The Post reports that Adolfo Carrion, former Bronx borough prez who served as Barack Obama's urban czar, is weighing whether to run for mayor "and will make a decision by the fall."

Carrion, 51, would likely bill himself as a middle-of-the-road alternative to the other Democrat contenders, who he reportedly thinks '"are all trying to out-left each other.'"

He's so popular with moderates and conservatives, in fact, that Republican leaders have asked him to run on a G.O.P. ticket, according to the paper.

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Bill Clinton's not the only politician who likes a good cigar...

Since 2008, New York politicians have spent nearly $50,000 on cigars and other tobacco products, a new study from the New York Public Research Group.

The study, first provided by the group to the New York Daily News, finds that state lawmakers dropped $44,919 on cigars since 2008. Often times, the cigars were used as party favors for campaign donors and fundraising events.

"The practice of politicians and donors meeting in smoke-filled rooms is apparently alive and well in New York," NYPIRG's Bill Mahoney says.

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Former Congressman John Sweeney after one of his two DWI arrests since 2007.

If you're running for one of the highest political offices in the country, you'd probably be advised to avoid certain unsavory characters who could potentially derail your campaign. You might want to avoid hiring a former congressman who was arrested for DUI (twice) and "had a woman on his lap when he was pulled over" to run your campaign, for example.

But that hasn't stopped former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and GOP Senate hopeful George Maragos from hiring (er...allegedly hiring in Maragos' case. More on that below) shamed former Congressman John Sweeney -- who was arrested for DUI in 2007 (and again in 2009) and "had a woman on his lap when he was pulled over," according to police.

As first reported by Jimmy Vielkind at the Albany Times Union, Sweeney sent a letter to the Federal Elections Commission claiming Maragos owes him $125,000 after the two agreed that Sweeney would run Maragos' Senate campaign.

As even Sweeney notes, though, there was no written agreement -- just a handshake.

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U.S. Senator from New York Kirsten Gillibrand appeared in her office in Manhattan today alongside several veterans who recently served to call for the expedited drawdown of troops in Afghanistan. "While our troops have admirably fulfilled the missions asked of them, we must step back and review our Afghanistan policy in the context of our overall national security," Gillibrand said, according to a press release. In addition to her appearance, Gillibrand -- a member of the Armed Services Committee -- wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explaining her stance that U.S. negotiations should include groups with stakes in the country beyond simply the Taliban.

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Frequently bombastic New Jersey governor Chris Christie said on Fox News today that it would be "presumptuous" of him to say no to running on Mitt Romney's ticket for vice president if the opportunity was offered to him. Christie endorsed Romney last month. Early in the interview, Politico reports, Christie said that the idea of his running alongside Romney hadn't been brought up. But if it did:

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A "haggard-looking and hoarse-voiced" Mayor Bloomberg critiqued U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius' decision tp prohibit girls under 17 from buying the morning-after pill over the counter. On December 7, Sebelius overruled a decision by FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg to end age restrictions on the pill.

This morning during a q&a session with reporters before touring a health care job-placement center in Queens, the mayor expressed his disapproval of the Obama administration's actions. According to Capital, the mayor said "[FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg] has a reputation as being a first-rate scientist and I think that her advice should be followed. It was based not on politics, it was based on real scientific research. Why Sebelius decided to overrule her, I don't know, you'd have to address her."

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Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro has a new plan to inject some life into the American economy. He's told his staffers to affix the words "Buy American" to all constituent correspondence as part of a new "Buy American" campaign. This should work!

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Rosie Gray

A small group of Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered outside the Union League Club on 37th and Park today to demonstrate against Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who was holding a fundraiser there. Gingrich famously told protesters to "go get a job right after you take a bath." Bathtime was thus a theme of the protest, or at least it was supposed to be: one man was in a bathrobe and another guy sported a loofah attached to his backpack, though that was about it. The protest start time was 11:30 a.m., but when the Voice arrived a few minutes early, there were only two protesters on the scene. It stayed that way for a while.

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In the annals of political rhetoric, there are lies, damn lies and exaggeration. Well, according to Politicker NY, Mayor Bloomberg dropped himself into the third category during a speech at MIT last night, when he claimed, "I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world..."

This statement, of course, is totally, wildly inaccurate, either by numbers or spending. The 7th largest army globally would actually be Vietnam with 321,000 soldiers, compared to 33,000 or so in the NYPD. And tiny Austria spends more on its military than the city does on the NYPD. The NYPD isn't even the largest police force in the world: law enforcement agencies in South Africa and China are much larger.

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Mayor Bloomberg just held a press conference at City Hall to address last night's raid of Zuccotti Park. Bloomberg, accompanied by other city government top brass, said that the city had acted on Brookfield's request but that the decision to clear the park was "mine and mine alone." Bloomberg said that the the city aimed to avoid confrontation and "minimize destruction to the surrounding neighborhood." He barely addressed the treatment of protesters and the media blackout that prevented almost all press from covering the eviction from the inside.

A wrench was thrown in Bloomberg's argument, though, by the fact that the city has been served with a court order that will allow protesters back into the park temporarily.

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