you greatly discount the poor opinion NY'er have of their legislators. Spitzer will pay no price for this at all

The price Spitzer is likely to pay immediately is with the legislators, who will undoubtedly resent his tactics and attitude and who certainly have the means to teach him some humility.

There were similar questions asked about Guiliani when he moved from the US Attorney to Mayoral candidate. The former position, also held by Spitzer, vests great power and responsibility in the person holding it. They answer only to the Attorney General, and then only when something has gone badly awry. There is little need for a US Attorney to prove he can work and play well with others; a political executive needs those skills.

Rudy proved he had them as Mayor of NYC. Spitzer is getting off to a rocky start by antagonizing the very people he needs most over the next four years.

Have you been following the state controller story at all?

--|PW|--

He's certainly having an interesting go of it. The Albany Times Union (aka NY Times with a wig) was so far up on his bandwagon leading up to the election that the tuba player couldn't sit down without crushing Rex Smith's head. Yet, now that he's been annointed, in a mere 6 weeks or so we've seen editorials against him and today there was a story about how his plan to grab health care profits ("they're making plenty of money, we're just going to take a little more, they won't pass that along to consumers") is actually a tax hike (which it seems to be). The amazing thing was their willingness to call it the way it is (I'm giving that story a big thumbs up today on my albany media blog where I usually only have negative things to say about them). There's some serious remorse at the moment in the press - a definite 'what did we get ourselves into', and also an attempt to distance themselves from the guy to whose rear end they were attached by the lips for the last 6 months or so of last year.

The comptroller issue is just the tip of the iceberg, that's just him battling with Silver. Frankly Spitzer was on the right side of this one, though. It's ludicrous that the legislature made a career politician with zero financial background comptroller. He's got degrees in history and human resources. At this time we should all remember that the press, Hillary, and Chuckie were going around all last year telling NYers that they had to vote for the embezzler Hevesi because Callaghan, the Republican, was 'unqualified' (ignoring the fact that he's done the sort of work a comptroller does for years). Yet there is quite the silence from these same people regarding the installation of a human resources grad into the post. And I think the guy they just found masturbating naked in a gondola in NH or VT worked at the Comptroller's office - maybe the new guy can write a human resources memo about how that sort of thing is inappropriate when not done during sensitivity or diversity training workshops.

And Bruno hasn't even had to go after Spitzer, yet, although that is starting, he tore him up pretty good yesterday with his 'hey, isn't it about time the guy started to govern instead of playing politics?' comment. Seems the gov is more interested in trying to flip the Senate democrat than being governor. And to think, it's been less than 6 weeks.

NY is a mess in almost every way. The mayor of NYC is conducting illegal 'sting' operations on gun shops - having people buy guns in other states and lie on the paperwork about who the gun is for, taxes are still ridiculous, the business climate is disastrous, and people are fleeing the state.

Other than that, things are pretty much OK.