Mark Green, the president of Air America Radio and a onetime Democratic mayoral nominee, said he was considering a race next year for public advocate of New York City — a job he held for eight years.

In an interview on Saturday, Mr. Green, who was public advocate from 1994 to 2001 and who ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general in 2006, said he had been repeatedly approached in the past few months by supporters asking him to run.

“I am seriously thinking again of running for public advocate,” Mr. Green said, adding that he had been urged by friends and some Democratic leaders to run for the office, the city’s second-highest elective position. He said that since leaving office, “I realized how much I missed public service.”

Mr. Green, 63, said he would decide within two months. In the meantime, even the possibility that Mr. Green might run for his old job will reconfigure the city’s political landscape, not to mention jolt the crowded race for public advocate. Since the incumbent, Betsy Gotbaum, announced in October that she would not run for re-election, the contest has become widely viewed as the most competitive of the 2009 elections.

The re-emergence of Mr. Green as a possible candidate is highly unexpected, particularly after he lost the Democratic nomination for attorney general to Andrew M. Cuomo two years ago. At that time, he told reporters that he would “never run again.”

When asked on Saturday what caused him to change his mind, Mr. Green said, “Events have altered the landscape, like the term-limits battle, like the economy.” He added that “the stakes seem higher and perhaps, as a result, supporters are now more numerous and encouraging.”

On term limits, Mr. Green was referring to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to extend the period that the city’s elected officials can stay in office and the public debate about it that went on for weeks. The City Council voted in October in favor of allowing incumbents to run for a third term.

Mr. Green was one of the most vocal public figures to oppose the mayor’s proposal. Democratic officials close to Mr. Green said that it was during the term-limits debate that friends began urging him to seek his old job. Mr. Green, they said, believed that the debate revealed a need for more outspoken leadership among progressive Democrats to combat a strong mayor with vast financial resources.

Mr. Green was the city’s first public advocate, a job that used to be known as City Council president. The post was renamed and assigned new duties in a revision of the City Charter in 1989. The public advocate is next in line to succeed the mayor.

In his years as public advocate, Mr. Green was the highest-ranking elected Democratic official in the city, and he battled frequently and publicly with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican. Mr. Green took the Giuliani administration to court several times, as when he sued to release the files of hundreds of police officers who were suspected of misconduct or brutality.

For the past year, Mr. Green has been editing a book and running Air America Radio, the liberal network that was acquired a year ago by Stephen L. Green, who is the chairman of a real estate investment trust and the brother of Mr. Green.

Mark Green has been beset by an image as a perennial candidate who has run in far more elections than he has won. Since 1980, Mr. Green has lost bids for the United States Senate and House. In 2001, he was the Democratic nominee for mayor, narrowly losing to the Republican candidate, Mr. Bloomberg.

Some of those races have been characterized by bitterness. That was especially true of his testy relations with Fernando Ferrer, his chief Democratic rival in the 2001 mayoral race. Those bad feelings continued into the general election, and are thought to have been a factor in Mr. Green’s defeat. Nonetheless, Mr. Green would be a formidable candidate for the Democratic nomination for public advocate. A college activist in the 1960s, he became an aide to Ralph Nader before joining the administration of Mayor David N. Dinkins as commissioner of consumer affairs, after which he was elected public advocate.

There are already a number of Democratic candidates in the race for public advocate. They include City Council members Eric N. Gioia and John C. Liu of Queens and Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV of Manhattan and the civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel.

The public advocate serves as an ombudsman for complaints from the public about city government. The position comes with a salary of $150,000 and a staff of 47. In the position, Ms. Gotbaum brought attention to education, child welfare and women’s issues, among others.

Mr. Green said he would meet with other supporters and make a decision after he completed a promotional tour for the book “Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President” (Basic Books), which he co-edited. It is the 22nd book that Mr. Green has written or edited.

Source: NY Times