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Suozzi's battle tactics at Fort Ticonderoga

BY LAUREN WEBER | NEWSDAY ALBANY BUREAU

May 11, 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)

TICONDEROGA, N.Y. - The only props missing were a bayonet and bad teeth.

Thomas Suozzi took over a street corner yesterday in this village on Lake George, casting himself as a modern-day Ethan Allen taking on British forces - that is, the New York State Democratic Party. Suozzi denounced the "coronation" of his rival Eliot Spitzer, the near-certain Democratic nominee for governor.

Suozzi, the Nassau County executive who is running an underdog campaign, invited Spitzer last week to debate him in Ticonderoga, and vowed to show up whether his opponent did or not.

But Spitzer, the state attorney general, continued ignoring Suozzi as one would a small barking dog. So Suozzi was left with a handful of reporters and aides, comparing himself to the revolutionaries who seized Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775.

"Eliot Spitzer's failure even to respond suggests that he believes, much like old King George, that he's above it all, even above the demands of democracy," Suozzi said.

Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Spitzer, said, "We look forward to legitimate, constructive, issues-based debates hosted by news organizations."

As lumber trucks rolled by, Suozzi called on Spitzer to present plans to fix such problems as rising property taxes, school funding and state debt, and then debate their respective plans. Spitzer has so far offered few specifics about his platform.

But Suozzi used the event more to make a point than to win over voters. No Ticonderogans attended the news conference, and Suozzi's team left town immediately after the event ended, declining even to stop in at the Hot Biscuit Diner a half-block away to shake hands and kiss babies.

Suozzi seemed unfazed by the latest WNBC/Marist poll, which shows him trailing Spitzer by 60 points among registered Democratic voters. "If you'd done a poll and asked all the experts at the time, did the American revolutionaries have any shot against the British," he said, "well, they would've been losing 72-10, I guarantee it."