Councilman Lew Fidler and his wife sitting next to Marty Golden and a man in a pumpkin costume. (Photo: Facebook)

A blog focused on Brooklyn's Hasidic politics took a deep dive into the numbers from former District Leader Lincoln Restler's unsuccessful reelection campaign this summer, and speculated what it might mean for Mr. Restler should he challenge Councilman Steve Levin next year.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio took his anti-Iran advocacy to FOX Business News today, focusing on Maserati's activities in the country. "They're making a mockery of international sanctions," Mr. de Blasio declared. Previously the public advocate took on Nissan.

GOP congressional hopeful Dan Halloran released an internal poll showing his race against Assemblywoman Grace Meng to be a dead heat. The survey, which only included 300 voters and a high number of undecideds, seems particularly skewed because the presidential topline numbers have Mitt Romney winning in a district John McCain notched 36% in during the 2008 election. Given its tremendous diversity and languages, this congressional district is probably one of the hardest ones in the country to poll, to be fair. For her part, Ms. Meng's campaign released a couple details from one of their internal polls in response, but it seemed a tad biased in the other direction. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

At Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's request, Governor Andrew Cuomo will help the House Majority PAC raise money tomorrow in Manhattan. Here's what Mr. Cuomo had to say about it this afternoon:

“So, I’m doing that not because the Obama campaign has asked me to do it. It’s something that I wanted to do. I’m assuming that the Obama campaign is going to want me to undertake activities to help him with those, getting the votes out, because it’s getting very close and I don’t think it’s going to be a lot of tangential work. It’s going to be getting a lot of people to get out and pull the lever for President Obama.”

Office of Mental Health Commissioner Michael Hogan, who underwent some criticism during his tenure, announced he will no longer be commissioner in the near future, leaving the specifics unsaid.

This morning, we noted GOP challenger Matt Doheny's ad attacking incumbent Rep. Bill Owens over an allegedly improper trip he took to Taiwan. Mr. Owens already has a response ad of his own responding to it: