Kudos to Elizabeth Benjamin at The Daily Politics for her blog item about another possible candidate for Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Its Hartsdale Republican Mary Mahon, an ex-Pataki appointee and former top lawyer at the Long Island Railroad.

Mahon has circulated her name as a candidate against Stewart-Cousins in the 35th SD this year and even launched her own website.

Former State Sen. Nicholas Spano, the Yonkers Republican who lost to Stewart-Cousins in 2006, is still mulling whether to run this year. In an e-mail to Politics on the Hudson, he said he expects to meet soon with Mahon.

“Mahon called me last week to introduce herself,” Spano said in the e-mail. “I will be getting together with her shortly. I have been approached by several people who are interested in the race. Welcome aboard !!!!”

If you read one of the latest press releases put out by the Westchester Board of Legislators, it was Chairman Bill Ryan who played an instrumental role in rescuing the struggling Westchester Medical Center.

So much so, according to the release, that he was appointed to the newly-formed County Hospital Task Force of the National Association of Counties — “He was appointed due to his involvement in saving the Westchester Medical Center from financial collapse and closure in 2004,” says the release.

“Pulling the medical center back from the brink of financial ruin, equipped me with first-hand knowledge on dealing with a health care facility in crisis,� Ryan said in the press release. “I am anxious to participate in the work of this important and timely hospital task force. I look forward to bringing valuable information home to Westchester for our consideration.�

Ryan’s description of his own role in the medical center’s turnaround might come as news to County Executive Andrew Spano and members of Westchester’s statehouse delegation. While Ryan did serve — and continues to serve — on the hospital’s Financial Improvement Committee, his role in the turnaround has rarely garnered much attention.

A commonly-told version of events has the Spano administration playing the biggest role in changing the hospital’s management structure and state lawmakers — led by former state Sen. Nicholas Spano and Assemblyman Richard Brodsky — helping to arrange a financial bailout from the state

The release from the Board of Legislators was sent out Thursday by the board’s growing press operation and touted Ryan’s participation in NACO’s annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference begins Saturday stretches through mid-week. Ryan is one of at least three Westchester legislators taking part.

Here’s something we reported in today’s papers:

Senate Republicans are looking for an image makeover after the loss earlier this week of a seat the party has held for more than a century.

In the first sign of a shakeup, the party plans to hire national Republican consultant Frank Luntz to look at how Senate Republicans can redefine themselves as they seek to retain their slim majority.

“I’m taking a look at everybody and everything,” Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, told an Albany radio station Thursday. “We are going to do a self-inspection.”

The hiring of Luntz, also a Fox News pollster and focus-group guru who has worked with Senate Republicans in the past, may be the beginning of several changes within Republican ranks. Republicans said they are considering hiring other high-profile national strategists.With Democrat Darrel Aubertine’s victory in the race for an open North Country Senate seat Tuesday over GOP opponent Will Barclay, some Republican operatives and leaders said the party needs a new message.

Aubertine’s win lowered the Republican majority to just 32-30 in the Senate. But the majority is just one because Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, owns any tie-breaking vote. Republicans have controlled the Senate for every year but one (1965) since 1938.

North Country politics and its statewide implications is the topic of today’s show.

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How many Westchester legislators does it take to conduct business?

Well, under the rules of county government, the answer is nine and that spelled trouble today for the Board of Legislators. Only eight showed up this afternoon for the special meeting called by Chairman William Ryan, forcing them to quickly adjourn without taking any action.

Ryan had called the meeting earlier in the week so that lawmakers could set the date for a public hearing on the county’s proposed Fair Housing Law. The public hearing was to be held on March 11th but may now have to be pushed back.

According to Ryan, nine of  the 17 legislators had initially indicated they would attend today’s session. One, however, canceled at the last moment because of family issues.

Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, said this week that he has no interest in being Senate majority leader if Democrats take control of the Senate after this November’s election.

There has been speculation around the Capitol that Klein, who represents portions of Westchester County, would be a top candidate to be majority leader if Democrats win the chamber.

Yet Klein urged that he supports current Minority Leader Malcolm Smith of Queens for the top spot. He alleged that Republicans are trying to create dissension among Democrats by suggesting he’d overtake Smith.

“I am not a candidate for Democratic leader,” Klein said. “I am hopeful that I’ll be deputy majority leader. And as of this election, it is very likely. I support Malcolm overwhelmingly.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially said last night in a op-ed in the New York Times that he’s officially not running for the presidency as an independent candidate.

And here’s a good reason why: A Quinnipiac Poll today showed that Bloomberg could not break out of single digits in three-way presidential matchups in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“Maybe Mayor Michael Bloomberg realizes that New York line, ‘if you can make it there you can make it anywhere,’ doesn’t always work in politics,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.  “In much of the rest of the country, Bloomberg wasn’t that well known or well regarded.”

In the op-ed piece announcing — definitively this time — that he “will not be” a candidate for president in 2008, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to knock the major-party candidates for a lack of political courage in dealing with voters.

“They must know we can’t fix our economy and create jobs by isolating America from global trade,” Bloomberg wrote. “They must know that we can’t fix our immigration problems with border security alone. They must know that we can’t fix our schools without holding teachers, principals and parents accountable for results. They must know that fighting global warming is not a costless challenge. And they must know that we can’t keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals unless we crack down on the black market for them”

Bloomberg also makes it clear in the op-ed that, although he will not be running for president, he will stay active and continue to prod the candidates toward a bi-partisan approach to issues.

“More of the same won’t do, on the economy or any other issue,” Bloomberg wrote. “We need innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership. That’s not just empty rhetoric, and the idea that we have the ability to solve our toughest problems isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream. ”

Rather than gloat over Democrats’ latest political success, Gov. Eliot Spitzer this morning pushed for “One New York” and said his budget proposal would be good for all New Yorkers.

The message comes less than two days after Democrats closed the Republican lead in the Senate to just one seat and moves Spitzer closer to having all state government under the party’s control.

Yet he’s stepping away from his tough stance last year—at least publicly—of warring with his foes. It’s all part of his 2008 message of conciliation after his first year in office was marred by his self-titled label as a “steamroller.”

“History has shown us and present circumstances dictate that we must cast aside division and come together as One New York,” Spitzer said in a speech to the Association for a Better New York  in Manhattan.
“Sectionalism will not take us where we need to go if we are to transform our economy, lower health care costs and elevate our schools and universities to the next level. So it is imperative that the fundamental principle of ‘One New York’ guides our budget deliberations and it is in this spirit that we must enter the budget season.”

He reiterated his ongoing theme of “We are one State with one future, and we will rise and fall together.”

If you talk to Democrats and Republicans today about the reason why Democrat Darrel Aubertine beat Republican Will Barclay in Tuesday’s special Senate election, most point to this ad below.

Barclay was unable to recover from the ad, which was done by Spitzer’s advertising guru Jimmy Siegel, and showed how Barclay’s family wouldn’t let people fish on their land.

Barclay’s camp responded with an attack that alleged Aubertine profited from wind farms on his dairy farm, but some GOP officials said the ad wasn’t effective and came too late.