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TRAK: Republican candidate and former Westchester district attorney Jeanine Pirro has had a very bad year.
First, she pulled out of a senate run against Senator Hillary Clinton. Then, after she decided to run for attorney general, she was overheard on a federal wiretap. She was discussing the possibility of bugging her husband's boat to see if he was cheating on her
The incident was a boon for democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo.
ACT/CUOMO: There is a candidate who is being accused of criminal wrongdoing and is under investigation by a number of law enforcement agencies and has their ethics questioned. That's not me however.
ACT/PIRRO: You know Andrew you're running for attorney general would be like my running for joe torres position because I played softball 21 years ago.
TRAK: Pirro has tried to divert attention from the scandal by emphasizing her experience as a DA, prosecuting sex crimes and Medicaid fraud. In a series of TV ads, she has attacked Cuomo for being unqualified to lead the state's largest law firm.
ACT/PIRRO AD: Jeanine Pirro, thirty years fighting crime.. prosecutor, judge, district attorney. Andrew Cuomo..fourteen months as a junior prosecutor 21 years ago, little court room experience.
TRAK:
Pirro's campaign has been distracted by other scandals surrounding her husband Albert Pirro. He's a millionaire lobbyist who has served time in prison for tax fraud.
Andrew Cuomo, son of former New York governor Mario Cuomo is no stranger to bad press
A secretary of the u-s department of housing and urban development under president bill Clinton, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2002.
This year, he's benefiting from the support of popular gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer.
ACT/SPITZER: When Andrew Cuomo turned around the troubled agency by bill Clinton, he was in charge of 300 lawyers who took on very powerful interests…he rooted out corruption. Stopped the bad guys…fought everything from bigotry to gun violence.
New York Daily News Columnist William Hammond says whoever wins on Tuesday will have big shoes to fill.
ACT/HAMMOND: as I approach my decision, I try to think of the awesome power the office has..eliot spitzer figured out how to make maximun use of this power.. just the publicity alone.. just the very announcement that eliot spitzer was suing a company was enough to cause the stock price to plunge.
Hammond says the recent campaign scandal involving state comptroller Alan Hevesi has overshadowed the Pirro scandal. Hevesi used state funds to pay for his wife's chauffeur.
But Pirro is now 20-percentage points behind Cuomo in most public opinion polls.
Hammond speculates that after this race, Jeanine Pirro may return to the law profession or become a television commentator or talk show host.
TRAK: Betty Yu Columbia Radio News.