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51% in poll give
unfavorable
rating to Spitzer
    ALBANY — Gov. Eliot Spitzer has reached a new low in the eyes of voters, drawing a 51 percent unfavorable rating in a new poll.
    He was given a favorable rating by 36 percent of voters polled by the Siena College Research Institute, down from 41 percent last month.
    “A majority of voters, 56 percent, are not prepared to re-elect the governor,” Siena spokesman Steven Greenberg said. “Only one in three Democrats is prepared to re-elect him, while 42 percent prefer ‘someone else.’ ”
    In New York City, 45 percent view him favorably and 40 percent unfavorably. Only 26 percent of upstate voters view him favorably and 62 percent gave him an unfavorable rating.
    His job performance was rated 27 percent positive versus 70 percent negative. That’s a slide from last month’s 33-64 rating.
    “The governor has always been clear that his leadership decisions are unaffected by polls. The same is true today,” said Errol Cockfi eld, spokesman for the governor, in a written statement.
    The poll also found that 82 percent of New Yorkers want the governor and Legislature to cut spending. Only 13 percent would support increasing taxes.
    “The voters’ clear message to Albany: do not increase our taxes,” Greenberg said. “They would strongly prefer spending cuts, preferably not in health or education. And by a margin of 67 to 28 percent, voters are opposed to legislators giving themselves a pay raise.”
    The Dec. 3-6 poll of 625 voters has a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.

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Those measures, one of which he was able to impose administratively and the other of which stalled in the Senate, were the same sort of crude giveaways to special interests that the Legislature is famous for. So Gov. Spitzer is a little more complicated than just a zealous reformer, though zealous reformer makes for a better story line.

Yeah, his puppet strings are more tightly controlled with a backdrop.....they ALL eat at the same trough.......

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CAPITOL
Spitzer defends aide in line for raise
The Associated Press

    Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Wednesday defended a former campaign aide who is married to his insurance superintendent, saying she is well qualified for the state job that has put her in line for a $46,000 raise.
    Spitzer called Priscilla Almodovar a “spectacular talent,” but wouldn’t comment on whether she deserved a raise to $250,000 as head of several state affordable housing agencies. The raise was reported in Wednesday’s New York Post.
    Spitzer said that decision is left to an independent oversight board. Her salary is paid by fees from mortgages, not tax dollars.
    “That’s a lot of money,” said Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno, who has been feuding with Spitzer much of the governor’s first year in office. “On the merits? She may deserve that.” But Bruno added at a news conference: “What is very distressing about the chief executive is he seems to … think politically first, then governing second.”
    Almodovar was a private sector lawyer and a top Spitzer campaign aide who’s now president of the State of New York Mortgage Agency and other state housing agencies. State officials said she turned the offices around and brought in millions of dollars more in federal funds. The Post reported the story on the morning Spitzer and Almodovar’s husband, Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo, had scheduled a news conference to announce new ethical standards in the operation of the state pension fund. Dinallo was a top official in the attorney general’s office under Spitzer, but had left for a private sector job six years ago.

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Her salary is paid by fees from mortgages, not tax dollars

Sounds like money laundering to me????? >

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Spitzer called Priscilla Almodovar a “spectacular talent,” but wouldn’t comment on whether she deserved a raise to $250,000 as head of several state affordable housing agencies.

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Almodovar was a private sector lawyer and a top Spitzer campaign aide who’s now president of the State of New York Mortgage Agency and other state housing agencies.

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Her salary is paid by fees from mortgages, not tax dollars

Semantics.  A fee is just another type of tax.  Ask Schenectady residents about their garbage "fee," or the "fee" that we pay if we want to have a garage sale, in order to get the "permit."

So she must be very very aware of the subprime practices......

http://www.spotlightnews.com

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Spitzer to deliver first State of Upstate address
Updated: 12/20/2007
By: Associated Press          
          
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Governor Eliot Spitzer will deliver an address on the upstate economy January 14th in Buffalo. That's five days after his broader State of the State speech in Albany.

Reviving upstate was a major theme in Spitzer's run for governor and he promised earlier this year to report annually on the state's efforts.

Governor Spitzer will deliver an address on the upstate economy January 14th in Buffalo.


In the fall, he unveiled a tailored approach that will deliver state funding to specific projects seen as pivotal in Buffalo, Rochester and other cities.

Spitzer has said that reviving the upstate economy will be the most important test or failure of his tenure as governor.

So, by separating it out to a separate speech, he's saying it's not important enough to include as part of the full state address?  Are we truly 2 separate states, if we need to have a separate address for Upstate?  Let's go, let's pretend that we're Korea.  They separated at the 38th parallel, we can separate at a parallel such as this?

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Spitzer has said that reviving the upstate economy will be the most important test or failure of his tenure as governor.

After his tenure he'll find out and do what??? move to Arkansas??

