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Cuomo, O'Donnell vie for Democratic endorsement

By Thomas Santomarco
Tue, Feb 21, 2006 4:44 pm
Gazette staff writer

Two Democrats hoping to be New York's next attorney general continued to fight for their party's endorsement last week as Andrew Cuomo offered a plan to improve health care and combat Medicaid fraud, while Buffalo Attorney Denise O'Donnell announced her endorsement by former Cuomo foe H. Carl McCall.

The only declared Republican candidate for attorney general, Jeanine Pirro, the former Westchester County district attorney, has also made tackling Medicaid fraud a central theme of her campaign. Pirro has been endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick.

McCall spoke highly of O'Donnell at a Manhattan press conference last Thursday, saying, "I have only one criteria for my choice for attorney general – is this person qualified for the job? Denise O'Donnell has spent her life fighting for New Yorkers. She has the hands-on experience we need in our next attorney general."

O'Donnell, the former United States Attorney for Western New York, has also received support from former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and U.S. Rep. Brian M. Higgins, D-Buffalo.

The former state comptroller McCall and Cuomo sparred over the Democratic nomination for governor in 2002 and ended up in a bitter primary that propelled McCall toward the general election, which he lost to incumbent Gov. George E. Pataki. Many believe McCall's failure to defeat Pataki was a result of spending too much money during the primary.

Cuomo ended up running as the Liberal Party candidate and received roughly 14,000 votes, rendering the party extinct in New York, where a party must receive 50,000 votes in an election in order to continually be recognized.

Cuomo, who served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration, was in Albany last Tuesday discussing his plans for health care reform and touting what he called current Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's record of consumer protection and protecting the middle-class. He said if elected he would call for legislation to increase staff in the attorney general's office and make the laws and penalties relating to Medicaid fraud more stringent.

"I hope to do for health care what Eliot Spitzer has done on Wall Street," Cuomo said.

Louis Freeh, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, credited Cuomo with reforming HUD, which he said had a reputation of being a wasteful and fraud-ridden department before he was appointed secretary. Freeh said this experience makes Cuomo the ideal candidate to clean up "mismanagement" in New York's Medicaid program.

Other Democrats vying for the nomination include former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green; Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Elmsford; former Clinton administration aide Sean Patrick Maloney; and Charlie King, a former housing official in the Clinton administration who was Cuomo's running mate in 2002.

Meanwhile, Pirro was in Albany last Monday to address the New York Conservative Party's Annual Political Action Conference. She cited success in reducing Medicaid fraud in Westchester County, saying she caught $12 million in fraudulent activity last year alone.

"Money needs to be returned to the public coffers," she said, "I've done it as district attorney and I can do it as attorney general."

She also discussed Second Amendment rights at the conference, saying it is unfair to group legal gun owners in with those who own guns illegally.

Pirro supports the creation of a DNA database containing every criminal in the state, which she says could solve every crime. She said, "DNA is the finger of God saying 'you're not getting away with it'."

She wants to use the attorney general's office as a pulpit to pass laws regarding the civil confinement of sex offenders, saying the role of the attorney general is to be the people's protector.

A poll conducted earlier this month by Marist College shows Cuomo with a 14 percent lead over Pirro, with 14 percent undecided. The poll shows O'Donnell garnering 3 percent of the vote in a potential Democratic primary, trailing Cuomo by 37 percent.