The man sworn in today as New York’s 55th governor may be virtually unknown to non-New Yorkers, but he is a seasoned political player and the scion of a legendary political clubhouse that has been a lever of black political power in the state.

History will be made Monday when the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer takes effect and Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson becomes the first African-American governor in the state’s history.

It may be too early for the post-mortems on the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY.

But given her troubles of late, the pre-mortems are rolling in.

There’s enough blame to go around, but Mark Penn, Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, is taking a lot of the hits.

Millionaire Susie Tompkins Buell is a candidate’s dream, the sort of contributor who’s willing to give again and again and again.

“I get worked up and ask, ‘What can I do?’ and the first answer is always to give money,” Buell told The New York Times in 2004.

Buell is worked up again - this time over the prospect that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton might not get the Democratic presidential nomination.

Maggie Williams has been part of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s political life for years, often behind the scenes.

She moved onto center stage Sunday, becoming Clinton’s campaign manager as the senator from New York seeks the Democratic presidential nomination.

Williams replaces Patti Solis Doyle, who just a month ago seemed to have secured her job by helping Clinton win the New Hampshire primary.

In times of real need, the Bill and Hillary Clintons turn to Harold M. Ickes.

So it’s no surprise that Ickes, the son of Harold L. Ickes, Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, is leading the effort to sew up Democrat superdelegates for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, in her bid for the Democratic nomination.

Like mother, like daughter.

“Her mother found her voice in New Hampshire, and Chelsea Clinton, has found hers too,” wrote Nikki Schwab of U.S. News & World Report in a story posted Tuesday on the magazine’s website.

The emergence of the 27-year-old daughter of presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, and former President Bill Clinton, as a campaign speaker represents a significant shift in the role of the former, and possibly future, first daughter.

Democrats are quick to criticize President Bush’s handling of the economy. However, at least one top Democrat has done pretty well during the last eight years.

Former President Bill Clinton made $9.2 million in speaking fees in just his first year out of office in 2001. He later got a reported advance between $10 million and $12 million for his memoir, My Life.

All this money adds up. Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, listed their assets as between $17.4 million and $53.7 million, in the most recent report made public.

And now it appears that Bill Clinton is eligible for a $20 million payout for his relationship with a private equity firm.

New information in a murder case with a Clinton connection offers a picture of a chatty lawyer who may have said too much for his own good.

On Dec. 20 of last year, police arrested Carlos Perez-Olivo, a disbarred lawyer. They charged him will killing his wife, Peggy Hall Perez-Olivo, in Westchester County in November 2006.

Perez-Olivo and his family live three doors down from the home of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in Chappaqua, N.Y. They’ve been there since the middle of 2006.

Things are getting a little tight in Iowa, so it may not be the right time for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to roll out her presidential cabinet.

But should she ultimately get the nomination and then win the presidency, odds are that she might ask the New York City power couple of Joel I. Klein and Nicole K. Seligman to join her team.

And she could also keep things all in the family and sign on Stephanie Seligman, Nicole’s sister, to work at the White House or just about anywhere else.