Spitzer Quickly Hits Establishment Headwind; Today's NYT
NYC's permanent gov't in something of a panic? Union poohbahs teaming up w. gangsters 'n banksters? What hath Eliot wrought?
Interesting choice : Comptroller. Comptroller reviews city contracts w. outside vendors... among other things. It's figuratively where the "bodies are buried". A lot of 'em, anyway. Is that the source of the panic? Hmmm......
>>>From corporate boardrooms to the headquarters of the city’s Democratic political campaigns, phone lines lighted up and strategy sessions were organized on Monday with a single mission in mind: stopping Eliot Spitzer.
The surprise decision by former Governor Spitzer to run for citywide office startled and galvanized the city’s political establishment, which worried aloud about handing the TV-savvy and self-financed candidate a new megaphone.
In candid conversations, some of the leaders expressed acute regret over their failure to swiftly undercut the mayoral campaign of former Representative Anthony D. Weiner, another scandal-scarred candidate for citywide office, and said they would not make the same mistake twice.
Behind the scenes, they began to lay out a blueprint for undermining Mr. Spitzer’s bid for comptroller, the city’s third-highest elected office, and for propping up his lesser-known Democratic rival, Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.
They quickly zeroed in on what they claimed were Mr. Spitzer’s vulnerabilities: an out-of-control ego; his lawbreaking patronization of prostitutes, which led to his resignation as governor in 2008; and his combative, go-it-alone style.
Strikingly, Democratic leaders drew parallels between Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Weiner, trying to lump them together as two wayward men obsessed with reclaiming power and unworthy of redemption, in a direct appeal to women voters who may decide the races.
“For me the question with both Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer is what have they been doing to earn this second chance?” asked Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker and a Democratic candidate for mayor. She said she had seen little that would “redeem themselves from their selfish behavior.”
Business leaders leapt into the ruckus, finding common cause with organized labor as they described Mr. Spitzer as ill-suited to the job of managing the city’s multibillion-dollar pension system and policing city spending.
Such a post, said Kathryn S. Wylde, the head of the New York City Partnership, made up mainly of real estate, Wall Street and insurance firms, requires intense collaboration and diplomacy with the mayor’s office, the business community and municipal labor unions.
“The tone of the Spitzer announcement and history suggest that’s not the way he would approach the job,” she said in an interview.
In the corridors of finance, executives made little secret of their dismay at the thought of Mr. Spitzer, an often zealous adversary of Wall Street, assuming a job with some authority over the industry. Robert T. Zito, the founder of a brand consulting firm and a former executive at the New York Stock Exchange, which was a relentless target of Mr. Spitzer’s ire over executive pay, put it bluntly: “I would love to see his opponent win.”
Those involved in and briefed about the strategy discussions raised the possibility of organizing a super PAC to counter Mr. Spitzer’s self-financed campaign.
Eyes turned to Mr. Spitzer’s most fervent critics on Wall Street, like the billionaire Kenneth G. Langone, a co-founder of Home Depot and a former director of the New York Stock Exchange, who had relished the governor’s downfall.>>>>>
the rest:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/nyregion/as-spitzer-campaigns-candidates-and-voters-weigh-in.html?pagewanted=all
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