Henry J. Stern
September 20, 2007
A majority of New Yorkers have a favorable opinion of Governor Spitzer, but they believe he should be more forthright about Troopergate, and should publicly testify under oath and tell everything he knows about the issue, according to the Siena Poll.
The poll conducted by the Siena Research Institute, affiliated with Siena College in Loudonville, New York, (a suburb of Albany) was conducted by telephone calls to 604 registered New York State voters throughout the state, including 291 Democrats and 156 Republicans. Its margin of error ranges from 4 to 7.8 per cent.
You can link to the press release in which the poll director, Steven Greenberg, announced the results here.
The results were not covered by the Times, but three other papers ran stories about it, including the Daily News, which ran an opinion column by Michael Goodwin yesterday (Sept 19) Under the headline, THE END GAME: Time for Governor to Give the Voters What They want -- Testimony". Goodwin began his column with strong language::
"He tried bravado, he tried apologies and he tried silence. Sooner or later, Eliot Spitzer is going to have to try the truth.
"That's the loud-and-clear message from the latest voter survey on what New Yorkers think about the dirty tricks plot cooked up in Gov. Spitzer's office. His plans A, B and C about how to fudge and duck the Eliot Mess didn't work. Big doubt about Spitzer's honesty are sticking in voters' throats, and they won’t go away until he raises his right hand and swears to tell the whole truth.".
You can link to Michael Goodwin to read the entire column.
The News received an Associated Press story on Sept 18, headlined NEW YORKERS TO GOVERNOR ELIOT SPITZER, GIVE IT TO US STRAIGHT IN SCANDAL, THEN GET BACK TO REAL WORK. The lede: : "New Yorkers want Gov. Eliot Spitzer to 'be more forthright' about the scandal that has stalled state government for months but they still like the job he's doing and figure he's the best bet to straighten out the state, a poll released Tuesday found.
The Post, which has been the newspaper most critical of Spitzer, published, at the top of p2, a story by Kenneth Lovett, headlined OK, SPITZ, SPILL YOUR GUTS: POLL. His lede: The dirty-tricks scandal has dropped Gov. Spitzer's popularity to its lowest level since early 2005 - and 70 percent of New Yorkers want him to publicly testify under oath on what he knows about the storm engulfing his administration, a poll reveals.
"All voters - including Democrats - overwhelmingly believe that Spitzer has not been honest with the public about what he knows, that he needs to be more forthright, and that he knew what his aides were doing." said Steven Greenberg, a spokesman for the Siena Research Institute, which conducted the poll.
"According to the Siena poll released yesterday, 56 percent of New Yorkers now view Spitzer favorably while 26 percent see him unfavorably. That's down from a high of 75 to 10 favorable rating in January when he took office and 59-29 rating in July."
The Post ran a full column editorial on p32, headlined ELIOT'S TRUST DEFICIT. It begins: Gov. Spitzer's stonewalling of multiple probes of his office’s dirty-tricks campaign doesn't seem to be doing him much good with voters. Almost 60 percent still think he hasn't been fully honest about the affair and that he "needs to be more forthright", a poll released yesterday shows. Even more remarkable is that 70 percent of New Yorkers think he should testify publicly - under oath - as to what he knew about the dirty-tricks campaign."
New Yorkers do not, however, believe that dirty-tricks, whatever they may have been, are the most important issue facing the state. Only 12 percent of the public told the Siena poll that the investigation should come before other state business.
So the results are a kind of standoff, 70 percent believe the Governor should testify under oath; his favorable rating is still better than two to one, 56-26, a mere 12 percent think the affair is the most important issue for the state, and he beats his potential rival in 2010, Andrew Cuomo, by a 47 to 24 margin, almost 2-1.
We should make it clear that Cuomo has done nothing to indicate he will run for governor in 2010, and that these polls are taken without regard to the intentions of the people whose popularity they measure. No one can keep his name out of a poll, even if its result is to make him appear to be competing in a race he may, or may not enter. That is the way polls and politics work.
If the polls, however, would show Cuomo to be leading Spitzer in 2010, it would be difficult for the Attorney General not to make the race. And he cannot be accused of overweening ambition, all he aspires to is his father's old job, while before this year, Spitzer was thought of as potential Presidential timber.
The prospects for partisan confrontation escalated yesterday with the Senate Republicans' appointment of Joseph E. diGenova as their special counsel. Nicholas Confessore covers it on pB3 of today' s Times:
"Senate Republicans hired a high-profile former federal prosecutor on Wednesday to assist their investigation of the Spitzer administration, escalating the months-long political battle between Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno
"The former prosecutor, Joseph E. diGenova, is a political veteran with deep roots among Republicans in Washington.... Mr. di Genova is known as much for his frequent and flamboyant television appearances as for his considerable experience as an investigator of public corruption."
The story span five columns across the bottom of page B3. You can link to it here.
To conclude today's installment of what appears to be turning into a soap opera, the governor's poll figures are holding up relatively well, the great majority feel that he should testify on the matter, but that Troopergate, as it is sometimes called, is by no means the most important issue facing the state. The trouble with the governor’s testimony is that he may already have said, under oath or to the public, something that requires, as Senator Hillary Clinton said with regard to General Petraeus' testimony Sept. 11, "a willing suspension of disbelief." That crafted phrase recalls the eloquence of her distinguished predecessor in the Senate seat she now occupies, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.