabbis adorned in white led the reading of machzor, the prayer book, while the audience followed along, only slightly distracted by the wafting aroma of grilled lamb and chicken from the halal trucks that are perpetually stationed around the area. The loud drum circle being held simultaneously in Zuccotti Park—along with the human microphone technique employed by the rabbis—were also minor hurdles in following the services, though no one seemed to mind.

The service touched on politics, but only briefly. In addition to the traditional sins listed in the Alvenu Malkeinu prayer, the supplemental material noted a few more: “We have sinned ... by being cynical about the world ...” worshippers chanted, “by not defending Israel ... by not defending Palestine.”

In a Sunday editorial, The New York Times (sounding a lot like a speaker at General Assembly) offered a forceful defense of the movement, in particular its much-criticized lack of concrete demands: “At this point, protest is the message,” The Times declared. “Income inequality is grinding down [the] middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people ... the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.”

The editorial marked a new legitimacy for the protests—lending the whole thing the feel of a speeding bandwagon, with onlookers (including Kanye West) angling for a foothold on which to clamber aboard.

Democratic though the movement has been thus far, we’re still living in a celebrity culture, and each additional dose of star power was generally seen as a net plus (especially in terms of generating media buzz). The week’s speakers, in addition to Mr. Žižek, included Van Jones, Nobel Prize winning-economist Joseph Stiglitz, and New York Times economist Jeff  Madrick. There were free musical sets from activist punk band Anti-Flag, Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel (whose wife, Astra Taylor, directed the documentary Žižek! about the superstar philosopher) and Talib Kweli. Meanwhile, some of the protesters have become stars in their own right, like Daily Kos blogger Jesse LaGreca, who went from appearing in an unaired Fox News interview to debating Christiane Amanpour, George Will and Peggy Noonan on ABC’s This Week round table Sunday.

At this point in the game, it is impossible to ignore the protesters and hope they go away. Mayor Bloomberg announced Monday that they were free to stay in the park “indefinitely,” a seeming olive branch that was negated somewhat when he was asked how long the Occupation in Zuccotti would last. “I think part of it has probably to do with the weather,” the mayor responded. Freezing them out, rather than forcibly removing them, seemed like the most viable option.

Even President Obama acknowledged the protests, noting that they “[express] the frustrations the American people feel.” That stopped well short of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s near-endorsement a few days before (“I can’t blame them”) but it was remarkable nonetheless for a nascent movement.

The Occupy movement is now having its own westward expansion: spreading last week (according to OccupyTogether.org, an off-shoot of OccupyWallSt.org) to some 1,213 cities around the world, with major hubs in Portland, Ore.; Los Angeles, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Columbus, Oakland, Toledo, Denver, Minneapolis, Seattle, Phoenix and San Diego.

Todd Gitlin, Columbia professor, former Students for a Democratic Society cofounder, and author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, wrote a piece for The New York Times this weekend comparing the dynamics of OWS and the General Assembly to (among other things) the New Left group that defined the student political agenda in the hippie era.

“‘Let the people decide,’” he wrote, “meant, in practice, ‘Let’s have long meetings where everyone gets to talk.’ De facto, this meant that politics was for people who, in a sense, talked for a living—in other words, college types.”

Occupy Wall Street’s de facto decision-making body, the General Assembly, has thus far organized itself along similar lines. And in contrast to the Occupy movement as a whole, which is all about spreading the word, the New York General Assembly in Zuccotti Park has been more focused on keeping its little village going, which, as the days turn colder, will be harder to do.

“It’s up to the key players,” Mr. Gitlin told us by phone on Sunday. “They can be seen in terms of forces: the first force are those actually in the park, and these other cities, that are attracting and galvanizing people to get involved. The second force are the people you saw Wednesday—the unions, the professional groups—and I don’t know what they have in mind. I don’t know if they know what they have in mind.”

(The irony, of course, is that this sounds suspiciously like what the media were saying about the original protesters … until the unions came and legitimized the cause.)

“I’m not even sure if the groups needs a collective message,” Mr. Gitlin continued, “since it’s not as important what the people in the park do as what the entire movement does. The original movement might have started with the Park People (i.e., those occupying the park and holding General Assembly meetings), but the majority that you saw marching Wednesday were not the Park People. So the Park People have some leverage, but they aren’t the most important facet of what’s going on right now.”

Those words may sting for those who started the fire and maintained it in Zuccotti Park for the past three weeks. They were the ones getting arrested and making themselves vulnerable to the police’s pepper spray and the media’s ridicule. But as the movement becomes mainstream, it will increasingly be dominated by faces that contain fewer piercings and are better shaven.

As winter approaches, one can’t help wondering, with Mayor Bloomberg, how long the protesters will last. Kyle Christopher, a hyperactive 27-year-old who has been part of General Assembly’s P.R. team and one of the main videographers for the Occupy Wall Street protests, has already decamped for D.C., where he will be filming the occupation there. When we asked one crust-punk girl wearing a bandanna over her face how long she planned to participate, she replied, “Forever. Or until it gets cold out.”

Then again, a sign held by another demonstrator suggested the group might be determined enough to last through the winter. “Lost my job,” it read. “Found an occupation.”

All aboard? (wikispaces.com)

Transportation wonks have a habit of talking about Jay Walder, the outgoing head of the M.T.A., in messianic terms, as though he were the only man capable of fixing the agency’s myriad problems—an aging system, run by intransigent unions, with almost no political support. While many of them have greeted his resignation with shock and concern, there is a growing sense that this could actually be the best thing to happen to the M.T.A. since Mr. Walder’s arrival two years ago.

“I guess I’m partly responsible for inflating the importance of Jay,” said Gene Russianoff, head of the Straphangers Campaign and dean of transit advocate.

Indeed, there have been others—Richard Ravitch, the team of Kiley-Gunn, even Mr. Walder’s predecessor, Lee Sander—who have done a lot to resurrect mass transit from the death throes of the 1970s. Mr. Walder, though, was different. He had moved from McKinsey to run London’s transit system, introducing successful innovations, including the vaunted oyster card, which speeds up bus and Tube boardings, as well as implementing that dread scourge, congestion pricing. He was supposed to bring the same innovation and ingenuity to New York.

“You have to hope it’s a wake-up call to the people in Albany,” blogger and M.T.A. kremlinologist Benjamin Kabak said.

That hope is directed at one man in particular: Andrew Cuomo.

The governor grew up riding the same subways from Queens as the Rockaways native he must now replace, though he is not the likeliest booster. On the campaign trail, Mr. Cuomo expressed indifference that bordered on antipathy when reporters questioned him about mass transit. This included an uncharacteristically testy press conference outside City Hall, when he unveiled his Urban Agenda. Of its 230 pages, 25 covered affordable housing, 32 on criminal justice, 20 on health care but only two on transportation. He has done nothing of note on the subject during his first seven months in office besides reappointing Mr. Walder. Despite that, they have a cool relationship with limited communication.

Still, transit advocates and straphanging pols are hitching their train to the governor, either out of desperation or legitimate belief that he could transform the M.T.A. in ways that have been talked about but rarely acted upon. “It puts the governor on the hook,” Mr. Russianoff said. “It will be his pick running the agency, and he will be accountable for what happens to the M.T.A.”

There are few greater political liabilities than the M.T.A., which is why the Cuomo administration has held it at arm’s length for so long. Even with Mr. Walder in place, he could keep this up for only so long, but now, unable to point to a Paterson appointee calling the shots, the responsibility will be his all the more. “When the big issues come, from fare policy to safety and the reliability of the system, in the end this is America, and the elected officials are held responsible,” said former Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who used to oversee the agency in the Assembly.

Should the governor embrace the M.T.A, advocates believe he has a singular ability to fix its problems, many of which stem from a Legislature that shortchanges the M.T.A. on a regular basis, thwarting projects like congestion pricing and other forms of transportation funding and even raiding the agency’s budget on occasion, as happened twice last year. “A big part of this is getting the support of the Legislature,” Mr. Brodsky said.

