Victorious Spitzer Vows To Change Albany

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The New York Sun

Eliot Spitzer’s landslide victory over his primary opponent sets the stage for a two-month battle against Republican John Faso, a former assemblyman who will try to stave off a historic Democratic takeover of the governor’s mansion by picking apart the attorney general’s record in fighting corporate crime and by enticing voters with a pro-business, tax-cutting platform.

Mr. Spitzer yesterday won his party’s nomination to challenge Mr. Faso in the general election. He was beating the Nassau County executive, Thomas Suozzi, by a margin of 81% to 19% with 96% of the vote counted.

Standing in front of his family, Mr. Spitzer, 47, told boisterous supporters who gathered at a barbecue restaurant in Harlem last night that “if Albany will not bring change to us, then we will bring change to Albany.” He spoke of a “chance to turn this state around” and warned, “The status quo always has powerful friends.”

Mr. Spitzer also pledged to “get taxes and spending under control,”to provide every child in the state with health insurance, and to “fully fund” public education. He sounded a unifying theme, saying that the campaign for governor is not about “business versus labor.”

Mr. Faso, in an interview with The New York Sun, insisted that the dynamic of general election, which involves a broader range of voters, would work to his advantage.

“The biggest difference is that Suozzi had a general election message and was trying to sell it in a primary,” Mr. Faso said as he headed to a fund-raiser in Plattsburgh. He has scheduled a flurry of campaign events today in New York City, with plans to meet voters at a Midtown subway entrance and at the Queensborough Plaza subway station later in the day.

In the most competitive Democratic statewide race, Andrew Cuomo, the son of Governor Cuomo, defeated Mark Green, a former New York City public advocate, with 53% of vote compared to Mr. Green’s 32%, with 93% of the votes counted.

The attorney general’s race matched two candidates trying to revive their political careers. Mr. Cuomo, who failed four years ago to win the Democratic nomination for governor, withstood sharp attacks from Mr. Green, who dug into Mr. Cuomo’s record as housing secretary under President Clinton.

In the general election, Mr. Cuomo, 48, will face a Republican, Jeanine Pirro, a former Westchester County district attorney who is best known for her prosecution of sex offenders and pedophiles. Both candidates have sought to compare themselves to Mr. Spitzer.

The state’s other star Democrat, Senator Clinton, defeated her opponent, Jonathan Tasini, a labor organizer who tried to build an anti-war grassroots movement along the lines of Ned Lamont’s upset over Senator Lieberman in the Connecticut primary. After punishing Mr. Lieberman, Democrats rallied to Mrs. Clinton, who is seen as a possible Democratic frontrunner in the 2008 presidential race. She was leading by a margin of 83% to 17%.

She will face a tough-talking former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer, in the Senate general election. Mr. Spencer who defeated a former Reagan-era Pentagon aide, Kathleen “Troia” McFarland, in a race marked by personal attacks and disclosures about Mr. Spencer’s relationship with an aide he later married and Mrs. McFarland’s dispute with her father over allegations that she was abused as a child. Mr. Spencer won by a 3-to-2 margin, with 93% of precincts reporting.

The victories by Mr. Spitzer, Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Cuomo complete one of the strongest statewide Democratic slates in decades, as the party pushes toward what it hopes will be a rare November sweep. Democrats are hoping their momentum will tip the fragile balance in the state Senate, where Republicans are holding on to a 35-to 27-seat majority. Party members expect tight Senate races in districts in Syracuse, Staten Island, Suffolk County, and Staten Island.

Mr. Spitzer is taking on Mr. Faso with 10 times more money on hand and with a lead in the polls of almost 40 percentage points.

The immediate challenge for Mr. Faso, who lost the race for comptroller in 2002, is to raise enough money to get on television.With a little more than $1 million on hand as of mid-July, Mr. Faso trails the fundraising pace set by Governor Pataki in 2002, who had $23 million at the same point. Mr. Spitzer has raised $39 million and has $12 million on hand.

If the race does get closer, the Spitzer campaign, whose field staff and interns have spent months amassing opposition research, is ready to pounce on Mr. Faso’s social conservative voting record as minority leader from 1998 to 2002.

Mr. Spitzer’s victory put an end to a string of victories for Mr. Suozzi dating back to 1993 when at the age of 31 he defeated the mayor of Glen Cove. Eight years later, he scored an upset victory against a Democratic establishment candidate and a Republican incumbent to become the county executive of Nassau, where he won recognition for whipping its finances into shape.

Mr. Suozzi, 44, the scion of a Glen Cove political family, entered the governor’s race under the assumption that his competent record in Nassau, his reputation as a reformer that he earned from his “Fix Albany” movement, and his profile as a moderate Democrat from an Italian Catholic family would make him an ideal candidate to oppose Mr. Spitzer.

Urged on by Mr. Spitzer’s corporate targets, including Home-Depot cofounder Kenneth Langone, Mr. Suozzi entered the race in February, more than a year after Mr. Spitzer. He tried to make his mark by accusing Mr. Spitzer of pursuing headlines while Mr. Spitzer ignored more mundane problems like Medicaid fraud and by pledging to lower property taxes.

But his campaign never really gelled. While Mr. Spitzer unloaded more than $10 million on a television ad campaign that reinforced his crusading image, Mr. Suozzi found himself stuck in the first gear. He often joked about his struggle to get people to correctly pronounce his name. His one major attempt to drive up his name recognition, a $3-million television buy, was quickly drowned out by Mr. Spitzer’s television spots, which ran virtually non-stop from March to September.

Some political strategists say Mr. Suozzi’s campaign was hobbled by a weak infrastructure and canvassing effort. “The turnout is an example of how the Suozzi campaign failed,” said Robert Haggerty, an Albany-based political consultant who advised Mr. Suozzi in the early stages of his campaign. “He had to bring the more moderate Democrat who usually votes in a general election out to vote in a primary.”

In his concession speech, Mr. Suozzi endorsed Mr. Spitzer.


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