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CAPITOL
Spitzer’s first year in office a tough one
Many are hoping for a political turnaround with the new year
The Associated Press

For New Yorkers, 2007 promised to be a new era of bipartisanship and progress in the Capitol after 12 years of increasing gridlock and hard, personal conflicts among its political bosses. But instead of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” 2007 in Albany was more like “The Bronx is Burning.”
    To comprehend just how bad it was and how 2008 may go, consider where the biggest players in state government were a year ago and where they are now:
    In December 2006, Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer, a superhero of a candidate with a switch stuck on full power, was a nationwide star, ready to take office after winning a bigger share of the vote than even Republicans, conservatives, Democrats and liberals, while his opponents — the best also-rans in years — struggled just to get noticed.
    Today, most New Yorkers — including 1 in 3 Democrats — don’t plan to vote for him again, according to a Siena College poll this month. Polls like that one show people are tired of a freshman flop that included scandal, hubris, miscalculation of public opinion and an apparent failure to fully understand Albany before he tried to dismantle it.
    In April, the candidate who promised to curb Albany spending was pressured by the Legislature to agree to a bloated budget. In June, Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno accused top Spitzer aides of misusing state police for political espionage, and Spitzer is still fighting subpoenas to the administration as two investigations continue.
    Gridlock claimed almost everything else, from improving the business and job climate to overdue raises for judges to awarding a 30-year franchise to run thoroughbred race tracks. Then in September, Spitzer pushed — and pushed hard — a doomed plan to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses. He ultimately surrendered the plan to a drumbeat of sound bites nationwide.
    Still, the polls also show New Yorkers believe Spitzer — like other smart, crusading governors with rocky starts — can turn things around. His first few months, after all, included other notable successes including tougher ethics, budget reform and cutting about $1 billion of fraud and waste from Medicaid.
    In December 2006, Bruno — professor emeritus of Albany politics with a stiff, tireless jab — was part of “Albany’s status quo” that candidate Spitzer had targeted. Bruno held a narrowing Republican majority in the Senate while New York became increasingly Democratic, a coup was in the works for Bruno’s lucrative leadership post and the FBI was beginning to investigate his private business dealings.
    Today, the Rensselaer County Republican is secure in his leadership, has weathered a year without a word from the FBI and is talking about adding seats to the GOP majority in the fall. He’s fashioned his conference as the essential check on one-party Democratic rule and made Spitzer look like just another Albany politician.
    Last year, Andrew Cuomo, cunning and aggressive, won the attorney general’s race along with a chance at political redemption. Now, he’s buoyed by national cases he pressed for national reforms and being polled as a potential 2010 primary rival for Spitzer.
    A year ago, Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the owlish Manhattan attorney who plays his cards inside his vest, was said to be facing irrelevancy. He would no longer be the top Democrat in New York government and would be forced into a supporting role.
    Today, he appears to be calling the shots on any number of major initiatives, some that Bruno wants and some that Spitzer wants. Deals announced in a joint news conference in July remain undone.
    In December, soon after Bruno called Silver a wimp while assailing the first Democratic governor in 12 years, Silver snubbed Bruno’s special session, leaving the Senate alone on a snowy day in Albany with little to show for it.
    A year ago, Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco of Schenectady, a one-trick pony opposing Democrats, was shrilly calling for tax cuts, while almost no one in Albany paid attention — or had to. This year, he mastered the trick and used a special election to fill a seat vacated by a Spitzer appointee to increase the long shrinking Republican conference in the Assembly.
    Tedisco also became a leading opponent of Spitzer’s driver’s license plan, while Bruno sat back and let it become clear that Spitzer’s problems were not just a personal spat. By the end of the year, Tedisco was getting face time on national news with CNN’s Lou Dobbs and had reinvented himself as taking on Spitzer, after spending the first several months currying the governor’s favor.
    And a year ago, Sen. Malcolm Smith of Queens was the new Senate Democratic leader, within striking distance of taking the Senate majority for first time in decades.
    “I don’t look at anyone as an enemy,” Smith said then.
    But Bruno has since painted Smith’s mostly unwavering support of Spitzer as a lack of leadership and a political threat, ending cooperation within the chamber and tying Smith’s conference to an unpopular governor.
    In his Jan. 1 inaugural address, Spitzer called his first day on the job “a day that in the rhythm of democracy marks a transition and a new beginning … lend your sweat, your toil and passion to the effort of building a New York of which we can all be proud.”
    Pride isn’t exactly overflowing these days at 1 State St.
    But e-mails and phone calls to politicians, blogs and polls show New Yorkers, uncharacteristically, are actually watching. And politicians get focused when constituents start paying attention, as legislators face re-election and the governor seeks to make sure 2007 was just a bad start, instead of the beginning of a bad term.
    In “The Bronx is Burning,” the 1977 Yankees took a tortured route through a tumultuous time and ended up with a championship. In Albany this year, after months of power plays and name calling — some of it sincere, some of it calculated, all of it stinging — the big players got a lot of dirt of their uniforms.
    But they had little to show for it on the scoreboard.

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Today, most New Yorkers — including 1 in 3 Democrats — don’t plan to vote for him again, according to a Siena College poll this month. Polls like that one show people are tired of a freshman flop that included scandal, hubris, miscalculation of public opinion and an apparent failure to fully understand Albany before he tried to dismantle it.

