State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is running scared.
The Schneiderman campaign sent out an SOS fund-raising solicitation to its network of supporters on Monday — just hours after The Post exclusively reported that a pro-business Super PAC planned to raise and spend millions of dollars to unseat the Democratic incumbent.
Sounding the alarm, Schneiderman hit supporters on Monday with an e-mail titled, “Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” pleading for dollars to compete with the “unlimited amounts of money” raised from “this dark money group.”
“They are going to throw everything they can into defeating a progressive attorney general who is fighting to clean up crooked business practices, taking on the shadowy outside groups who want to flood New York elections with dark money and holding law-breaking banks and fraudsters accountable,” the e-mail read.
Backers of the anti-Schneiderman PAC said the AG should be worried.
“Schneiderman knows he has a race on his hands and he’s trying to do whatever he can to preserve his seat,” said O’Brien Murray, a strategist with the anti-Schneiderman group.
The organizers borrowed language typically used by liberals to broaden the group’s appeal by naming it Communities for a Fair New York. That sounds similar to the left-of-center New York Communities for Change, formerly known as ACORN.
DC-based attorney Craig Engle, who successfully sued to overturn the state’s $150,000 individual limit on donations to political action committees, is listed as the group’s treasurer.
Engle’s extensive Rolodex includes some of the nation’s wealthiest donors, sources said.
Meanwhile, state Republican Party leaders accused Schneiderman of hypocrisy for lashing out against the Super PAC opposing him because “prolific PAC spenders” helped him get elected four years ago.
“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” state GOP spokesman David Laska said.
“Eric Schneiderman can spare us his faux outrage over organizations that allow hardworking taxpayers to run for office — instead of just millionaires like Eric Schneiderman.”
Republican John Cahill, a former aide and business partner to ex-Gov. George Pataki, is considering challenging Schneiderman. Cahill last week filed paperwork with the state Board of Elections to weigh a potential run. He would benefit from an independent group bludgeoning Schneiderman with attack ads.
The anti-Schneiderman PAC will likely target the attorney general’s role in regulating Wall Street firms; his office’s leaking of a sealed indictment regarding a Rochester bid-rigging case; his pushing parole for a convicted sex offender; and his solicitation of campaign contributions from Donald Trump’s family while his office investigated Trump for illegal business practices.
Schneiderman reported hauling in $2.11 million in his January 2014 campaign fillings and has $6 million available to spend on his campaign, according to state campaign-finance records.