With Eye Seemingly on Higher Office, Attorney General Spitzer Takes Up Blogging

ALBANY – Eliot Spitzer watchers take note: The sheriff of Wall Street is blogging.For the past few months, with no fanfare, the attorney general of New York State has periodically taken time out to post his musings on current events at his campaign Web site, www.spitzer2006.com.The Web log, or “blog,” also includes comments from readers – both complimentary and caustic.“Why don’t you just sue everybody in the whole country?” Bruce wrote in the comment section last week. “Then you can drive the stock market right to zero.”“I just want to say that you are a true, modern-day hero with a singular, ethical and courageous voice ringing with clarity through the din of greed, corruption and confusion which threatens to drown out our hopes of a great American society,” Shannon from New York City wrote in August.The feature, known as “Eliot’s Blog,” puts Mr. Spitzer on the growing list of politicians trying to harness the power of the Internet, as Howard Dean did so effectively during the early stages of the presidential race.While many campaign Web sites have something they call a blog, few offer writings from the elected official himself – especially one as influential as Mr. Spitzer, whose enforcement actions regularly cause earthquakes in stock markets around the world.His willingness to put energy into such an effort adds to the evidence that he will run for governor, or some other higher office, in 2006. Meanwhile, his aides say, Mr. Spitzer is enjoying his new metier.“It gives him a chance to be interactive,” Cindy Darrison, the managing director of Spitzer 2006, told The New York Sun, insisting Mr. Spitzer is writing his own material. “He’s into it,” she said.“We’re really in the beginning iterations of blogs as campaign tools,” said the director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at the California State University at Sacramento, Barbara O’Connor. “In this election year more candidates started doing it, and now it’s sort of a requisite. … More and more people under age 40 say they’re getting their political information from the Internet – and Jon Stewart.”“In the past 12 months, the Internet has had a transformative effect on politics,” said the deputy director of Spitzer 2006, Grant Draper. “Witness John Kerry raising over $40 million over the Internet. … If there’s a more cost-effective, more immediate way to raise funds, we want to investigate that.”Content-wise, Eliot’s Blog cannot compete with popular favorites such as Instapundit, kausfiles, DailyKos, and Andrew Sullivan. Mr. Spitzer has managed a total of just nine postings since launching the site during the Democratic National Convention in July. In none of them does he discuss his current lawsuits or drop hints about future investigations, which would guarantee him a huge readership.The most recent entries are chatty travelogues that simply list the campaign events he has attended and the local politicians he has endorsed, with occasional comments on the scenery.“The North Country and its high peaks are breathtaking,” he wrote last week. “Theodore Roosevelt’s environmentalism of the 1890s was a spectacular gift to all of us. We, too, have an obligation to hold true these environmental ideals.”Other postings consist of cheerleading for Senator Kerry in the presidential race.“For the 70 million who watched, and listened, last night, the contrast was clear: John Kerry has a vision for America’s foreign policy that will restore confidence here at home, and around the world,” Mr. Spitzer wrote after the first presidential debate. “In comparison, and as JK succinctly put it, under President Bush it will be ‘more of the same.’ “On a couple of occasions, however, the attorney general has expanded a bit on his political philosophy.In one mini-essay posted on September 3, Mr. Spitzer critiques President Bush’s campaign theme of building an “ownership society.”“If his proposals had been in place during his first term, Americans pursuing an ownership society would have invested their social security accounts in stocks being pumped by Wall Street analysts who knew the stocks were poor investments,” he wrote. “Or, they would have placed their retirement savings in mutual funds, not realizing that billions of dollars were being skimmed from the funds by improper trading that was allowed and often encouraged by the mutual fund companies.“And, in both of these cases, investors would have been shocked to find that the Bush administration stood by passively while these scams went on for years. It was only when my office began its investigations that federal authorities finally became involved.With the federal government unwilling to create a national market that is fair for everyone – big and small – middle class Americans could find that their deepest hopes for financial security have been preyed on and destroyed.”In another posting, after attending a conference of the AFL-CIO, he expresses concern about the future of the middle class.“The central economic story of the last 100 years was the establishment of a bell-curve society that featured a vibrant and robust middle class,” Mr. Spitzer wrote. “Unfortunately, today, global forces and the president’s economic policies have compressed the middle class and created extremes of rich and poor – essentially a bar-bell curve.”Mr. Spitzer’s aides say they are encouraging him to blog as often as possible, and may supplement his postings with comments from his wife, Silda Wall, in the future. They said they are encouraging Mr. Spitzer to respond to negative comments from readers, but – apart from blocking profanity – will continue letting them have their say.“It would be kind of bogus if we edited out all the bad comments,” Ms. Darrison said. “It would be intellectually disingenuous.”

With Eye Seemingly on Higher Office, Attorney General Spitzer Takes Up Blogging

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