So no one in power wants Governor Paterson to run for Governor. And no one in power wanted Tom Suozzi to run for Governor in 2006. And no one wants a primary challenge to Senator Gillibrand. Why? Because Governor and Senator are among the only contested elections in New York. Legislative and Congressional districts are gerrymandered, ballot access and other rules screen out non-insiders, incumbents get all the special interest money, and careerists wait for their turn to be appointed. And elections are not what people with excess privileges want, particularly as the cost of past deals and favors and the current crisis is shifted entirely to the vast majority of people, people who don’t matter. They are not to be given choices. Which is how many are driven to extreme choices.
I’m not sure I’d call Governor Paterson a hero for deciding the serfs of New York will have their public services gutted instead of having their nation-leading taxes raised, cutting the benefits only of future public employees, and directing most of the pain to New York City, while not demanding those with great deals — retired public employees, existing employees who do not work, and today’s seniors in general — give up anything. In fact, the state legislature would never allow anyone other than the serfs to be sacrificed anyway. But with the political class uniting around the next “one and only choice” presumably guaranteed to preserve all the deals and keep the vested interests vested, Paterson is like a cornered animal, and there is no telling what he might say.
It was only four years ago the same groups of people, and the media, were uniting around Eliot Spitzer as the “only and only choice,” a man who could save them (not the state) from the likes of Suozzi and Tom Golisano, the outsiders. Afterward, Spitzer did agree to destroy the New York City schools by enacting the 25/55 pension plans, but turned on other vested interests such as the Greater New York Hospital Association and the profusion of local governments in the New York suburbs. Who knows what a Governor Cuomo might do? We know who is backing him, and that bad. Lazio would also be bad. Paterson has also been bad his whole career, but of late has said a few things that worry some of those who matter.
Public services and benefits are going to be destroyed, and taxes for those without deals (particularly those who work no matter how poor) are going to soar, no matter who is elected. The issue is how many of the special deals, favors, and privileges will be retained, and whether the beneficiaries of this disaster get the blame they deserve. The latter doesn’t depend on who is elected, but on what is said. Hence, to the incumbent legislators and lobbyists, the less that is said the better.