He has defended elements of the stop-and-frisk policy as effective and stops short of the call to abolish it advocated by a Democratic rival, John C. Liu, the city comptroller, positions that have earned Mr. Thompson the support of major police unions.
Hegar's first run at statewide office is for comptroller, a position that has nothing to do with abortion rights.
But Mr. Stringer is better qualified to be comptroller, a position responsible for overseeing the city's pension funds, conducting fiscal audits and acting as a watchdog over day-to-day operations and contracts.
Additionally, Mr. Thompson's decision is complicated by the fact that, unlike nearly all the other potential Democratic mayoral contenders, he would have to give up the comptroller's position to run.
He unsuccessfully sought the 1998 Democratic nomination for governor and was recently among candidates to succeed Alan G. Hevesi as state comptroller, a position Mr. Spitzer gave to Thomas P. DiNapoli.
Political consultants and candidates say that the field is so crowded in part because the job is so vague and because it does not seem to require any hard-core skills like, say, the finesse with a calculator demanded by the comptroller's position, which has attracted just two Democratic candidates.
Such reserve served him well in the fiscal role of comptroller, the position that he held the longest and that yielded what he calls his most significant achievements, including securing a cost-of-living increase for pensioners and making the auditing of local government less punitive and more instructional.
Crundwell started working for the city part time as a high school student and later became city comptroller, a position she held for almost 30 years.
On July 7, Spitzer announced his plan to run for New York City comptroller, a position that would put him in charge of the city's finances.
Eliot Spitzer disqualifies himself from the comptroller's position not because of going to prostitutes but because of the outrageous sums he paid for them.
