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NEW YORK — Former New York state assemblyman Robert Straniere has declared his candidacy for Vito Fossella’s congressional seat.

Straniere — who’s a lawyer and a partner in a family hot dog restaurant — is gathering petitions for a July 10 deadline to qualify for the Republican ballot.

The Republicans’ chosen successor, Frank Powers, died suddenly last month. The party had hoped Powers could retain its hold on the 13th Congressional District.

Fossella decided not to seek re-election following revelations that he fathered a child outside his marriage. The relationship was exposed after Fossella was arrested and charged with drunken driving in a Washington, D.C., suburb.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a clear message to her constituents Wednesday: I love New York.

Nearly a month after her historic run for the presidency came to a disappointing end, Clinton returned to upstate New York and focused on local concerns — weather-beaten apples, green power and her state’s downtrodden economy.

Clinton had been a frequent visitor to upstate New York before the demands of her presidential run, and she was a regular at the New York State Fair in Syracuse every August. Her most recent trip upstate was in March to attend Gov. David Paterson’s inauguration in Albany.

“It’s wonderful. It is so wonderful. It was the only part of campaigning that was kind of challenging. I really missed New York. I missed actually physically being in the state and having a chance to see my friends and see a lot of what I care about around the state. So I’m back doing work that I love, and I feel very good about what we are going to be able to accomplish,” Clinton said.

As many as 500 people gathered in Hanover Square in downtown Syracuse to see Clinton, who suspended her campaign last month after Barack Obama secured enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination.

“Looking around the square, it feels like a family reunion, I see so many familiar faces,” Clinton said to a standing ovation.

During her two-hour visit in Syracuse, Clinton met with Mayor Matt Driscoll, representatives of several green businesses and alternative energy firms and officials from the region’s colleges and universities, who gave her a briefing and demonstrated some of the technologies being researched and developed in the area.

Clinton was joined after the meeting by Paterson and both talked about their commitment to spurring the growth of alternative energy and green jobs.

Later Wednesday, Clinton was headed to Newark and Geneva to meet with farmers whose crops were severely damaged by last month’s hail storms and see the devastation firsthand. Since the storms, Clinton has been working with farmers to assess the damage and provide assistance.

Clinton was to finish her upstate swing in Buffalo, joining Schumer for the ceremonial opening of the Erie Canal Harbor, a waterfront redevelopment project, and then a tour of Buffalo’s Artspace, a redevelopment project that provides affordable housing and work space for artists and their families as well as commercial space for arts organizations and arts-related businesses.

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RAPID CITY, S.D. — Hillary Rodham Clinton will give her post-primary speech in New York Tuesday night, a rare departure from the campaign trail. Staffers who have worked for her on he ground in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana have been invited to attend the event or go home for further instructions, campaign aides said. The New York senator had no other events Tuesday. She planned to address AIPAC Wednesday in Washington.

But she is under increasing pressure to cede the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama after the final primaries. There was a sense of denouement in the campaign. She planned to rally with husband and former President Clinton and their daughter Chelsea in South Dakota Monday night — a reunion usually reserved for election nights.

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ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. David Paterson, a superdelegate who supports Hillary Rodham Clinton, said she’s showing “a little desperation” and should give up her effort to count votes from renegade primaries in Michigan and Florida.

Paterson said Thursday that Clinton shouldn’t derail the process by which the national Democratic Party stripped Michigan and Florida of their national convention delegates because they moved their primaries up to January in violation of party rules. The rules were agreed to by all the candidates, including Clinton, before she won the two January contests. Because of the violations, no candidates campaigned in either state and her rival Barack Obama took him name off the Michigan ballot.

“I would say at this point we’re starting to see a little desperation on the part of a woman I still support and will support until she makes a different determination,” Paterson told WAMC-FM. “Candidates have to be cautious in their zeal to win that they don’t trample on the process.”

Paterson said he doubted his home-state senator would get the edge over Obama, even if the two states’ votes were counted.

Seating both groups in the way most favorable to Clinton would still leave her trailing Obama in the delegate count, because his lead is now almost 200 delegates.

A Clinton spokesman declined comment.

He said he wouldn’t agree with Clinton supporters who say her effort to capture the Michigan and Florida votes is akin to a civil rights fight. No candidates objected to the decision by party leaders to penalize the states, Paterson noted.

Paterson played a prominent role in the Clinton campaign before he replaced Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned after being identified in a prostitution investigation. Now New York’s first black governor, Paterson continues to appeal on Clinton’s behalf to black voters who are drawn to Obama, who is seeking to become nation’s first black president.

April 21, 2007: Barack Obama, and Rev. Al Sharpton laugh together during the 9th annual National Action Network convention in New York (AP Photo).

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An aide to Al Sharpton on Tuesday denied a report that the reverend accused Barack Obama of trying to “grandstand in front of white people” by suggesting that New Yorkers should not get violent over the acquittal of three police officers who shot an unarmed man last year.

The story, which appeared in Tuesday’s New York Post, is an “outright falsehood,” said Charlie King, acting national director of Sharpton’s National Action Network.

