The Democrats' Engine Room

No one accuses Eliot Spitzer of being a nice guy. His handshake is bone-crunching, his wide smile vaguely predatory. As attorney general of New York state, he terrorized Wall Street, collaring a pin-striped menagerie of inside traders, CEOs and other club-level ganefs . Campaigning for governor last week in the Hudson River Valley, he sounded more like a prosecutor than a happy-talking Democrat. In fact, Spitzer's hero is not FDR, but the other New York governor named Roosevelt: Teddy, a trust-busting Republican. To inspire the state, Spitzer vows to flush out the "ossified" systems of government in Albany; to spur the economy, he wants to trim taxes and lance a bloated health-care system. "There are going to be tough decisions," he told editors of the Middletown newspaper. "We're going to close hospitals. We have to brace for reality."

Outside Washington, D.C., realism was selling well in this campaign season. Spitzer, dutifully working the booths of diners along the interstate, was poised to set a vote-getting record, besting the Roosevelts, Grover Cleveland, De Witt Clinton, Thomas Dewey and Mario Cuomo.

Up on the "national" flight deck of the Starship America, the usual fistfight (only worse) erupted for control of Congress: $3 billion worth of nightmarish sloganeering and name-calling that did little to settle the world's most pressing issues. Down in the engine room--where power comes from--the governors' races were once again giving an indication of where the country is really headed.

One course setting: toward leaders who are smart, knowledgeable, cold-eyed and not driven by ideology--in other words, the exact opposite of the folks who brought us Iraq. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger got back in the game by championing the environment and stem-cell research in California; in New Hampshire, Democrat John Lynch stressed his business background as he balanced budgets in close concert with a GOP-led legislature. New candidates had to offer specifics. "In a governor's race, you can't avoid putting forward a vision of your state," said Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor of New Hampshire who teaches at Harvard. In Iowa, Democrat Chet Culver set out a 30-page plan for renewable energy; Spitzer, ever the brainy honor student, spouted details on subjects ranging from power-distribution "load pockets" to the tomato-enhancing quality of Hudson Valley soil.

The other setting: toward Democrats, especially in an arc from New England through Ohio, in which President George W. Bush was especially unpopular. Democrats such as Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, Gov. Ed Rendell in Pennsylvania and Rep. Ted Strickland in Ohio were leading by colossal margins, poised to become advisers to Democrats in Congress and key players in the presidential race.

As for Spitzer, he was bracing for Albany like an attorney preparing his first case. He has prospered by acquiring a reputation for brutal incorruptibility--an image his many enemies regard as a mere cloak for naked ambition. Now he'll have to operate without a sheriff's badge and the power of the law to compel things, and compromise is inevitable. "I'm leaving a binary world and going into one where there are triage decisions to make," he said soberly. His strategy is to overwhelm the capital hacks and lobbyists with the size of his mandate. "Where there is resistance," he vows, "I will stand up to it--Democrat or Republican, it won't matter." He is eager to take on "docs who rake off high-value procedures," to expand the school year, to build high-speed rail lines. Sparks will fly; enemies will multiply. Spitzer won't be nice. Soon enough, he'll find out whether he is being realistic.

© 2006