While we are seeing a mounting reform movement at the national level, I would also urge you to be aware of some of the important developments that are occurring in statehouses across the country. There are some exciting things happening, demonstrating that your activism is also paying dividends at the state level.
Building a strong foundation for reform at the state level is especially important since this is where many of our nation’s most important reform efforts have gotten their start. As Louis Brandeis once famously noted, the states can serve as "laboratories of democracy."
Nowhere has this been more true than in New York. From the Seneca Falls Convention to the beginnings of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to Frances Perkins’ fight for better labor conditions for American workers, we have a proud progressive tradition in the Empire State.
If you thought that being mired in a sordid scandal would have induced at least some humility in Eliot Spitzer you would be wrong. The governor goes on to boast:
We have had some tremendous successes already and have laid the ground work for future progress.
We provided health care coverage for every child in New York. This initiative is the meaningful first stage of the plan we are currently crafting to provide universal healthcare coverage. New York is taking a unique, incremental approach that will build on the experiences of other states around the country. In a nation as prosperous as ours, there is no excuse that every man, woman, and child does not have health care.
We are beginning the long overdue process of revitalizing New York’s economy and we are going about it in innovative ways. Investing in education is a key component of our economic development agenda. Our goal is to generate the highly skilled work force necessary to support and fuel our future economic growth and to allow us to compete in the global economy. In my first budget, we implemented historic investments in education and created a commission to study ways of making our higher education system a world class institution.
Unfortunately for Governor Spitzer, even many Kossacks were unwilling to buy into his self-glorification "Happy Talk" love fest:
Used to be a fan Spitzer until Troopergate. I can't believe you would use taxpayer monies and the state police to try and set up a state Senator Joseph Bruno. Those are Nixon-, Bush-, Clinton-type tactics. You are above that.
Lawyers he needs, regardless of where he gets them. Our love he doesn't need, and he won't be getting any from me until he comes clean.
Your credibility is under serious strain (read the comments down thread on that last albanyproject link if you doubt me)- and that's saying something coming from folks like me who have touted you as an archetype of the good politician in this forum and elsewhere. At one time I thought you would make a great President. Please respond, Governor, and don't insult us with more dissembling.
To read more of the Daily Kos comments about Eliot Spitzer's search for web love as well as additional "dissembling" remarks from the governor, check out the DUmmie FUnnies.
