State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs is poised to announce staffing changes designed to give presumptive gubernatorial candidate, AG Andrew Cuomo, more control over the organization, insiders say.

One name that has been circulating as a potential executive director candidate for the party is Charlie King, who has a longstanding association with Cuomo.

“Jacobs isn’t their guy; they want to put a control on him,” one Democratic insider said of the Cuomo camp. “They want someone in there that they can trust. King makes a lot of sense. He’s black, which is something Cuomo is sensitive about. He’s close to (the Rev. Al) Sharpton and he’s someone Cuomo has known a long time.”

Jacobs was installed in his post by Gov. David Paterson, replacing June O’Neill, a former Mario Cuomo administration aide who was hand-picked for the party position by ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer. (Spitzer created an upstate-downstate co-chair system for the party. Dave Pollak, the downstate chair, was among the first casualties of Paterson’s ascension to the governor’s office).

King worked for Cuomo at HUD. He was also Cuomo’s running mate in the 2002 governor’s race, during which Cuomo angered many Democrats and black leaders for challenging then-state Comptroller H. Carl McCall in a primary. Cuomo ended up dropping out of the race one week before the primary, and McCall went on to lose to then-GOP Gov. George Pataki.

King was one of Cuomo’s Democratic opponents in the 2006 AG primary, but he ended his campaign early and threw his support to Cuomo.

Since then, King has worked for Sharpton’s National Action Network and also as a consultant for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

He initially welcomed Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy into the race with a Post OpEd that essentially argued Levy’s arrival had nullified the racial argument that was a concern for Cuomo at the time because Gov. David Paterson was still in the running.

The Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett suggested that Levy had actually entered the fray with Cuomo’s blessing – an assertion Levy insisted was not the case.

The Levy-King connection has since soured, and Levy, who initially said nice things about Cuomo, has switched parties and decided to run for governor as a Republican.

Cuomo would very much like to turn the party into an attack dog/rapid-response operation that would tee off on his Republican opponent(s), enabling him to remain about the fray to some degree.

Over the past two days, the party has already ramped up its efforts, firing off press releases slamming Carl Paladino for his e-mail scandal and Levy for his association with ex-con Ethan Ellner, whose title company got $85,000 worth of county business on Levy’s recommendation.

Jacobs is scheduled to make a “major announcement” about the party and the 2010 campaign at noon at City Hall in Manhattan. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu will be on hand for that event, which may or may not include news about the staffing changes in the offing at the party.

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