With his string of victories this year—the rent regs/property tax cap deal, gay marriage and an on-time, balanced budget—Governor Cuomo has shown an ability to bend Albany to his will.

“I think a lot of people feel our public transportation system is being held together by chicken wire,” said Assemblyman Micah Kellner, who represents the Upper East Side. “There’s a lot of speculation Jay left because why oversee a crumbling system when you can oversee the best in Hong Kong. That’s a wake up call to New York that we need to do something transformative. So whether that’s the governor taking more control of the M.T.A. or possibly breaking up the three systems, they don’t work so well anymore.”

Mr. Kellner put forth Mr. Brodsky’s name as a possible change agent. "Nobody's smarter or worked with it more deeply than him," Mr. Kellner said. Many of the other names that have been batted about come from within the M.T.A., chief among them hard-charging Thomas Prendergast, head of New York City Transit, and Helena Williams, the L.I.R.R. president who has served as interim chair in the past. Mr. Kabak points out that a dark horse is always possible. "Jay was pretty firmly ensconced in London when they picked him, so you never know," he said.

Meanwhile, State Senator Lee Zeldin of Long Island laid out a 10-point to-do list in The Post on Monday, which included capping agency managers’ compensation, selling real estate and pursuing public-private partnerships. Other reform agendas have begun to emerge, as well. The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor once charged with rescuing the M.T.A. in the 1980s, told The Observer that the idea that the authority needs to be torn down and rebuilt was “dumb as shit.” Instead, it’s a matter of approach. “It all depends on what you define as broken,” Mr. Ravitch said. “The M.T.A. isn’t broken. It’s just facing a lot of challenges, and it will always face a lot of challenges. In a way, that’s how it was set up.”

So how can the governor tackle those challenges, many of which are fiscal? The M.T.A. faces a $9 billion hole in its five-year capital budget that must be addressed by the start of next year. Between now and then, the agency must negotiate a new contract with the union representing most of its workers. Both will be expensive propositions, and while the Cuomo administration has shown an ability to broker compromise in the Legislature, taxes or any other revenue increases have been antithetical to that platform—that balanced budget allowed the millionaire’s tax to expire at the same time it cut $100 million from the M.T.A. Gay marriage is free, mass transit is not.

"The message from Andrew has been that revenues are hard to come by," Mr. Brodsky said.

The first indication of the governor's position, barring an unexpected address on a mass transit revolution, will come from who he appoints to run the agency. "Some governors want to be hands on and in control and take credit and blame for whatever happens at the M.T.A," Mr. Ravitch said. "Other people are delighted to have someone who is a reputable, well-regarded professional and independent."

Still, the governor is on a political roll. “It has wetted his appetite for more victories,” said one Democratic operative, who said that in addition to Medicaid and the Port Authority, the administration is looking very closely at the M.T.A. for an overhaul. “It would be quite the feather in his cap.”

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Brodsky gave up his seat to run, unsuccessfully for attorney general last year. The notably anti-Albany sentiment on the campaign trail made his bid particularly challenging. But the fact that he lands a job outside any government office and fancy lobbying firm means his tendency to speak bluntly, will, probably, not be diminished.

The official release:

Brodsky will work on developing courses and symposia on a variety of public issues, including governance reform of private and public institutions, national and international capital movement between the private and public sector, and other matters reflecting his long experience in government.

 

In addition, he will work cooperatively with other disciplines and elements of the University community, and write and speak on issues of public importance within and outside NYU. Much of his efforts will focus on the important but under-developed connections between government and other sectors. He also will teach, and has begun to do so this semester, co-teaching a graduate class on Public Policy and The Arts.

"I am delighted that Richard Brodsky has agreed to join us as Senior Fellow," said Ellen Schall, Dean of NYU Wagner. "Richard brings enormous experience in the workings of state and local government, a keen understanding of what it takes to bring about change, and, not least, unmatched enthusiasm."

