Tom Suozzi, the Democratic candidate for governor, raised some eyebrows earlier this week when he accused his rival, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, specifically, of not doing enough to fight Medicaid fraud.

Spitzer's camp fought back, telling The New York Times that Suozzi used faulty numbers to back up his criticism.

Here's the Suozzi campaign's counterpunch, emailed today to reporters:

In a press release yesterday, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer boasted that his Medicaid Fraud Unit recovered $273.5 million in calendar year 2005. What Spitzer neglects to mention is that of that $273.5 million, $171 million, or 63% of the total recoveries claimed, came from a federal lawsuit led by the Department of Justice, not by the New York State Attorney General.

This is not the first time that the Attorney General has released misleading recovery numbers. The New York Times reported on July 19, 2005 that in 2004, "Mr. Spitzer said the fraud unit recovered a record amount in overpayments: $62.5 million, up from $40 million in 2003. But the higher figure includes $30.8 million that was New York's share of a major nationwide settlement with two pharmaceutical companies over drug pricing. That case was spearheaded by federal prosecutors, not New York officials."

Spitzer has relied on his record as AG to help him to a gargantuan lead in the polls, but his opponents appear to be working under the notion that it cuts both ways. Could this be a repeat of John Kerry's campaign for president in 2004, where his "Reporting for duty" reliance on his war record also hurt him during the thick of political battle?