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Spitzer makes case during tour

BY LAUREN WEBER | Newsday Albany Bureau

June 2, 2006

New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is seen after a fundraiser at the Glen Oaks Country Club in Old Westbury. (Newsday / Karen Wiles Stabile / February 15, 2006)

ROME, N.Y. - The general election may be five months away, but Democratic candidate for governor Eliot Spitzer rolled through this and other upstate towns yesterday on what can nearly be described as a victory tour.

Loose and confident, the attorney general was already hammering home some of his key campaign themes, even as Republicans continued internal squabbling far away in Hempstead and looked ahead to divisive primaries in races for governor and U.S. senator.

At diners, parks and museums around the state, and even a dive bar in Cheektowaga, 250 miles west of Albany, Spitzer said that as governor, he will operate government more efficiently, reform the state's public authorities, bring down the cost of energy, drop the cronyism and patronage that governs Albany and instead give jobs based on merit.

"You recruit the right people, not the cronies," he said on his campaign bus.

Spitzer, who has been accused by both his Democratic challenger Thomas Suozzi and his Republican rivals, John Faso and William Weld, of not offering enough specifics on programs or how he would fund them, said the "nitty-gritty policy decisions" and "mega-budgetary issues" would follow from hiring competent administrators.

Though he declined to name particular cronies, he singled out the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, as needing a "different direction" after hearing farmers and small-business owners vent their frustration about high energy prices.

"The final straw was utility costs," said Bruce Bohannon, co-owner of the now-closed Brewster's BBQ in Watertown.

"When Niagara Mohawk sold to 'National Greed,' we couldn't make it," he added, referring to National Grid, the British energy company that plans to purchase KeySpan.

Spitzer also addressed criticism from Faso, who was designated yesterday as the GOP's gubernatorial candidate, that Spitzer will have to raise taxes to finance his proposals. Spitzer repeated his pledge not to raise taxes, saying his noncrony appointees would be combing through budgets "figuring out how to free up the money."

Everywhere he went, supporters cited Spitzer's record as attorney general as evidence that he'll be able to reform Albany's calcified political structure. But some fans had other ideas.

In Saratoga Springs, Mike Hotchkiss leaned in close and said, "We need you for president." Spitzer, who has kept fairly quiet about his goals beyond the governor's office, grinned, according to Hotchkiss. "He said, 'I've got to get this job first.'"