Reading Eliot’s Mind

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Obviously, things haven’t worked out precisely as I had planned.

I was once Wall Street’s top cop, the “enforcer,” the “crusader of the year.” Now, I’m taking orders from Sheldon Silver. My most powerful political ally is an obscure comptroller. And I’m insulted on a daily basis by a discredited, retired boxer named Joe Bruno.

My friends ask me, “how did things get so out of control?” The better question is, “how could I have avoided this?”

I won 69% of the vote because I am not Rip Van Pataki, who served out his 12 years by taking the path of mediocrity and unimaginative compromise. My mandate wasn’t to get along with people. Manifested in the millions of votes cast last November was a real thirst for reform.

I was elected because, unlike other politicians, I simply don’t care if every lawmaker and lobbyist in Albany thinks I’m a jerk. I was elected to effectuate change upon a sclerotic capital, to stand up to those interests who do not like to be stood up to. As Teddy Roosevelt said: “It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage that we move on to better things.”

My advisers urged me to delay my plans to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. It’s political suicide, they said. It’s just the issue Republicans need to rouse their base, they said. Others argued that I should have at least held public hearings to discuss the issue.

I argue that it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that politicians must choose between political expediency and defeat. If the county clerks don’t implement the new policy, I will sue every one of them because it’s the right thing to do.

I don’t need allies because I have the people on my side. New Yorkers yearn for a new culture in state politics. They yearn for on-time budgets. They yearn for a reconstituted New York Racing Association. They yearn for campaign finance restrictions on limited liability companies. They yearn for tighter lobbying laws.

Now, I’m supposed to call off this war on Joe. I brought Wall Street to its knees, and now I’m supposed to take a beating from a smooth-talking salesman from Rensselaer who probably doesn’t know how to spell subpoena.

Albany mocks me as a “steamroller,” while the majority leader swaggers around as “Gentleman Joe,” the king of pork-barrel politics. He spends hundreds of thousands of public dollars jetting around to political fund-raisers, like some kind of emperor. But I’m a “dirty trickster” because I tried to do what’s right by stopping his outrageous actions. I never should have apologized for anything. I never should have abandoned Darren Dopp, who stood loyally behind me for more than eight years. I should have rejected the Cuomo report as a slap dash, political hit job manufactured by a man who is determined to do to me what his father did to Hugh Carey.

Perhaps, having the Senate Democrats ask the IRS to investigate Joe wasn’t the wisest move. I wanted to teach him a lesson that he cannot repeatedly attack me without facing consequences. If he is going to play hardball, then I’m going to let the federal government know that he didn’t pay all of his taxes on helicopter flights between Albany and New York. If Joe won’t listen to me, then he’ll listen to the IRS.

My mistake was to have assumed that Malcolm Smith could handle the assignment without confessing everything to Fred Dicker. But I’m confident that I got my point across. New Yorkers didn’t elect me to allow Joe to get away with tax evasion.

Joe seeks to destroy me because I refused to play his game: We go into a room, I give him what he wants, he gives me what I want, and we’re all happy. My job was to say “enough,” whether it was demanding an end to an inequitable education funding formula or refusing to coddle a health care union that had been spoiled by the Pataki administration.

I concluded early on that I would never succeed in pursuing my agenda as long as Joe and Republicans stood in the way. This breakdown in civil discourse is regrettable, but a conflict was unavoidable. I simply did not have the patience to wait for the Republicans to die a natural death. There’s nothing left for me to do but to tough it out until 2008. While, I’ve gambled everything on that election, I’m confident that Malcolm and the Democrats will finally take over the Senate. Because when voters see the gridlock of the first two years of my administration, they won’t hold me responsible.

They will put the blame squarely on Joe, the man who didn’t pay all of his taxes.

jacob@nysun.com


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