“Everything stated in the New York Post regarding yesterday’s conversation between Senator Obama and Reverend Sharpton is false, and is either a fabrication of the Post journalists who wrote the story or the supposed unnamed source for the story. In my view, there is a big difference between tabloid journalism and shoddy journalism. This story is clearly the latter and is unacceptable,” King said.

The Post reported that Sharpton and Obama got into a heated conversation about Obama’s response to the Sean Bell verdict last week. Bell was shot by the officers outside a Queens strip club in November. On Friday, three officers involved in the shooting were found not guilty of criminal charges by Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman, who reached a verdict without a jury.

The verdict was widely decried by Sharpton and others, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers called for a federal probe. The six officers involved in the shooting still face a possible federal civil rights investigation and departmental charges.

Obama responded to the verdict by saying that “the judge has made his ruling and we are a nation of laws and so we respect the verdict that came down. I think that the most important thing for people who are concerned about the shooting is to figure out how do we come together and assure that those kinds of tragedies don’t happen again.”

The New York Post quoted a source who said Obama’s response was unsatisfactory to Sharpton, who has threatened to shut down the city. According to the Post source, Sharpton called Obama and berated him for saying that it’s “completely unacceptable and counterproductive” to resort to violence.

“(Obama) issues this statement and not a single rock had been thrown,” a source told the newspaper. “How does the candidate of change ask people to accept a verdict that is unjust?”

The source added that Sharpton had hoped Obama would “side with the Bell family” and not use it as an “opportunity to grandstand in front of white people.”

But King said the paper should issue a retraction immediately since it has not identified the source and did not call to verify its accuracy.

“For the record, Reverend Sharpton and Senator Obama had a good conversation yesterday about the need to address both police misconduct and reducing crime. As with the numerous conversations they have, it was friendly, respectful and substantive. ” Said King.

King accused the newspaper of trying to “create the misimpression of division between Reverend Sharpton and Senator Obama” and claimed it had falsely reported some months ago that Sharpton did not want Obama to run for president.

Click here to read The New York Post report.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg shakes hands with Barack Obama before he gives an economic policy address in New York City Thursday. (AP Photo)

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Michael Bloomberg is staying cagey about where his loyalties lie this election season but he continues to stir the pot, appearing Thursday with Barack Obama for the second time since the two had a high-profile breakfast meeting in November.

The billionaire New York mayor, who a month ago scrapped his own simmering idea to launch a presidential bid, introduced Obama before the Democratic presidential candidate’s economic policy address at The Cooper Union in New York.

“The mayor did not endorse” Obama at the event, Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser emphasized, deflecting questions about the possibility of Bloomberg as a possible vice presidential nominee.

“What he’s trying to do is influence the debate, not join in as a participant,” Loeser told FOXNews.com.

Loeser said the Illinois senator asked the mayor to introduce him the day before, and that he accepted — something he’d likely do for any candidate offering a “detailed policy proposal.”

Bloomberg has indicated a willingness to endorse the candidate who in his eyes offers a nonpartisan, concrete platform. Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain both have called the mayor since he dangled the possibility of his backing.

Loeser said that Obama’s remarks Thursday on homeowner relief for the most part struck a chord with Bloomberg.

“The mayor has been pretty clear that as a mayor and as a voter he’s hoping to hear detailed policy proposals on tough problems,” Loeser said. “There’s a number of issues that Senator Obama touched on today … that the mayor has spoken about and that they agree on.”

Obama is usually at the tip of the tongue in any conversation about where Bloomberg might drift as a vice presidential candidate, thanks to their gossip-stoking sit-down together at a Manhattan diner in November.

Bloomberg said in February when he halted rumors about his own presidential bid that he doesn’t think anybody will ask him to be vice president.

But he and his aides carefully frame the response when asked whether he’d consider lending his economic acumen and broad-based appeal to a November ticket.

Obama joked about their Manhattan meeting Thursday, saying, “I have to tell you that the reason I bought breakfast is because I expect payback at something more expensive … I’m no dummy. The mayor was a cheap date that morning … and I figured there’s some good steakhouses here in New York.”

He called Bloomberg a “remarkable leader” and “a major voice in our national debate on issues like renewing our economy, educating our children and seeking energy independence.”

Obama said in February that he hopes the mayor will look at his track record on energy and special interests, and that “I will definitely be reaching out to him.”

Though the list of high-powered supporters for both Democrats is long –and Bloomberg comes from a state that usually votes Democratic in November anyway — the idea of Obama-Bloomberg radiates a “dream ticket” feel for some observers.

Political author and former Florida state Sen. Bob McKnight said Bloomberg’s personal wealth, his command of the Northeast media market and his economic experience are tough to pass up for Obama.

“I believe Bloomberg has demonstrated the ability to manage organizations in the private sector and public sector,” McKnight said.

He said Bloomberg, who has done his own campaign research, can “hit the ground running” for Obama.

And when it comes to how voters perceive them, he said they both exude a “real deal” quality.

FOXNews.com’s Judson Berger contributed to this report.