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It's been a hard few years for New York Democrats with a fondness for reform. After years of little hope, Spitzer raised our hopes and then crashed them. Over the last few months, our hopes climbed with the election of a Democratic majority in the State Senate, the last Republican fortress. Now they've crashed to earth again, thanks to the "Gang of Three" and the Democratic leadership's response.
I don't know why we keep thinking that it will be easy once our favorites get into office. Changing the cast of characters makes a difference, certainly - but even if he hadn't imploded, Eliot Spitzer would still be facing challenge after challenge from a deeply-rooted Albany culture.
Our legislature has been about two things, and two things exclusively, for the last few decades: power and deals. Power is the foundation, and deals are how everything gets sorted out. Deals lubricate the mechanisms of power and are the path by which ideas become concrete.
What we've seen over the last few weeks is a slow struggle toward a deal. The blunt fact of the matter is that the "Gang of Three" has power right now - power that I think they're well aware is temporary, but power they'd like to cement in a deal.
They're not, despite some overheated rhetoric here, terrorists - they're playing the Albany game exactly as it's been played for a long long time. Party loyalties? Yes, they sort of matter, but really only so far as they mesh with the demands of power.
Similarly, while it's completely likely that we'll hear a lot of high-minded rhetoric from Democratic Senators who are unhappy with the deal, there isn't much reason to believe that the rhetoric is really motivated by idealism. There's a bit of that, some sense that party loyalty should matter - but mostly, once again, it's about power, and how this deal affects the distribution of power.
It's too bad we can't just say that the Senate is divided 30-29-3 and move on. That's the underlying reality, but it doesn't fit into the legislative rules very neatly, so we're stuck in a very strange charade.
How can I possibly be so cynical, when I'm the guy who lectures the most about what New York State government should be? Given my rants about the Democratic Assembly, how can I possibly tolerate this nonsense from our Senate, long the home of lofty Democratic reform rhetoric?
It's because we need to change the culture of New York politics, not just the players. Changing the players regularly is an important part of changing the culture, but shifting a few Senators from one party to the other isn't nearly enough.
Yes, we're stuck in an ugly situation. Of course, we're stuck in an ugly situation. We're at a point where tiny groups of Senators have tremendous power, where the folks we'd like to be in control haven't ascended yet, and even when they do ascend, it's going to be touch and go for a long long time to come.
I've had days when I liked Smith and days when I loathed Smith. But Smith isn't the story - and neither is a Democratic Majority Leader.
The real story, I think, is much slower, less exciting, and less likely to make good fodder for soap opera tabloid. It's the kind of work cliffweathers is taking on in Rockland County, and the involvement many of us have in our local committees. We need to change the political culture in every county, and across the state.
We can't count on party leadership shaped by decades of Albany's power and deals culture to break free of that culture in a single election. It will take many, many elections, even after Democrats are comfortably in control.
Getting there is not up to them, though - it's up to us.
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