Brodsky was a Member of the New York State Assembly from 1982 to 2010, and is a graduate of Brandeis University and Harvard Law School.

"NYU Wagner, as part of a global network university, has a critically important role in educating leaders for public service," he said. "Now, more than ever, we need individuals of the highest caliber, integrity, and training to devote their careers to public life and the public good. I'm delighted to work with the outstanding faculty, administration and student body at one of the world's great universities. My thanks to Dean Schall and the leadership of NYU."

The event was sponsored by the city's ethnic and foreign language press, and there were few surprises, except when a reporter from the Chinese language daily World Journal stood up and asked, "Senator Schneiderman has run an impressive campaign so far. He has received more than 100 endorsements. I'm just wondering how the other three candidates think about Senator Schneiderman campaign. Do they feel threatened?"

After a brief chuckle, and a response from Schneiderman in Chinese that I didn't quite catch the other candidates piped up.

"Uh, no," said Richard Brodsky. "It's an interesting way to phrase the problem I think this campaign is only beginning in the last ten days. There has been a dramatic lack of attention...I think you are going to see a lot of attention paid to things like civil commitments of sexual predators. I think you are going to see a lot of attention paid to environmental matters...So as impressed as obviously you are with Senator Schneiderman's campaign, afterwards, we'll talk and maybe I can impress you one third as much."

Next came Sean Coffey, who said, "Senator Schneiderman often says he has the broadest coalition. I don't think you can say that anymore Senator. Someone pointed out to me this morning that I have endorsements that range from Senator Al Franken to the New York Post. I think that is pretty broad. By the way, who here knew my name three months ago? Nobody. So everybody who endorses me is taking a political risk...because we have folks who have been around a long time, a real long time."

At which point Brodsky, who seemed to think this was a slight to him, interjected, "Well, I don't look it."

"You look great," Coffey said. "And everybody I got has said, you know what, it's time for something different."

Eric Dinallo pointed out that he has been endorsed by the Daily News and Crain's in recent days, and said, "I think this is truly a wide open campaign. Some of my opponents have spent now collectively several hundred million dollars in advertisements, and the latest polls show really no one knows anyone, and I include myself in that since I've been at this since August."

Nassau district attorney Kathleen Rice led all comers in the poll with 4 percent. Her nearest rival, state Senator Eric Schneiderman, came in with 3, and Assembly member Richard Brodsky and private practice attorney Sean Coffey each got 1 percent. Former Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo didn't register at all.

Supporters and staffers of the campaigns all have their own spin. For Brodsky and Dinallo, the results show that the advertising push from the other three hasn't gotten them much traction. Rice's backers could take comfort that yet another poll showed her with the lead.  Schneiderman fans say that the poll shows that no one is paying attention, and a low-turnout primary favors them, since they have the most labor and grassroots support.

But many say that the poll is fundamentally flawed.

The poll surveyed 866 registered Democrats, instead of polling prime voters or even those who identify themselves as certain to vote. Instead of giving respondants a list of names and asking them to pick one--which would have at the very least given a sense of who has the highest name i.d.--respondents were asked who they are voting for. Thus, 8 percent of respondent named somebody not running.

"It was the single most useless set of questions ever asked in the history of polling," said one Democratic operative. "We should take nothing from this and move on."

This operative even predicted that if the same poll was taken the day before the election it would yield similar results.

Maurice Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, seemed to agree, saying the poll was not meant to show who is in the lead in the election,  but merely who is paying attention. And the answer, it seems, is nobody.

"There is no great interest in this race right now," he said from a pay phone in Grand Central, where he was waiting to take a train back to Quinnipiac headquarters in Connecticut. "So there is absolutely no way to predict who is going to win."

dfreedlander@observer.com

"I believe the next AG must be a 'green AG' and that he or she is in a unique position to push for enhanced state and federal regulation, an increase in office resources and a push for renewable and clean energy," Rice says in a release. 

The announcement, coming fourteen days before voters head to the polls, can be seen as an effort to dig into the liberal base that is expected to come out for Eric Schneiderman, although it is Richard Brodsky who has been making the most hay of his environmental bonafides.

