Here’s something we reported in today’s papers:

Senate Republicans are looking for an image makeover after the loss earlier this week of a seat the party has held for more than a century.

In the first sign of a shakeup, the party plans to hire national Republican consultant Frank Luntz to look at how Senate Republicans can redefine themselves as they seek to retain their slim majority.

“I’m taking a look at everybody and everything,” Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, told an Albany radio station Thursday. “We are going to do a self-inspection.”

The hiring of Luntz, also a Fox News pollster and focus-group guru who has worked with Senate Republicans in the past, may be the beginning of several changes within Republican ranks. Republicans said they are considering hiring other high-profile national strategists.With Democrat Darrel Aubertine’s victory in the race for an open North Country Senate seat Tuesday over GOP opponent Will Barclay, some Republican operatives and leaders said the party needs a new message.

Aubertine’s win lowered the Republican majority to just 32-30 in the Senate. But the majority is just one because Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, owns any tie-breaking vote. Republicans have controlled the Senate for every year but one (1965) since 1938.

North Country politics and its statewide implications is the topic of today’s show.

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$754 at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Suffolk County, $450 at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York,  and $318 at SUNY New Paltz in Ulster County.

Those are some of the textbook totals spent by students at those schools this semester.  Members of the Public Interest Research Group took photos of the students and how much they spent and brought the information to lawmakers this week.  The high cost of textbooks is something the Senate Higher Education and Consumer Protection committees are investigating. Senators said students, consumer advocacy groups and others have expressed concern about the rising cost of textbooks and course materials. One study found that prices increased 186 percent from 1986 to 2004—an annual average of 6 percent, or more than twice the inflation rate.

“I’m into the affordability, both tuition and textbooks, and we’ve got to get to producing for students their textbooks in the most economical way,” said Senate Higher Education Committee Chairman Kenneth LaValle, R-Suffolk County.

LaValle and Fuschillo are introducing legislation that would establish guidelines and provisions to help curb increasing prices, such as that textbooks would be sold in the same manner as ordered by a faculty member and not bundled with supplemental materials.

If books are sold in bundles with other materials—such as a workbook and a digital component—they should automatically be available “a la carte” too, said Fran Clark of NYPIRG.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially said last night in a op-ed in the New York Times that he’s officially not running for the presidency as an independent candidate.

And here’s a good reason why: A Quinnipiac Poll today showed that Bloomberg could not break out of single digits in three-way presidential matchups in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“Maybe Mayor Michael Bloomberg realizes that New York line, ‘if you can make it there you can make it anywhere,’ doesn’t always work in politics,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.  “In much of the rest of the country, Bloomberg wasn’t that well known or well regarded.”

In the op-ed piece, Bloomberg said: “I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president. I have watched this campaign unfold, and I am hopeful that the current campaigns can rise to the challenge by offering truly independent leadership.”

Rather than gloat over Democrats’ latest political success, Gov. Eliot Spitzer this morning pushed for “One New York” and said his budget proposal would be good for all New Yorkers.

The message comes less than two days after Democrats closed the Republican lead in the Senate to just one seat and moves Spitzer closer to having all state government under the party’s control.

Yet he’s stepping away from his tough stance last year—at least publicly—of warring with his foes. It’s all part of his 2008 message of conciliation after his first year in office was marred by his self-titled label as a “steamroller.”

“History has shown us and present circumstances dictate that we must cast aside division and come together as One New York,” Spitzer said in a speech to the Association for a Better New York  in Manhattan.
“Sectionalism will not take us where we need to go if we are to transform our economy, lower health care costs and elevate our schools and universities to the next level. So it is imperative that the fundamental principle of ‘One New York’ guides our budget deliberations and it is in this spirit that we must enter the budget season.”

He reiterated his ongoing theme of “We are one State with one future, and we will rise and fall together.”

If you talk to Democrats and Republicans today about the reason why Democrat Darrel Aubertine beat Republican Will Barclay in Tuesday’s special Senate election, most point to this ad below.

Barclay was unable to recover from the ad, which was done by Spitzer’s advertising guru Jimmy Siegel, and showed how Barclay’s family wouldn’t let people fish on their land.

Barclay’s camp responded with an attack that alleged Aubertine profited from wind farms on his dairy farm, but some GOP officials said the ad wasn’t effective and came too late.

