Rice: the anti-Suozzi

Nassau Confidential

 Rumors have been swirling around Mineola recently that District Attorney Kathleen Rice is gearing up for a statewide run next year if Attorney General Andrew Cuomo leaves office and runs for, say, the governorship. Meanwhile, Rice is totally focused on her re-election this year, so don’t expect to hear a word otherwise. But she has been adding to her war chest -- which now has more than $900,000, according to some accounts -- and it seems like a lot more money than she’d need to defeat Republican challenger Joy Watson, insiders say. “Every two weeks I get another fundraising letter from her!” said one Democratic Party insider.
And next month at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, Cuomo himself is hosting a fundraiser for Rice. “I don’t think she’s running for his office,” said another Nassau Democrat with a keen eye on the political machinations in Mineola. “But that doesn’t mean that Cuomo isn’t playing with her. What better way to make Tom Suozzi crazy than to pump her up?”
“My gut says she could become the anti-Suozzi,” said a Democratic insider. “But she and Tom get along very well now. Her ambitions and Tom’s may well collide. And Jay Jacobs” -- the new state Democratic chairman as well as Nassau’s party head -- “may have to tell her to step aside.” But that’s a long way away.
Something else is casting a long shadow in Nassau politics: the Charles Wang-Scott Rechler Lighthouse project for the Nassau Hub. Wang says he’ll walk away and take the Islanders with him if he doesn’t see some real progress by Oct. 3, when the Islanders play their home opener at the Nassau Coliseum. Is he bluffing? That’s the question for Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray.