Well, here's an entree into the week to come that should floor people: in case you'd forgotten, there used to be a governor of the State of New York by the name of Eliot Spitzer, who was forced to resign after being caught in a sting involving top-dollar hookers.
The less said of that, the better, you would think. You would think so, but you would be wrong.
Now, if you were the man himself, what would you do? One idea would be to simply hide, far from the prying eye of a public that will, it's safe to say, never again see black dress socks in quite the same light.
Spring is here, and life is coursing again through all creation. Some of this appears to be resurrecting the corpse of Eliot Spitzer's career in public service.
Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of Eliot's, still have a sticker from his 2006 campaign in my collection, and consider his TV ads to be some of the best ever produced, a pitch-perfect mix of aspiration and persuasion.
"I love politics," Spitzer told [Peter] Elkind, author of "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer."
"The substance, the debate about the issues. As for a race in 2010? It is just hard to see," he said. But he added, "I've never said I would never consider running for office again."
So let's game this out. A race against the dragon-slayer Gillibrand? Unlikely. A death-match against Andrew Cuomo? Equally unlikely. Charles Schumer? Also not going to happen.
That leaves Attorney General, which he's done before, and Comptroller. Of the two, the latter seems more likely; and given that it would be perfectly reasonable to assume little love lost between Spitzer and Silver selectee Tom DiNapoli, the 2014 Comptroller race might be very interesting indeed.
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has lately emerged from his time-with-the-family decent interval with online and cable TV commentary about the need for better regulation of Wall Street.
And Spitzer is also dropping hints that he may join Harold Ford of Tennessee, Merrill Lynch, the DLC, NBC and the Park Avenue Regency in challenging the excellent Senator Kirsten Gillibrand this year.
According to Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast, "Spitzer is making fresh noises about running against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in New York."
Grove notes that Spitzer is trying to exorcise his prostitute-ridden past by talking somewhat openly about it in a Big Think interview, and that his media profile rose with his appearance this week on The Colbert Report.
"I don't regret asking David to be Lieutenant Governor when I ran. I think David has been thrust into a very difficult environment," he says in the clip above, noting that governors from Corzine to Schwarzenegger have also been battered.
Gov. David Paterson's 2010 election chances remain low, despite small increases in his poll numbers released Monday, according [to] the Siena Research Institute.
Mr. Paterson's electability and favorability ratings in January each increased two percentage points from the previous month to 21% and 38%, respectively.
We have gone from a steamroller to a tricycle, apparently.
Go back in time to early 2007. Alan Hevesi was re-elected as comptroller, but wasn't about to serve out that term. That is when chaos ensued and Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli was picked by his colleagues to become the next comptroller.
Who considered DiNapoli unqualified for the post and railed against the appointment? None other than the governor at the time, Eliot Spitzer.
Spitzer has in recent weeks had discussions with some Democratic donors and insiders about the position currently held by Tom DiNapoli.
DiNapoli, a former assemblyman from Long Island, was appointed comptroller in 2007 after his predecessor, Alan Hevesi, pleaded guilty to using state workers as chauffeurs for his wife.
A Democrat who spoke with Spitzer said, "He's seriously thinking about it."
...
It's unclear whether a Spitzer candidacy would rely on a Democratic donor base, or if the former governor -- whose family is wealthy -- is thinking of pouring his own dough into a campaign.
It is also unclear if he would challenge DiNapoli in a primary, or if he's considering running as an independent.
But Spitzer has privately made clear for several months that he sees DiNapoli as vulnerable -- a view shared by many Democrats.
DiNapoli is vulnerable. His poll numbers aren't very good and with the right primary opponent (or even a general election foe), he will lose.
It would also give Spitzer the ultimate payback. Spitzer was dealt a blow early in his administration when DiNapoli was picked to become comptroller by the Assembly, a body that DiNapoli once served in and made plenty of friends in. So his appointment came as no surprise. His friends voted for him and Spitzer lost. Spitzer believed then what he still believes now: DiNapoli is unqualified for the job.
Spitzer comes with some upside. He has the name recognition (DiNapoli doesn't), the money (DiNapoli wouldn't have nearly as much as Spitzer would) and the knowledge (DiNapoli has done alright in his role, but Spitzer would be a much better comptroller) needed for the post. The downside is obvious: He is a man who has a scandal that is nearly two years old. It was a scandal that you could argue contributed to more dysfunction in a state that doesn't need anymore.
But the possibility of Spitzer being on the ticket is certainly intriguing. Especially if Andrew Cuomo decides to run for governor. That would create a super ticket for Democrats in 2010 and ensure that this blue state remains as such come January 2011.
Iowa, corn. Michigan, autos. Texas, oil. NY, Wall Street...We must stand behind the engine of our state's economy & strengthen it.
In his speech, the Governor pointed to Wall Street's impact on state finances:
In 2007 Wall Street finances provided 22 percent of the revenues in New York, more than one out of every five dollars in wages comes from Wall Street
Before going on to make the more questionable claim that "Wall Street capital is what is able to allow for what is on Main Street - small businesses creating jobs." Don't get me wrong - there have been times in our history when Wall Street was front and center in making our railroads work and building our industry, in ways that benefited small business. It's just, well, kind of been a while since the benefits were clear to folks outside of Wall Street. (Though perhaps Paterson has a case for small businesses in New York that sell directly to these folks.)
It seems lost on the Governor that his predecessor, his sins aside, became Governor of New York precisely because he was willing to challenge Wall Street, not cheer them on. Spitzer argued that the "engine of our state's economy" should be well-tuned, operating within legal limits, and made his case despite that industry having a lot of friends inside and outside of the state.
I didn't have a lot of hope remaining for Paterson, but did he really need to sell out this severely? Is he that short of campaign donations?
The talk of a return by former governor Eliot Spitzer is a hot topic. If he does return, what seat would he run for? Would he challenge Tom DiNapoli for Comptroller - the man who was more Silver's choice than Spitzer's for the vacant comptroller post - or will he run for attorney general if it is vacated by Andrew Cuomo if Cuomo decides to run for governor?
Kristin Davis -- the Manhattan "Madam" who provided former New York Gov Eliot Spitzer (D) with "escorts" -- says she might run against him if he attempts a political comeback.
Writes Davis: "If he runs for public office I may have to run myself to focus attention on the multiple illegal acts for which he has not been punished, his abuse of women and the SEXISM in the way he walked away scot free while I went to Rikers for four months for supplying him with 'company'."
Let me break this down. Spitzer is the one guilty of "multiple illegal acts" and "abuse of women and the SEXISM" because of what he did, as a man. But what is Ms. Davis guilty of? Being a victim of Spitzer's obsession?
I am undecided on whether Spitzer should make a return. If Michael Vick can go to prison for dogfighting and make a return to the NFL (and make up for his mistakes), then I don't see why Spitzer shouldn't be afforded the same opportunity. That said, this is politics. In the political world, your past follows you. But at this point, in New York politics, having a disgraced former governor run for office wouldn't the worst thing we have seen.
After all, who would you rather have: Spitzer or Pedro Espada?
I know what my answer is.
But back to Ms. Davis and her words regarding Spitzer. She was the madam. She ran this operation. Yet, she turns all of the sexism and abuse of women talk onto Spitzer. I don't see Ashley Dupre complaining about "abuse." Ms. Davis was okay with men abusing her women as long as they were paying. Now she wants to be the defender of these women. Such an odd turn of events, isn't it?
One thing is very clear: Eliot Spitzer and Joe Bruno never liked each other. That was evident during the Troopergate days and even now with both men out of the political limelight.
An administration leaks damaging information about a political figure. The leak is denounced by the governor, who says that he had nothing to do with it.
This is what happened during the tenure of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose aides disseminated information about state-financed travel in 2007 by Joseph L. Bruno, then the Senate majority leader. This led to condemnation of Mr. Spitzer, the resignations of some of those aides, and charges that some of the aides had violated the Public Officers Law, which sets standards for state officials' conduct.
It is also the story of what happened nearly two weeks ago after Caroline Kennedy withdrew her name from consideration for Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate seat.
A review of public comments and interviews with more than a dozen people involved in the process make clear that Gov. David A. Paterson's administration released confidential information about Ms. Kennedy and misled reporters about its significance as part of an orchestrated effort to discredit her after she withdrew. But the governor is unlikely to face the legal scrutiny or numerous investigations that Mr. Spitzer did, even though he has acknowledged that the information about Ms. Kennedy should not have been released.
The article goes on to highlight the Paterson/Kennedy controversy, which included a few claims involving Kennedy's personal life from long ago.
One of the administration's central claims to reporters was that Ms. Kennedy had, in the words of a person close to the governor, "a definite tax issue" and "a nanny problem" that "she didn't want to become public."
But that story was inaccurate. The governor and his aides now acknowledge that those issues - a tax lien of a few hundred dollars in 1994, and a lapsed visa for a foreign nanny who worked for Ms. Kennedy during the late 1980s - had been resolved years earlier and were never considered disqualifying during the vetting process.
I don't think Paterson/Kennedy compares to Spitzer/Bruno. But I do think that the Paterson/Kennedy saga has been damaging to Paterson. Smearing Caroline Kennedy was the worst thing that he and his administration could do. Whether she was qualified to become a U.S. senator or not we could have debated for a long time. But smearing her like the Paterson administration did was wrong on many levels.
One thing you have to give Eliot Spitzer is that he essentially predicted the economic crisis we are living through now. He fought against the same interests that helped cause this mess and he spoke out about how much this crisis would impact New York and our country.
Yesterday, Spitzer authored an op-ed in the Washington Post that was free advice for Barack Obama's administration on how to deal with the financial markets. Here is an excerpt:
When my office, along with the Department of Justice, warned that some of American International Group's reinsurance transactions were little more than efforts to create the false impression of extra capital on the company's balance sheet, we were jeered at for attacking one of the nation's great insurance companies, which surely knew how to balance risk and reward.
And when the attorneys general of all 50 states sought to investigate subprime lending, believing that some lending practices might be toxic, we were blocked by a coalition of the major banks and the Bush administration, which invoked a rarely used statute to preempt the states' ability to probe. The administration claimed that it had the situation under control and that our inquiry was unnecessary.
Time and again, whether at the state level, in Congress or at the Securities and Exchange Commission under Bill Donaldson, those who tried to enforce the basic principles that would allow the market to survive were told that the "invisible hand" of the market and self-regulation could handle the task alone.
The reality is that unregulated competition drives corporate behavior and risk-taking to unacceptable levels. This is simply one of the ways in which some market participants try to gain a competitive advantage. As one lawyer for a company charged with malfeasance stated in a meeting in my office (amazingly, this was intended as a winning defense): "You're right about our behavior, but we're not as bad as our competitors."
Spitzer wrote about predatory lending in an op-ed that appeared in the February 14 edition of the Washington Post. He also testified before Congress about these issues. Spitzer knows what he is talking about here. While you might not want to appoint him to your Cabinet, I would at least listen to what he has to say and entertain his advice and guidance.
And yes, Eliot Spitzer might have found himself a spot in Barack Obama's Cabinet. Spitzer was that good. His political career might be over (stranger things have happened) but you can't take away his brilliance.
The much maligned Public Integrity Commission has just released its Troopergate report and the findings are apparently pretty harsh. Though Eliot Spitzer himself has apparently not been charged, his former Communications Director, Darren Dopp has been as has Rich Baum, Eliot's right hand man, Felton Spencer, former State Police boss and William Howard, the former Homeland Security chief. They are accused of violating the public officer's law. Baum and Howard have settled their cases, Felton and Dopp have not. From CapCon:
The state Commission on Public Intergrity has just released its findings in the long-running Troopergate affair.
Their findings: Darren Dopp, Preston Felton, Richard Baum and William Howard violated the public officers law.
...
One surprise so far, COPI comes down very hard on Spitzer, noting that the "Executive Chamber's piecemeal document production and its spurious claims of privilege unnecessarily and improperly delayed the Commission's investigation and the promises of Governo Spitzer that the Administration was cooperating fully with the Commission's investigation."
COPI Executive Director Herb Teitelbaum has drawn a lot of criticism over the past few weeks for supposedly protecting the ex-governor, but they mince no words here, - although Spitzer wasn't charged.
There are loads of docs to sort through here and I'm sure there will be more interesting bits to surface throughout the day.
The report card does praise the Governor's office on a few things, such as comprehensive ethics reform. But even with those reforms that the report card says the Governor's office and the Legislature met, there were criticisms.
In issuing its call today, the groups released A "Report Card on Reform" that examines the Governor's office's rhetoric and reality regarding reform over the past two years. While the groups were encouraged by some of the early progress made in 2007, such as increased transparency of the executive budget process and to some strengthening of ethics policies, the Report Card shows a lack of action in most areas, including campaign finance, in spite of a three-way agreement announced last July on the issue.
The groups are also concerned that the Commission on Public Integrity, which was created to serve as a stronger ethics watchdog, is essentially and inappropriately dominated by appointees of the Governor. In addition, although the Assembly held public hearings on the issue of redistricting reform last year and the Governor's office introduced a constitutional amendment to end partisan gerrymandering, no action has been taken to enact a fair way of drawing district lines through an independent nonpartisan redistricting commission. With much fanfare, the Senate held public hearings last spring and summer on how to reform the state's campaign finance laws, but no bill ever came out of those hearings to address the dysfunctional system. The civic groups decried lawmakers' familiar pattern of failing to enact meaningful changes as the "all talk, no action" approach to reform in Albany.
Asking to be proved wrong in their assessment, the reform groups urged the Governor and Legislature to enact real reforms before the end of session to restore the public's hope that the two-year session that began with so much promise will in fact not sputter to an abysmal end.
As longtime advocates of legislation to change Albany, we know what it takes to get legislation done in June. We repeatedly urged the Administration to discuss their campaign finance proposal with the legislature prior to introduction as the most realistic path to getting a reform bill done. They appear to have refused and instead intend to introduce a program bill that could well be an academic exercise at this point of the session.
According to the governor's spokesperson, we should be rallying the public for a proposal that they apparently refused to discuss with the legislative leaders. Refusal by the Administration to fight for its own reforms "will not lead to progress."
We have a better idea -- the governor should convene a public leaders meeting this Monday to discuss possible agreement on any of the items in the Administration's proposed reform agenda.
After two years, New Yorkers want and deserve achievements, not more rhetoric.
The civic groups are key to pushing Albany in the right direction. They are the voice for millions of New Yorkers who want to see change in Albany's direction and the ways of the Governor's office and Legislature.
"This governor gets it," he said, referring to Gov. David A. Paterson. "The previous governor didn't get it. So he's not here anymore. He got some things, but he didn't get away with it. And that is not a good thing, O.K. That's why he's in psychiatric care."
Then Bruno decided then to see if there were any reporters in the room because, obviously, he didn't want THAT in the papers.
Oops.
Here is what Bruno said to reporters after his shot at Spitzer:
"Any reporters here?" Mr. Bruno called out.
"Jay, you write that I'm going to take your pencil, O.K., and swallow it," he called out to a few reporters gathered in the back of a dining hall at The State Room banquet hall.
"You're not writing that, are you?" he continued.
"Jimmy will," Mr. Bruno said, referring to a reporter for an Albany newspaper who was also in the room.
"See, they spoil it," Mr. Bruno quipped to the crowd. "Because I had some other things I was going to share but now I'm not."
Good job Joe. I'm sure your boy McArdle will be out tomorrow with all sorts of jabs. I'm looking forward to it.
Given that Mr. Spitzer was forced to resign after being implicated in a prostitution scandal, it is perhaps no surprise that he and his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, are in couples therapy - before his resignation, Mr. Spitzer himself promised to address his personal problems.
But one of the main things occupying his thoughts is the struggle of his father, Bernard, with Parkinson's disease. The elder Spitzer, who has been a powerful influence in his son's life, has been hospitalized at New York University Medical Center. Lately his prognosis has been somewhat more positive, given the seriousness of the illness, according to a person close to Eliot Spitzer. "The family is optimistic that Bernard appears to be improving," that person said.
...
The younger Spitzer now spends many of his days at his father's Manhattan office. But he is not running the real estate business; instead, he is using it as a base of operations to meet with his legal team, among other things. His wife has also been dealing with the serious illness of her younger sister's husband, who is battling cancer, according to friends of the former governor.
"Right now, her brother-in-law is dying," Trilby Wall, Silda's mother, said, according to The Daily News, which also quoted her on Sunday as having said: "I'm sorry about Bernard. I'm sorry about all the stresses. In time, the sun will come out."
Looks like the Spitzers have a full plate right now. Between illnesses, trying to repair a marriage and Eliot's legal woes, they are staying busy.
Not that this is surprising, but some of Eliot Spitzer's top aides are getting ready to leave the Executive Chamber, according to the AP.
Several top officials in the Spitzer administration, some of whom were connected to political scandals that crippled the governor's agenda, are calling it quits, an official familiar with the internal moves said Wednesday.
William Howard, Spitzer's former public security adviser who was accused of helping orchestrate a plot to discredit Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno, has announced his resignation.
The other officials include: Lloyd Constantine, senior adviser; Rich Baum, the high-level adviser job titled secretary to the governor; Marlene Turner, Spitzer's chief of staff; Peter Pope, policy adviser; Marty Mack, director of intergovernmental affairs; counsel David Nocenti; and Christine Anderson, Spitzer's former press secretary who was promoted to communications director when Darren Dopp was suspended and then resigned.
