For campaigns, TV advertising is the least efficient but most effective way of reaching a broad swath of voters when pressing the flesh isn’t an option

NIVA and NITO have taken on Congress and they’re not done yet

Not since the city nearly went bankrupt in 1975 have we been so close to the brink

“The David Dinkins that David Dinkins wants voters to see is a man who can bring the city together, who cares about the city's growing underclass, and who can do something about New York's out-­of-control drug and crime problems.”

“Dinkins unswervingly pursued a strategy of coalition politics, founded upon a message of hope, and won the Democratic nomination with substantial support from Jews and white Catholics in addition to Latinos, Asians, blacks, and gays.”

“It’s time to judge him for who he is and what he is doing, rather than forever anticipating what he may become. This is the story of one test of Mario Cuomo’s government: its ethics”

“On a frigid, lightly snowing night in late January 1917, Marcel Duchamp, John Sloan, and four other tipsy Villagers climbed to the top of Washington Square Arch and declared Greenwich Village a free and independent republic.”

“The essence of the ruling was that Esposito, who has become a caricature of the county party boss, is in fact no boss at all and thus cannot be penalized for breaking state laws that limit the commercial activity of a county leader.”

“In Ed Koch's city, Stanley Friedman and Donald Manes were the twin towers of insider trading, the most powerful of the mayor's men. The just­-completed trial record of their crimes is in a sense Ed Koch's third book — a can­did account, at last, of his government”

“Witnesses against Friedman called him 'a stand-up guy' who had 'brass balls.' For this he deserves a cer­tain grudging respect — and about 10 years in prison”