Spitzer Dominating N.Y. Governor Race

Eliot Spitzer, New York State gubernatorial candidate, waves to fans as he leaves for refreshments during a Buffalo Bisons vs. Rochester Red Wings baseball game in Buffalo, N.Y. on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2006. Spitzer, the iron-jawed state attorney general who rescued himself from political oblivion to take on the icons of Wall Street, is in a race for the New York governor's mansion that's turned into a cakewalk. Heading into Tuesday's Democratic primary, the man some call the "Sheriff of Wall Street" and Time magazine's "Crusader of the Year" is leading his opponents in both parties by more than 50 percentage points in the polls and has a campaign fund larger than both his opponents combined. (AP Photo/Don Heupel) (Don Heupel - AP)

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Eliot Spitzer, the iron-jawed state attorney general who rescued himself from political oblivion to take on the icons of Wall Street, is in a race for the New York governor's mansion that's turned into a cakewalk.

Heading into Tuesday's Democratic primary, the man some call the "Sheriff of Wall Street" and Time magazine's "Crusader of the Year" is leading his opponents in both parties by more than 50 percentage points in the polls and has a campaign fund larger than both his opponents combined.

His Democratic opponent, Tom Suozzi, the two-term Nassau County executive, said Thursday he didn't have enough money to run ads even in these closing days.

The winner of the primary will take on John Faso, the former minority leader of the state Assembly. He wants to bring this increasingly blue state and his own party back to conservative values, but he trails both Democrats. The state is dominated 5-to-3 by Democrats

Outside Manhattan, fortified by the economic engine of Wall Street and the bright lights of Broadway, much of New York state's swagger is gone, so much of the campaign's attention has been on the state's century-old Rust Belt cities and poor rural counties that Spitzer has compared to Appalachia.

Spitzer has called for projects to transform the state's economy including universal broadband Internet access and high-technology research and development, in addition to economic revival outside New York City and billions of dollars more aid each year to schools in New York City.

"We're getting out the vote, talking to voters with simple messages that are right: About bringing back the economy, keeping jobs here, educating our kids, doing it in a way that keeps taxes down, simple concepts so that the public knows we can do it," Spitzer said. "We are trying to talk to the public about values."

Spitzer's commanding lead is a long way from 1994, when he finished fourth in a four-way primary for the Democratic nomination for state attorney general. Rivals painted him as a spoiled rich kid campaigning with what they called a questionable loan from his father. That's usually obituary material in New York politics.

"In 1994, I made the mistake of running for statewide office without having put in the necessary time to get to know New Yorkers in every corner of the state," Spitzer said.

That changed in the run-up to his 1998 election. "I put 70,000 miles on our minivan traveling to every town talking to people so they got a sense of who I was," said the intense, fast-talking, Ivy League-educated millionaire's son, who until recently has spoken with bits of an Eastern Seaboard accent, as in "raaather."

Spitzer secured his base in the state with liberal stands such as legalizing gay marriage and supporting full abortion rights. But he would also revive the death penalty for terrorists and cop killers, supports greater wiretapping powers to fight terrorism, supports charter schools to compete with traditional public schools, and plans to cut spending and taxes.

During his eight years as attorney general, he has forced nationwide reforms on Wall Street. He found brokerages were publicly rating stocks as strong while trashing them in private e-mails and got them to pay billions of dollars in restitution to investors and payments to states.

In the insurance industry, he forced an end to nationwide bid-rigging in which companies and brokers conspired to steer contracts to certain companies. He also forced reforms in after-hours trading of securities that benefited insiders, and of insider dealings that gave favored CEOs the inside track on lucrative initial public offerings of stocks.

Suozzi has taken a more centrist road, focused on cutting property taxes that he says are driving away the middle class and on reforming Albany's pay-for-play politics with special interests.

"That way of doing politics in the state does not work," Suozzi said in July. "We have the highest local taxes in America. We have more people leaving our state than any state in the United States of America."

On the Republican side, Faso is a longtime fiscal conservative who has pledged to cut taxes and spending and opposes abortion. He is considered a threat to Albany's powerful special interests, including labor unions.

"We've got to make New York more competitive," said Faso, who beat former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a moderate, to become the party's designee. "But in order to reduce taxes we need to put the budget on a diet in Albany."

Polls throughout this year's campaign showed most New Yorkers _ rich and poor, Democrat and Republican _ connect with Spitzer.

"He did what was right," said Patricia Ulrich of Buffalo, a 62-year-old retired teacher volunteering for Spitzer. "I can't see him being corrupted the way so many others have."

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On the Net:

Faso: http://www.johnfaso2006.com/

Spitzer: http://www.spitzer2006.com/

Suozzi: http://www.tomsuozzi.com/