Well, it appears that Mr.Spitzer and his democratic think tank have a lot of work ahead of them for his remaining term. He clearly needs to get in 'real' touch with NYS and regroup. He spouted a lot of 'good talk' during his campaign and I honestly don't think he has come through with one  promise. I know I didn't vote for him, but it is unfortunate for the majority that did, that have now become disillusioned.

Spitzer has squandered his overwhelming support and lost the mandate awarded to him by the people in the election by engaging more in a political agenda than in reforming the government of New York State.  Though 2008 may bring to him some "victories", I predict that he will not regain the 70+% approval rate that he had when entering the state house.  Those who supported him (though I am not one) have clearly become disillusioned.  Many in Spitzer's own party are already discussing a primary run by Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic party endorsement in the next NYS gubernatorial race.

Spitzer's fate should provide a lesson to those who run for office:

• Have a clear and concise agenda based on your ideology
  
• Share your agenda honestly when discussing your platform
  
• If elected, work to deliver on the promises made to your constituents.
  
• Constructive conflict is acceptable, but don't engage in the practice of destructive politics.
  

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Constructive conflict is acceptable, but don't engage in the practice of destructive politics

This sounds good in theory, but very difficult to not engage in. 'Destructive politics' has become the acceptable norm in the political arena. And unfortunately contagious.

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Spitzer lists accomplishments in health, jobs
Releases detailed comparison of campaign promises
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

    ALBANY — Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Saturday released a detailed comparison of more than 50 campaign promises that were addressed in his first tumultuous year, days before he is scheduled to deliver his second State of the State address.
    Despite gridlock in the Legislature since late in the 2007 regular session that ended in June, Spitzer reports major progress is education, health, economic development, environmental protection, tax relief and government reform.
    “Many of the accomplishments described here, and indeed some of the most significant ones, resulted from collaboration between the Legislature and the executive,” Spitzer said as part of the 240-page “Report to the People of New York State” released Saturday. “We look forward to strengthening that collaboration in the coming year.”
    But Spitzer credited the implementation of changes to state government to his agencies, his appointed commissioners and department heads often with relevant private sector experience and their work force, most of which carried over from the Pataki administration. Candidate Spitzer had promised to reinvigorate the agencies and return greater power to their commissioners and department heads.
    “The Pataki guys had been in a holding pattern for a year and half or more and the agencies I’m familiar with have had very capable people at their head,” said Russ Haven of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “The agencies matter because the Legislature gets all the attention, but the agencies are the ones that make the trains run on time by implementing laws.”
    Among the report’s highlights are:
    Tax relief and changes to regulations that saved businesses $1 billion.
    $1 billion in property tax relief, most for the first time steered to middle-class families.
    Construction under way of the Freedom Tower and related buildings and development at ground zero in lower Manhattan after years of delay.
    More than 500 jobs retained or promised by business in New York or relocating to New York.
    A $30 million bailout of dairy farmers.
    Efforts to help minority- and womenowned businesses gain access to bonding and state contracts.
    Drafting or work begun, often long delayed, on the Second Avenue Subway, the East Side Access Project in Manhattan, the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, the Stewart Airport expansion in Newburgh, and the Peace Bridge expansion to Canada. The effort began, with $5 million to start, to bring universal broad band Internet services statewide as a benefit to businesses, schools and families. Began, with $600 million over several years, a fund to pay for stem cell research in part to stimulate jobs and high-tech growth. Rejected the Bush administration’s “abstinence only” funding and substituted with state funding for “comprehensive sex education programs.” Doubled the number of charter schools that could be created to 200, with 50 in New York City. Reduced crime in upstate cities by using state resources to help local police. Created an energy conservation program to cut state energy consumption by 15 percent by 2015.

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Spitzer has squandered his overwhelming support and lost the mandate awarded to him by the people in the election by engaging more in a political agenda than in reforming the government of New York State.  Though 2008 may bring to him some "victories", I predict that he will not regain the 70+% approval rate that he had when entering the state house.  Those who supported him (though I am not one) have clearly become disillusioned.  Many in Spitzer's own party are already discussing a primary run by Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic party endorsement in the next NYS gubernatorial race.

Spitzer's fate should provide a lesson to those who run for office:

• Have a clear and concise agenda based on your ideology
  
• Share your agenda honestly when discussing your platform
  
• If elected, work to deliver on the promises made to your constituents.
  
• Constructive conflict is acceptable, but don't engage in the practice of destructive politics.
  

Only because he did the quick dance to the governors mansion via the voters heart strings----he went through and rampaged the nursing homes and health care(this is a misnomer) facilities saying"I'll do whatever I can for grandma/pa, great aunt sally and uncle bob. I will save you all from all those nasty awful caretakers that are ripping you off." (like the government has a good track record-especially NYS)

His steamroller of 'That is so wrong and I will make it right' has backfired.....the hearts of Americans (or any human being) can only be played for so long before ya'll hit a sour note.....

The boomers were happy for it-that is where they will be going
The boomers were happy for it-their parents may already be there
the rest of the voters are narcisstic, Utuber, reality tv, American idol, biggest looser, money for nothin', charge till ya drop,here and now folks.....

There is only so much s%$# you can shovel into that fire before the steam runs out......