What'll he do next?

Eyes on Spitzer as he faces likely transition from litigator to leader

BY ERROL A. COCKFIELD JR | Newsday Albany Bureau Chief

October 15, 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)

Eliot Spitzer was at another of a thousand campaign stops, this time a gay pride dinner, sitting over the banquet steak he was not going to eat. Then he rose to mingle and chat, in rare candor, about where he is in his life.

During almost eight years as the state's Democratic attorney general, he has earned a reputation as a fearless lawman, a quick draw in a vast stretch of territory where the authorities who should have stood up did little. That was all well and good, he said, but the time was coming to lay down his badge.

"I'm tired of being the curmudgeon pointing the finger," Spitzer said earlier this month as he stood amid the crowd at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers.

The son of real estate tycoon Bernard Spitzer, who rose from a cold-water tenement on the Lower East Side, Spitzer was reared to believe in the egalitarian power of the marketplace.

Now, after taking on the investment banking, mutual fund and insurance industries, and enduring attacks that he is "anti-business," he wants to throw off that label and usher in a new customer-friendly order to New York's corporate environment. It's part of his broader mission to stem the flow of people out of New York, especially upstate.

"I was never emotionally focused on getting into government and politics," Spitzer said in an interview. "I'd be just as happy in business. There is a view held by my critics that I don't understand or appreciate the market, but I grew up in that world."

'Triage decisions'

Unless some political disaster befalls him in the next three weeks, Spitzer, 47, will take office in January as New York's 54th governor. Polls can be deceptive, but Spitzer has maintained such an impressive lead in voter surveys that most experts predict he will enter the statehouse with an enormous mandate. If brought to bear effectively, it could produce an unprecedented era of reform.

The question now is whether a man who has been an attorney and prosecutor for most of his life, a man who has never fully probed the engines of government, can transform himself from a litigator to the shepherd of 19 million diverse sheep. The job of attorney general is measured on a case-by-case basis, through settlements and convictions - tangible victories. Governors face ever-changing crises where success is difficult to measure.

"What can be an advantage as a prosecutor can be a disadvantage as an executive," said Doug Muzzio, a political scientist from Baruch College. "It's not juggling two balls. It's juggling 15 balls and the balls are conscious actors."

The superconfident, intellectual, overachieving alum of prestigious schools - Horace Mann, Princeton, Harvard Law - Spitzer says he has no apprehension about the task or his ability to accomplish it. That, some say, is hubris. For others, it's the mark of a singularly focused public servant.

Spitzer said he has had to make "binary" choices between right and wrong, but as the state's top lawmaker, "you have to make triage decisions and rank them ... those triage decisions are probably harder than the decisions you make as attorney general."

High expectations

Spitzer is on the cusp of leading a state that is suffering by several measures. Young people, especially upstate, are leaving because they can't find jobs. Taxes are among the highest in the country, burdening suburban families. The health care landscape must be reorganized and some hospitals closed.

Antiquated laws drive up the costs for governments to do public construction. Most public school students are in urban districts like those in New York City that the courts agree need more dollars. A polarized State Legislature, with Democrats controlling the Assembly and Republicans the Senate, has been so intractable that issues of import - such as campaign finance reform - have been perennially delayed.

With that backdrop, the expectations around Spitzer are as high as what he calls his "extravagant" poll numbers.

Democrats exalt Spitzer in messianic adjectives as the standard-bearer of a renaissance. Praise for him, even among Republicans - former GOP Sen. Alfonse D'Amato said he would be a "great governor" - has been so deep that if his achievements are anything less than extraordinary, his stewardship may be seen as a squandered opportunity.

"That could be a problem for him," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant who has advised Spitzer in the past. "It's not a danger, but people want whatever he's selling, so hopes are very high."

Cultivating an interest

Eliot Laurence Spitzer was born in the Riverdale section of the Bronx on June 10, 1959, and though he did not dream of a political life at an early age, there were signs of early flirtation.