No longer in office, Joseph Bruno clearly feels free to speak his mind. At a New York delegation breakfast here this morning, the recently-retired state Senate majority leader took after his one-time nemesis, Eliot Spitzer, and even compared Senator Obama to the disgraced former governor.
Mr. Bruno said Mr. Spitzer won a landslide victory in 2006 because of an effective marketing campaign and that he duped New Yorkers before revealing himself to be a "despot" once in office. Berating the reporters covering his speech for falling for Mr. Spitzer's charm, he warned that Mr. Obama could be the same kind of failed leader and called the Democratic nominee a "wimp."
"Who was more articulate than he?" Mr. Bruno said of Mr. Spitzer. "Who was more charismatic...? Who had the best Hollywood ads on TV that money could buy? And you know what, for those of you in the press, don't forget it. Articulate. Fancy. Dancy. Prancy. All those kinds of things that made him – 70% of the vote. Broke a record, okay? Why? Marketing. Selling. Think about it. What that for real? Was it? Hell, no. His real personality came out."
"Gets elected. Something snaps. Something goes out in his mind. The real person comes out. What did he do? Think about it," he continued. "Once he was in office, he became like a despot."
Mr. Bruno then brought the house down with a ribald joke about Mr. Spitzer's dalliances with prostitutes that cannot be repeated in this space.
He did credit Mr. Spitzer's downfall for helping Republicans in the state. "You know what? He will do more to deliver the Republican Party in New York State to victory than anyone else, and that's the late governor, Eliot Spitzer," Mr. Bruno said to laughs.
Mr. Bruno said Mr. Obama is campaigning the same way as Mr. Spitzer but that Americans don't really know him. "Everybody says: Man he's articulate. What a presence. How bright. Good 'ol American. Stand-up guy. Yeah, Yeah. He's all of those Hollywood things that they can project. What has his life been about?" he said, criticizing Mr. Obama's lack of experience and his history of voting "present" in the Illinois state Senate.
"That's the wimpiest way anyone can vote," Mr. Bruno said of the "present" votes. "So he's wimp. That's the way he's led his life."
Asked about his comments after the speech, Mr. Bruno said he wasn't referring to anything specific about Mr. Obama's past, but that he presented the same risk as Mr. Spitzer. "Well, that's the whole danger that's out there for the public. Just look at Eliot Spitzer," he said.
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