Spitzer Quickly Hits Establishment Headwind
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.
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According to people close to him, Neal Kwatra, a top city political strategist who had voluntarily helped orchestrate the rollout of Mr. Spitzer’s campaign, decided to cut his ties with the campaign amid signs that some of his clients, including the city’s Hotel Trades Council, which is backing Mr. Stringer, were cool to the Spitzer candidacy. Mr. Kwatra declined to comment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/nyregion/as-spitzer-campaigns-candidates-and-voters-weigh-in.html
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