Again, this isn't surprising. This will be a few of the final touches to this fresh start we have received under Gov. David Paterson.
A little-known but powerful state agency with broad powers to ferret out wrongdoing in government said today it has begun an investigation into how at least three different state and local agencies handled their probes of the Spitzer administration's attempt to smear a political rival with the help of the State Police.
Albany County District Attorney David Soares, for instance, cleared Eliot Spitzer of wrongdoing in his original probe of Troopergate last year, but in a new report last week concluded that Spitzer was heavily involved in the effort against Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
In addition, various questions have been raised about the closeness of the two state agencies - Public Integrity and the Inspector General - because Spitzer appointees control those agencies, neither of which has interviewed Spitzer about his role.
The state Commission of Investigation, created by Gov. Thomas Dewey in 1951 to look into political corruption cases, can use its subpoena powers to look into the how effectively the state ethics agency, the state inspector general and the Albany County district attorney handled the scandal known in Albany.
"Let me be clear. The commission is not investigating the events concerning troopergate; more than enough investigations of the issues surrounding those events have taken or are taking place," SIC Chairman Alfred D. Lerner said in a written statement this morning.
To repeat, SIC won't be investigating Troopergate itself. But they will be investigating how these agencies conducted themselves when focusing on that scandal. This could be trouble for Soares, who is up for reelection this year.
The good folks at TPM Muckraker have been digging into the Roger Stone claim that he tipped the FBI about Eliot Spitzer's call girl habit, a claim I find most dubious. Today, Josh Marshall unpacks this story on TPMtv:
Paterson will retain Spitzer's budget director Laura Anglin, 42, and director of operations Paul Francis, said Christine Anderson, a Spitzer spokeswoman. Anderson said she was asked to stay through the transition and will stay as long as needed.
``You will see there is a lot of continuity in terms of the staff,'' Anderson said. ``There won't be a lot of turnover.''
One person who did resign, top Spitzer aide Richard Baum, will stay to help the transition, Anderson said.
Spitzer's senior adviser Bruce Gyory and first deputy secretary Sean Patrick Maloney will also stay on, Anderson said. Maloney will be given a new title and, along with Francis, serve as deputies to Charles O'Byrne, Paterson's current chief of staff. O'Byrne will take on the title of secretary and serve as Paterson's top adviser.
One Spitzer appointee did resign. Patrick Foye, who has served as the downstate Empire State Development Corporation chairman, submitted his resignation letter to Paterson yesterday.
Greg Palast is probably one of the best investigative reporters that we have in politics. He also wrote a great piece a few days ago on the Eliot Spitzer scandal and how it overshadowed a $200 billion gift (gift is a kind word here) to the mortgage bank industry.
While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an 'escort' $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush's new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.
...
This week, Bernanke's Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.
Wait... there's more.
Now, what kind of American is 'sub-prime.' Guess. No peeking. Here's a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren't stupid - they had no choice. They were 'steered' as it's called in the mortgage sharking business.
'Steering,' sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called 'fraudulent conveyance' or 'predatory lending' under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.
But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hearty - it was OK now to steer'm, fake'm, charge'm and take'm.
But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.
Read the whole article. The link Palast made was a good one. Spitzer fought these guys during his days as Attorney General and now, under the Bush Administration, these same banks are getting away with their crimes.
No wonder why they cheered when it was being said Spitzer was going to resign.
"I feel very sad for the Spitzer family, for his parents, who are lovely, and for his wife and children. And I pray that they can be made whole," Pelosi added.
"What is it about powerful men, do you think -- politicians -- that they get into these situations?" Stephanopoulos asked.
"Well, I wouldn't just ascribe it to -- I'm sure that this is not confined to politics and that there are some, you know -- these things happen in every walk of life," Pelosi responded.
The Speaker also looked ahead to Monday when Lt. Gov. David Paterson will be sworn in as New York's governor.
"As we go forward, David Paterson is absolutely great," Pelosi said. "He's just going to be a spectacular governor of New York. I'm a big fan of his. I've watched him in the state senate over the years and I wish him much success."
Pelosi addressed something very key here. When talking about this scandal, people tend to link this with all male politicians and their power. But the truth is that not all politicians are like that and there are men not involved in politics who "play around" as well.
