Suozzi takes hit from home

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Nassau legislator urges County Exec to pull out of governor's race, saying it hurts his constituents.

With Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi's campaign for governor struggling for momentum, a county legislator from his own party Tuesday urged him to drop out of the race, throwing her support to Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic front-runner. Legis. Lisanne Altmann (D-Great Neck), who has clashed with Suozzi in the past, called a news conference to condemn his proposal to charge motorists for riding the Long Island Expressway during rush hour as detrimental to county residents.

"There is a moment in time when your run for governor is in opposition to what you're doing -- what you ought to be doing -- as Nassau County executive," Altmann said. "I think we've reached that place." "The quarterback's got to come back to the team," she said. The rebuke from within his home county comes amid a Suozzi campaign that often seems to be flailing. On Friday, his unplanned comments to reporters about the "congestion pricing" system sparked an outcry from Long Islanders and criticism from five Democratic legislators, including Presiding Officer Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury).

Normally a crisp speaker, Suozzi in the past few weeks has appeared distracted, observers say. He has been ramping up attacks on Spitzer and other state officials and staging events to stay on the media radar. Suozzi's campaign manager, Kimberly Devlin, said that during the same period, he has "been focused enough to deliver the most specific, ambitious and credible policy proposal ... his property tax cut plan." Tuesday, he called for the ouster of the state's top legislators, a move that was derided by one of them, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lisuoz0510,0,591181.story?coll=ny-top-headlines