<a href="mailto:jmcgovern@pressrepublican.com">By JERRY McGOVERN</a>
School Ties
March 23, 2008 05:29 am
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I was convinced that Eliot Spitzer was a friend of public education and would make it more equal throughout New York.
So I voted for him. He would have won without me, because he got 70 percent of the vote. Maybe not all those people were hoping he would level the education playing field, but I was. With Spitzer as governor, students here, there and everywhere in New York would be given educational opportunities that were closer to equal, regardless of what school district they lived in. Finally.
Even his arrogance -- his promise that everything in Albany would change on the first day of his administration -- didn't worry me. The meek might inherit the earth, but they won't change Albany. There's so much wrong with how we fund our schools that only someone with brass could make the changes we need.
So I wasn't looking for someone to tweak and fine-tune, I wanted demolition and reconstruction.
Spitzer was my architect and carpenter.
His Wall Street prosecutions as attorney general gave me confidence that he knew how to ransack spreadsheets and find out where the money was coming in and going out. He'd decipher the famously complex school-aid formula, the one they've been tinkering with for years.
And when he was finished, he would make sure that kids in Beekmantown, the Bronx, Brushton and Buffalo got their fair share.
His State of the State address, 14 months ago, was impressive. He promised to "set higher ethical standards." And he repeated his theme of One New York: "Our common interest serves our individual interests "¦ we rise and fall together as one people."
This guy, I was sure, had great vision but wasn't another impractical dreamer. He had the right values, the intelligence to fashion policies to achieve them and the drive to make the policies reality.
There was something else. Not only would Spitzer help schools, his administration would also be a good spectator sport, providing really interesting theater as he made the government work for all of us.
Oh, it wouldn't happen in a year, but it would begin -- a new foundation upon which a better system would be constructed.
He filled the future with promise.
And then "¦ Well, it didn't happen exactly as I hoped. Or the way the rest of the 70 percent hoped. It was horrible. Every day, it became more clear that Spitzer was inept, completely clueless in solving the problems he had so clearly defined. The guy who was going to reform government was surprised to find how difficult it was.
Legislators weren't intimidated when he threatened them: "I'm a ________ steamroller." They knew he was playing in their ballpark.
Soon, the Sheriff of Wall Street became angry and defensive. The transparent government guy became secretive. The confident crusader became brittle. The leader wasn't a leader, just a bully.
Compared to Spitzer, the politicians he went after looked more honorable than they had in years. Dysfunctional government, or business as usual, was more attractive, and less threatening, than change under Spitzer.
That attorney general who made stock-market manipulators confess couldn't get politicians to agree. Without the threats and penalties a prosecutor uses on criminals, Spitzer needed persuasion to get what he wanted in Albany.
Oh, he was still intense, confident and angry, but he wasn't what he had to be: persuasive.
Which might be why he paid, rather than persuaded, a young lady to join him in the Mayflower Hotel.
Of course, the publicity that followed that transaction cost Spitzer his job, but he wasn't doing it very well, anyway.
Worse, his behavior in office and in the hotel makes reform less likely. His failure will infect the future. The next time we hear a candidate talk about ethical standards, we'll remember Emperors' Club VIP and $4,000 an hour.
The next time a candidate tells us that some Albany politicians aren't doing their jobs -- they're just keeping them, we'll remember Eliot Spitzer. We'll remind ourselves, "Better the devil we know "¦"
And if we talk to kids in the classroom about public service and ideals, that "our common interest serves our individual interests "¦ we rise and fall together as one people," the kids who pay attention to current events might remember who said that -- and giggle.
Eliot Spitzer didn't help our schools.
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