Spitzer's_Day_One

Look for the union label???? Azi Paybarah found this photo last night on the Flickr page set up by Eliot Spitzer's campaign. It's from 2005 and but it takes on a certain added poignance now that the governor is about to launch half-million dollars' worth of ads against 1199 SEIU and the Greater New York Hospitals Association over his plans to reduce health care spending.

Here’s Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, doing his best version of “la, la la; I’m not listening,” during today’s workers compensation reform press conference........Liz Benjamin Capitol Confidential

Ok.....who are the real Crybabies ???? very cute Spitzer TV commercial......."Gov. Eliot Spitzer has chosen to fight fire with fire, hitting back at the ad campaign against his Medicaid cuts started last week by SEIU/1199 and GNYHA with an ad of his own. " Yikes.......Bruno has actually appointed a democrat to chair a Senate Committee??? Bruno Names Democratic Committee Chair check out some of the reader responses to this story...."Who was the potential Republican who should have this position. Senate Republicans should be outraged, not warm and fuzzy. Imagine when the GOP held the Senate in Congress that they appointed a Ted Kennedy to chair the Judicial Committee? Or a Democrat, Harry Reid appointing someone like a Rick Santorum to chair a Democrat committee???
Perhaps Bruno should just switch to being a Democrat, then he could run for leader after the 2008 elections." and my favorite "Does this mean Carl Kruger will actually have go to Albany now?
The Senate Dems should kick Carl out of the conference and make him run on only the Republican line next election. Then the district can actually be represented by a Democrat instead of a Bruno lackey. " Ouch!!!! and the NY Times DANNY HAKIM explains Why Spitzer Succeeded Where Pataki Fell Short ....here is a short quote "Mr. Hughes of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said the governor’s willingness to bend on a crucial issue — providing protections for workers whose benefits are capped — was a key concession that Mr. Pataki refused to make.
“The difference between previous years and this year was a willingness on the part of all parties to put everything the table,” he said.
Mr. Silver said that during Mr. Pataki’s tenure, his side had not been able to study the numbers. That changed under Mr. Spitzer, he said.
“The governor’s team and our negotiating team actually delved into where’s the money going,” Mr. Silver said." great article...a must read......and the Daily News chides Albany's drunken sailors ......."But now lawmakers sense they may have another $1 billion to play with, and the health care industry says there's no need to rein in Medicaid. All are wrong. The surplus is a temporary phenomenon, powered by booming Wall Street profits. It should be treated as such - for example, by paying off state debt. Spitzer's budget spends plenty, even by Vampire State standards. Further running up the tab is out of the question" and finally Newsday's Spin Cycle shares with us a Poignant Moment......"Ernest Strada, the veteran Westbury mayor, gave his former state Senator, security secretary Mike Balboni, a unique and heartfelt introduction before a meeting of the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials the other day.“Politics in Albany is very very strange, as we all know,” said Strada, the organization’s first vice-president. “But Mike Balboni comes from where we are and is who we are.”Balboni responded in kind, saying Strada and his family were “very much a part of this decision to leave politics” to try to improve public safety measures against terrorism and natural disasters. The room grew especially quiet when Balboni said he thinks “all the time” of Ernest’s late son, Thomas Strada, a broker for Cantor Fitzgerald who was killed in the World Trade Center attacks." andy

# posted by andy : 12:59 PM