The 2006 Election And Its Consequences



By Henry J. Stern
November 9, 2006

For those in politics, Election Day is a combination of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  It is the beginning of a new political year, which will end on the next election day.  It is also a Day of Atonement, when the voters call public officials to account for their sins during the year, which are primarily due to avarice, lust and wrath.  In general, the voters Tuesday were unforgiving of transgressions of common standards of honesty in matters of state, and decency with regard to personal issues.


A war is a terrible thing to lose.

Regardless of one's opinion as to the merits of invading Iraq in 2003, there is wide feeling, based on reality that the aftermath of the initial invasion has gone badly, both for the United States and the Iraqi people.  In 2004, the people trusted the President to win the war, and the alternative was the hapless dweeb Kerry.   By 2006, time had run out, and the American people clearly voted for change.

The irony is that just as the cost of war is borne largely by troops who had nothing to do with starting it, its political cost is being borne by long-time Republican members of Congress, who had no significant role in the President's war policy or the way it was carried out.  We trust he will find some of them jobs in the vast executive branch, because he is clearly responsible for their defeat.  He need not help the ones who are crooks, grafters, pedophiles, adulterers and wife beaters. They deserved to lose in their own right.  The decent losers will probably go to K Street, where their lobbying efforts may be rewarded more richly than their Congressional service.

One of the evils perpetrated by former majority leader Tom DeLay was the politicization of the lobbyist class.  It was insufficient simply to pay tribute to the majority party on as many occasions as could be invented, but the lobbyist and his employees had to be Republicans themselves to get the audiences with Congress members which were their bread and butter.  We hope the Democrats do not follow this unfortunate practice.

We can recall when candidate Bush selected Dick Cheney as his running mate, and people thought it was a good counterpoint to his father's choice of the lightweight Dan Quayle.  The lesson learned is that a heavyweight who is too heavy can be an even greater burden than an airy lightweight, who can be ignored.  The joke used to be:  Q:  "Why doesn't Bush fire Rumsfeld?"  A: “Because Cheney won't let him ."   In the language of Watergate, 'at this point in time, that joke is no longer operative.'

Rumsfeld’s forced resignation yesterday signals a break in the iron triangle of the President, Vice President and Defense Secretary.  The anointing of a successor in the same news cycle as the departure of the incumbent usually indicates some level of displeasure with the services rendered and the advice offered by the retiring official.  In this case, the President’s announcement that he would nominate former CIA chief Robert M. Gates indicates that the decision to change Defense Secretaries preceded the election.


Eliot Spitzer's landslide victory invests him with moral authority to proceed vigorously with his agenda for reform, which has not yet been defined precisely.  However, the problems and pitfalls are so apparent that what has to be done is not difficult to discern.  We hope that Governor-elect Spitzer will have the political skills to deal with the proprietors of the snake pit in Albany, which encompasses a great deal of a state government. Ironically, John Faso, the most capable of the Republican candidates, received the smallest percentage of the vote.  That was because his opponent was so formidable.  On Spitzer ride the hopes of many New Yorkers, disillusioned by a generation of stagnation.

The Republicans could have had a more attractive state ticket this year.  They would have lost anyway, but by somewhat lesser margins. If they had run William Weld for Governor, Ed Cox for Senator, John Faso for Comptroller and either Chauncey Parker, Governor Pataki's criminal justice co-ordinator,  or an unscathed Jeanine Pirro for attorney general, the results would not have been the total rout that occurred.  Faso might even have defeated Hevesi, on the basis of unpredicted events. Ms. Pirro's fliration with a senate race, her conversations with Bernie Kerik, and her alleged disdain for the attorney general's position were quite unhelpful to her candidacy.  Nonetheless, she gained about 40 per cent of the vote, the highest total of any Republican. The problem both parties face is that because of the decline of the power of political bosses, it’s every man or woman for him/herself.  That is not necessarily worse than having a balanced ticket dictated by bosses.

It has been pointed out that the conservative showing this year is far worse than that in 1990, when Governor Cuomo won his third and final term.  The late Pierre Rinfret ran as a Republican and received 22 per cent of the vote, the lowest share ever for a Republican.  Prof. Herb London, the Conservative, got 21 per cent.  Between the two, that was 43 per cent.  John Faso, running on both lines, received 29.3 per cent. Spitzer won with 69 per cent.

Citizens concerned about reform should recognize that the ascension of Governor-elect Spitzer provides a rare opportunity to change Albany.  Party leaders supported him in part because Tom Suozzi's proposals were even more radical, and Suozzi’s contempt for the supine legislature and its leaders more obvious.  Politicians love to bask in the glow of winners, and often do not let ideology stand in the way of their magnetic attraction to stars larger than themselves.

We must comment on the pathetic way the children of Albany are treating their former playmate, Alan Hevesi.  He was caught, twices, with his hand in the cookie jar, but many of his colleagues’ fingers are stickier than his. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of "the minor snobs, finely balanced thermometers of success."  Watch the sheep snub Hevesi, unless they get a sign    from their leaders that he has been koshered.   If his old buds want to act out “Lord of the Flies”, why don’t they just break Alan’s glasses and step on them..

We note that Pataki backed off from the impeachment trial on the pretext David Kelley gave him that rules of procedure are not in place.  That problem can be remedied instantly by applying existing state rules for similar proceedings. By the way, although lynching is shameful, many of the people who were lynched were guilty of the original offense.  The outrage comes over the cruel, arbitrary and illegal penalty. Lynching was and is a horror, but it does not mean that those lynched were innocent.

Pataki wisely left the matter to his successor, why should he clean up the mess for Spitzer.   The governor-elect had no problem with his Ph.D. running mate until the misuse of the chauffeur was leaked to J. Christopher Callaghan, who properly ran with it because it was all he had.   Callaghan, by the way, is not the bumpkin he was depicted (as?) by the media.  He should, however, have prepared much more thoroughly for his NY 1 debate with Hevesi.  Rule 46: "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

The Hevesi case is troublesome because he has unquestionably done wrong.  The issue is whether his error should be allowed to override the will of the majority of the electorate that voted for him, with knowledge of his problem.  There are many other aspects to this issue, which we will discuss in future articles.

At this point, we are 53 days from Monday, January 1, 2007 - the Day One on which we are told that everything changes.  We trust that the governor-elect's staff is working hard to get the rocket ready for liftoff.  Will there be 'shock and awe'?  Will Spitzer's first hundred days be comparable to the start of FDR’s administration in 1933?  As time passes, will any other comparisons of the two men emerge?  We suspect the governor-elect has given the matter some thought..

You should know that Franklin D. Roosevelt was the fourth and most recent governor of New York State who became president of the United States (the first three were Martin van Buren, Grover Cleveland and TR. Samuel J. Tilden was elected, but cheated out of the Presidency in 1877).  Since FDR won, four later governors tried. Dewey (twice the Republican nominee), Rockefeller (who got to be vice president), and Averell  Harriman tried.  In December 1991, Mario Cuomo left a chartered plane waiting to take him to New Hampshire at the Albany airport.  This year, George Pataki is making his way through the tall corn of Iowa, with an eye on the 2008 Republican primary.

There must be something in the Albany air that makes the governors want to leave it, and what more respectable habitation is there for them to occupy than the White House.  We ask why should the Empire State have only three presidential candidates, Senator Clinton, the Democrat, Mayor Giuliani, the Republican, and Mayor Bloomberg, the independent?   Governor-elect Spitzer will not be in the mix until 2012, when he will only be 53.   We look to the future.



#328 11.09.06  1,477wds