SPITZER IN FREE FALL>Deep-sixes Licenses for Illegal Aliens
nypost.com, November 14, 2007
Gov. Spitzer's spectacular political crash-and-burn, reflected in a stunning Siena College poll yesterday, seems to have had an immediate effect: The governor today will deep-six his ludicrous driver's-licenses-for-illegal-aliens proposal.
Finally!
The governor is less than seven weeks from the start of his second year, and he's facing gargantuan challenges: a brittle economy, a red-ink budget and an emboldened Legislature just raring for an election-year spending spree.
Spitzer needs to restore public confidence in himself and his administration; abandoning the license scheme is a good start - but it's only a start.
How far has Spitzer fallen?
Elected a year ago with 69 percent of the vote (and the widest victory margin in state history), Spitzer can now claim support from just 25 percent of voters. Almost twice that, 49 percent, say they'd back "someone else," were the next gubernatorial election held today.
Also, Spitzer's job-performance rating is now 2-1 negative. And nearly half of all voters (45 percent) think the state is headed in the wrong direction.
"Eliot Spitzer's standing with voters has fallen faster and further than any politician in recent New York history," Siena spokesman Steven Greenberg said.
Republicans may be chortling. Remember how Spitzer vowed to break the GOP's lock on the Senate and topple Majority Leader Joe Bruno?
But no one, not even the GOP, should rejoice. Way back on July 5, when The Post's Fredric U. Dicker reported the news of the administration's Dirty Tricks campaign against Bruno, it was clear that a crisis was on the horizon.
How quickly it arrived.
Spitzer tried his damnedest to change the subject with the wacky plan to give illegals driver's licenses.
Well, he changed the subject, all right: The Siena poll showed 70 percent of voters oppose it, and 52 percent say it has lowered their view of him.
And now it is to be history.
Meanwhile, Albany is about to kick off new budget and legislative cycles. The state is facing billions in spending shortfalls. Major initiatives are sitting dormant. Government, frankly, is paralyzed, lacking coherent guidance from above.
How can Spitzer recover?
Yes, by dropping the license plan.
But, equally important, by urging his handpicked head of the Public Integrity Commission, which is probing the Dirty Tricks case, to refer it to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for an expeditious resolution under the state's Executive Law.
The AG would be able to subpoena sworn testimony, even from Spitzer - no doubt an embarrassing, if not downright risky, prospect for the governor. But it beats a continuation of the death-of-a-thousand-cuts he's suffered since July.
The numbers say it all.
And dropping the licenses for illegals is only a start.< |
