The chairman of the New York state Democratic Party, Herman “Denny” Farrell, offered a telling explanation last week when he explained to the Daily News why he didn’t want Eliot Spitzer to have to face a primary on the way to the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for governor next year. “Primaries are very expensive, and when you’re running against Wall Street, it’s something you don’t want to have,” Mr. Farrell said.

What refreshing candor. Mr. Spitzer has in the past claimed he is trying to clean up Wall Street in a way that will ultimately make it stronger. But Mr. Farrell has finally dropped all the pretense and admitted it – not that Wall Street is opposing Mr. Spitzer politically, but that Mr. Spitzer himself is the one “running against Wall Street.”

What an erroneous strategy for the Democrats, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of politics. Wall Street is the engine that drives the New York City economy, and New York City is the engine that drives the New York State economy. Being “against Wall Street” as a would-be governor of New York is being against the biggest generator of taxes in the state. It’s not just the direct revenue created by employees of the investment banks and hedge funds – there’s a multiplier effect from the ripple of the cooks and waiters at restaurants that cater to the Wall Street crowd, the teachers at the private schools that educate the children of Wall Street families, the real estate brokers that sell them apartments, the journalists who cover them at Forbes and Fortune and Bloomberg and Businessweek and Dow Jones.

Admitting that you are “against Wall Street” in New York is like campaigning on a platform of being “against jobs.” Not to mention that Wall Street actually provides some useful services to New Yorkers by providing capital and advice for businesses seeking to grow and by helping to preserve and increase the assets of individuals who are saving for retirement or for a new house or for their children’s college tuition. And never mind the familiar, for Democrats, negativity – Mr. Spitzer’s campaign is “against Wall Street,” not for anything.

There are enough New Yorkers who realize this, and enough Democratic politicians who don’t, that Republicans have held control over both New York’s mayoralty and its governorship for more than a dozen years now. The Democrats who have succeeded in elections statewide in New York, like Senators Clinton and Schumer, have made peace with the financial community rather than waging war on it.