Despite reforms enacted in 2004 and 2005, more people were sent to state prison in each of the last three years for non-violent drug offenses than in 2004, according to a report released today. “Thousands of minor drug offenders are still being locked up at great expense to the public treasury and with little, if any, benefit to the larger society,’’ said Robert Gangi of the state Corrections Association, an advocacy group. “Our standard criticism of these laws–that they are wasteful, ineffective, unjust, and marked by racial bias­–still applies.’’ According to the association’s figures, 6,148 people went to prison last year for non-violent drug offenses, compared to 6,039 in 2006 and 5,835 in 2005. The 2004 figures was 5,657. Lawmakers changed the so-called Rockefeller drug laws (after their champion, former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller) in 2004 to ease sentences on non-violent offenders, but Gangi said they’re not working and need further revision. He said freeing those who don’t need to be locked up could save the state $220 million a year. But opponents of further changes say letting more drug users go free could lead to more crime.

The theory from Republicans in the state Senate today is that last night’s loss in the northern New York special election to Democrat Darrel Aubertine came down to the fact that voters simply like Aubertine more.

His ad that painted GOP opponent as the wealthy son of former Sen. Doug Barclay who wouldn’t let people fish on the family’s land was simply too much to overcome, some Republicans said privately.

“They were able to define him as an elitist rich kid wouldn’t let people fish in their river,” one GOP strategist said of Barclay.

Republicans were never able to counter the attack, and Aubertine was viewed as a local farmer trying to do good for the district.

“It was about the things going on in that district, primarily the economy,” Aubertine said after being sworn in at the Capitol this afternoon.

But Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Republicans still hold a one-seat majority and may have “lost that battle, but we are going to win the war” in November.

Democratic Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, though, predicted more Democratic victories in November.

“November ‘08 is a little ways off,” Smith said. “My best guess is that we’ll have the same numbers that we have now and most likely we’ll have two or three more.”

     In a report released today, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said industrial development agencies “continue to report project, job creation and other data that is inconsistent, incomplete and not independently verified.” He is proposing  measures to make the state’s 116 IDAs more accountable and their financial reporting more accurate, he announced. IDAs are independent authorities that offer real property tax abatements, sales and mortgage recording tax exemptions, and low interest-rate bonds to attract, retain and expand businesses.

     Measures DiNapoli will take include: 

    —Accepting only audited annual financial statements that are in compliance with regulations. Failing to report all job information, for example, could result in a suspension of financial assistance.

     —Expanding his office’s oversight of IDA and Local Government Development Corporations to include access to tax and wage data during audits.

     “IDAs are supposed to create jobs. When they report on job creation, taxpayers should know that the numbers are right,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “Given the way IDAs are currently reporting information, there is no way of knowing that. These measures will make IDAs more accountable to the public they serve and establish clear standards that IDAs must follow, or they risk serious consequences.”

     The report found that there have been some improvements in data reporting, but the complete project costs were not available for 27 percent of all projects. Complete and accurate job data was not reported for 9 percent of projects.

A political firestorm is underway today at the state Capitol after Democrat Darrel Aubertine won the special election for a Senate seat in the North Country last night, lowering the Republican control to just a one-seat majority.

Aubertine had 27,901 votes, or 52 percent, to 25,345 votes for Republican Will Barclay, 48 percent, according to the Associated Press.

The results are a shock to Republicans, who talked yesterday with confidence that they’d win the seat and push forward in November. Senate Republicans now have a 32-30 lead over Democrats.

With Aubertine’s win, there are huge questions about what will happen to the state’s power structure:

Will Joe Bruno stay on as Senate majority leader? Or will someone like Binghamton Sen. Thomas Libous—an architect of Barclay’s race—or Long Island Sen. Dean Skelos replace him?

Will Gov. Spitzer and Democrats look to flip a Republican senator—giving them an even number in the chamber—and then look to approve a rule change that would take out Bruno and replace him with Democratic Minority Leader Malcolm Smith of Queens or Deputy Minority Leader Jeff Klein of the Bronx?

Will upstate be hurt, as Republicans contend, if Democrats control the Assembly, Senate and governor’s office with all downstate leaders?

Will Senate Republicans, especially many of their elderly members, retire rather than face a tough re-election battle this fall?

And will the Republican-controlled Senate, already at gridlock with Spitzer, have any chance of agreeing on policy measures and getting a budget approved by the April 1 deadline?