Carl McCall
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H. Carl McCall (born 1935) is a former Comptroller of New York State and was the Democratic candidate in the 2002 election for state governor.
In October 2002, he released 61 letters he had written on state letterhead to heads of companies in which the state owned large blocks of stock, asking them to review enclosed resumes of his relatives and other job-seekers.
Some of the letters referred to the size of the state's ownership interest in the corporation targeted, which critics claimed amounted to a veiled threat to punish companies that didn't hire his relatives.
McCall defended the letters. Although he did issue a statement regretting the "appearance" and "impression" of the letters he wrote on government stationery, he maintained that he "never sought to leverage my public position nor mix my government role with my personal and professional relationship" in the letters.
McCall was defeated in the election for governor by the Republican incumbent, George Pataki. He received 33% of the vote, a low percentage for a Democratic nominee for statewide office in a state where the Democratic Party is by far the dominant party based on voter registrations. Some observers feel that this seemingly-poor showing was in part due to the revelation of the above-referenced letters; others note that McCall is African American and attribute much of the showing being related to racism, especially in upstate New York.
McCall is currently on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange.