How far would Spitzer go in challenging the status quo?

Eliot Spitzer is the candidate for governor who vows to turn Albany on its head. Yet he is also the candidate supported by virtually every elected Democratic official in the state who are by definition part of the status quo.

The contradiction was on stark display at last week’s Democratic state convention in Buffalo.

During his speech accepting the party’s designation as its candidate for governor (he still may have to face Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi in a September Democratic primary) Spitzer, who has been the state attorney general since 1999, ripped the Albany establishment.

He said electing him would mean “no more irresponsibly spending money we don’t have. No more pay-to-play politics, where you do business with a politician one day and make a campaign contribution the next. No more lifetime appointments to the state Legislature. If you want to represent the people of New York, you are going to have to answer to the voters of New York.”

Among those clapping in the crowd was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, who was first elected in 1976. He and the other Democrats he leads regularly do business with lobbyists one day and take their money at fund-raisers held close to the Capitol the next. They don’t officially have lifetime tenure, but have set the rules so that they (as well as Republican members of the Senate) are virtually invulnerable to challengers.

Silver, who has been speaker since 1994, is one of the much-criticized “three men in a room” who have run the state with little input from rank-and-file lawmakers for decades. Yet he was one of the first officials to endorse Spitzer.

Officially, Silver said he would welcome a Spitzer win.

“I think he will be a leader we are ready to partner with,” Silver said at the convention, referring to campaign finance and authority-reform measures that the Assembly has supported but haven’t been enacted into law that Spitzer also supports..

To Spitzer rival Suozzi, the endorsement by Silver signals that Spitzer will just be another go-along, get-along governor who won’t fundamentally change Albany. Suozzi wears his pariah status among prominent Democrats as a badge of honor, although so far it has garnered him little support among voters who take part in polls.

Spitzer’s response is that he has been fearless as attorney general in taking on powerful people in his attacks on Wall Street, drug companies and insurance companies.

Sure fearless against companies but fearless against the corrupt politicians, unions and all the money people that fund him and his type of candidates, I think not.

He is going to be in a nose to nose battle with Sheldon Silver for ultimate power in Albany, do we need that? No, Sheldon Silver and his minions and the Democrat majority have done enough damage to us here in Western New York and they will do more damage to us.

Downstate has thrived off the very companies on Wall Street that he goes after. Why hasn’t he gone after the corrupt pension fund, workers compensation board, unions and their back breaking tactics and their demands that break the backs of the tax payers of this state.

The worst combination would be Spitzer in the governors mansion and Sheldon Silver, the Don of Manhatten, being in control of Albany. Be afraid NY, be very afraid, we will sink faster than the Titantic.

For a reform candidate with a record on how to manage government all Democrats need to vote for Suozzi, Sept 12th.