The full agenda can be found here.

Richard Brodsky: On Saturday, local community events in Brooklyn and the Irish festival in Manhattan. On Sunday, churches in the Bronx, and local community events in Manhattan.

Sean Coffey: On Saturday, attending community Family Days in Queens and Brooklyn, including one with Councilwoman Diana Reyna. On Sunday, he will attend two church services in Brooklyn, including one with Congressman Ed Towns.

Eric Dinallo: Walking in the Hon. Percy Sutton Harlem 5k Run and NYC Family Health Walk-a-Thon and celebrating Harlem Week afterwards in St. Nicholas Park.

Kathleen Rice: Saturday - two community events in Nassau County, a polish street fair in Suffolk County and Greek event in Suffolk County. Sunday - Brooklyn churches.

Eric Schneiderman: On Saturday, making campaign stops in Western New York, including visits with community leaders and voters in Niagara County. On Sunday, he will be attending multiple churches in Staten Island and the Bronx, and meeting with Jewish leaders in Rockland County.

The campaign-finance gurus over at NYPIRG however have run their numbers and they say that Rice's methodology is flawed. Campaigns do not have to itemize how much they have raised from donors who give under $100, and so there is no way of knowing, as Rice's campaign claims, that just 12 percent of Eric Schneiderman's campaign donations were from donors who gave less than $100, or that just 16 percent of Sean Coffey's money come from low-dollar, grassroots donations.

According to Bill Mahoney, a researcher with NYPIRG, 99.9 percent of campaigns in New York State do not list donors under $100, since there is simply too much paperwork and the law does not require it. By listing each of her two-digit dollar amount and under donors, Rice inflated her number of donors when compared side-by-side with her competitors.

"If she itemized all of her contributions, no matter how small, she was able to add several hundred donors to her total," he said. "She says, for example, that Eric Schneiderman received 129 donations, but he definitely received more than that. We just have no way of knowing how many he received because he did not itemize his donations."

In fact, Mahoney says, when comparing apples to apples--when comparing how much money from checks $100 or under each campaign received as a percentage of their fundraising this calendar--Rice has received the least of any of the candidates, with just .61 percent of her total money raised coming from small donors. The candidate whose war chest is the most filled with small dollar donations is Richard Brodsky, who has raised close to 3% of his total from small checks.

The Rice campaign meanwhile noted that they had more small donor cash than their competitors, and said that they itemized each of their donations not to inflate their totals but for transparency's sake.

"We think grassroots support and transparency are good things," said Eric Phillips, Rice's spokesman. "According to these public reports, we have far more donors and far more low-dollar, grassroots contributions than any other candidate in the race. I don't think this is a function of other campaigns lacking transparency, but a function of our grassroots support.  But there's no doubt that we're proud to have been the most transparent and the most detailed in our disclosure report."

It is a clear shot across the bow at state Senator Eric Schneiderman, who touted his own grassroots support when he announced his fundraising numbers last week.

The campaign notes that nearly half of Rice's contributions were for $100 or less, while only 12 percent of Schneiderman's were and 16 percent of Sean Coffey's were.

"During these difficult economic times, nearly 600 people dug into their pockets over the last month and gave money to the candidate they believe can best clean up Albany, hold Wall Street accountable and protect their families," says Rice campaign manager Jeffrey Stein. "Those hard-working New Yorkers have put District Attorney Rice in position to win this race."

Rice has come under fire for receiving a boatload of money from Weitz & Luxenburg, a personal injury law firm that employs Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

The release also points out that both Schneiderman and Coffey "have used their personal fortunes to fund large portions of their respective campaigns," Schneiderman to the tune of $305,000 and Coffey with $3 million.

While this puts him well-behind Kathleen Rice, who raised $620,000 in the past month and has more than $4.4 million on hand, Dinallo is ahead of Richard Brodsky, who raised $47,000 in the past month and now has $1.5 million on hand.

Will update with more numbers as they come in.