Another Win for Spitzer
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is good. Real good. In case anyone couldn't tell from his poll numbers, showing him winning the governor's seat by 20 points whether Pataki runs or not, the guy just keeps hitting the right notes every time he's on stage:
First and foremost, he's best known for turning the state AG's office into an aggressive prosecutor of Wall Street crime and shenanigans. Underrated tactic: going after the criminally rich is extraordinarily popular, difficult to criticize, and the right thing to do. To continue shaping his honest, reformist persona, Spitzer's refusing to take donations from any employee of a company currently under investigation by the AG's office. Already that shows a politician who knows his stuff.
Second, he's embracing the blog community. He went up with his campaign website early, in late December 2004, to appeal to online Democratic activists still nursing wounds from the previous month's lamentable events. Plus his own blog is on the front page of his website. Seriously, check it out: name, grinning photo, blog entries. Not a bad deal. I only hope he changes his policy of updating his page less frequently than I do.
So what kind of move can help his campaign even more? That's right: Eliot Spitzer just saved the Mets. OK, that's not true, but he got negotiations together to get the Mets back on TV. Time Warner Cable and Cablevision had a showdown this preseason as to whether Time Warner customers could watch Mets games on Fox Sports and MSG. It looked like the season would go ahead without a deal, leaving Mets fans across the state with no way to watch the games, and then - nothing. For almost a month and a half, Mets fans from Matt to Harrison to Mooney have been telling me how awful it is to miss all these hilarious 8-run, 3 2/3-inning appearances by Tom Glavine. Now Eliot Spitzer has helped broker a deal between the warring factions, and Mets games are back on the air.
So thank you, Eliot Spitzer. Thank you for making the whining stop.