New York Times Empire State Blog

Here Come the Pols

As awareness grows of the magnitude of the power outage in Queens, candidates for statewide office are starting to weigh in. Smart move. There are a lotta votes in Queens, and a heckuva lot of melting ice cream, too.

Gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer put out this release today in his capacity as attorney general, highlighting a report he put out six years ago regarding the 1999 blackout in Washington Heights. He says Con Ed did not “heed the warnings from the earlier blackout” but, notably, does not call for anyone’s head.

And the Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini has also gotten into the game, making his second day of tours through northwest Queens and calling for a public investigation into the outage. Like a few other local electeds, he wants Gov. George E. Pataki to declare the place a disaster zone.

Who else?

Gentleman, start your word processors.

– Nicholas Confessore