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Saturday, January 14, 2006

NY-Gov: Now It's Too Late

Posted by DavidNYC

Just the other day, I suggested that Tom Suozzi could still back out from his stupid, politically suicidal plan to challenge Eliot Spitzer for the gubernatorial primary. Well, now it's too late. Ala Jeanine Pirro, he's not exactly off to a smooth start:

"That's good policy stuff I just gave you. Eliot's been running for a [expletive] year and he hasn't -- " Mr. Suozzi stopped himself at that point, then asked if the comment could be excluded from this article. However, there was no prior agreement in place to allow Mr. Suozzi to select his remarks.

If Suozzi sticks it out until September, his only friends left will be the greedy Wall Street Republicans who are bitter that they got caught behaving improperly by Spitzer. But at this point, Suozzi doesn't seem like someone whom any sense can be smacked into. This is going to be a long, stupid, ugly, pointless primary, with an outcome as clear today as it will be on election day. Sigh. What a waste.

Posted at 02:53 AM in 2006 Elections - State, New York | Technorati

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Comments

cursing doesnt make him a bad candidate. Little double standard here - Hackett cursed all the time and he was a darling. Souzzi WILL win the nomination, because of his ethnicity, and the fact that he actually has a platform. Spitzer hasnt said anything hed do as governor. The stuff he did as AG will be left to the next AG. Heres what is it the same as - Howard Samuels in 1974

Posted by: yomoma2424 at January 14, 2006 10:52 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

are you crazy??? I would bet a large chunk of change that souzzi doesn't even finish 20 points behind spitzer in the primary if he can even do that well. Spitzer is LOVED by a large majority of new yorkers, dems and moderate republicans. No platform??? It sounds like you have an idea of what spitzer has done to clean up NYC and big business. If he can succeed at that difficult of a job during a pro-business political climate he can handle anything.

David wasn't saying that Souzzi will be a bad candidate because he cursed when talking about his opponent. He is a bad candidate because he is in the wrong race. This is not the year for Dems to fight Dems for reasons of personal gain.

Souzzi should run for rep. in his district. Get some experience in D.C., and a little later down the road (he is in his early 40s?) run for an open state wide NY senate seat or governor. This little name-building primary idea is completely nuts.

Posted by: Ferris at January 14, 2006 12:06 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Suozzi is a fool for cursing to a New York Times reporter and then asking for the remark to be stricken, which no self-respecting reporter would ever do. I cite it not because I have a problem with cursing, but as a wee bit of evidence that Suozzi may not be the most polished of candidates.

Posted by: DavidNYC at January 14, 2006 05:51 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

This is hilarious. Suozzi has a platform? He thinks Medicaid fraud is the answer to everything: It will pay to lower property taxes, pay for the CFE case, pay down state debt, blah, blah, blah. Anyone who is serious about health care policy knows this is part of the problem, but not even close to the panacea Suozzi makes it out to be. Get serious. Suozzi's got to do a little better than that. And he loves to talk reform. Where's his plan? Oh, that's right. His plan is to run fellow Dems into the ground. Spitzer has a real plan (see website). Suozzi looks great in Nassau. He has done a good job (though not exactly hard to do after Nassau Republicans made evvery mistake in the book). No question. But he's a lightweight on statewide issues and maybe a lightweight politician as he proved on his first day as candidate. Spitzer has won two statewide elections, has an impeccable AG record, and doesn't naively reduce such a complex problem like rising health care costs to simply Medicaid fraud. He's thoughtful and while that may hurt him in a campaign, it'll help him as governor. That's the kind of leadership we need. Not reactionary political rhetoric.

Posted by: claudio17 at January 14, 2006 10:42 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Snowballs chance in hell. That's what I would give anyone challenging Spizer right now. This is from the perspective of being a new yawker for 5 years running now.

Posted by: bruhrabbit at January 15, 2006 12:00 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Suozzi is 43, and I think he will run a very good campaign (as he has done here). However he has pretty much no chance of knocking off Apitzer. I don't think getting beat bad by Spitzer in the Primary will hurt his career, and I feel he does have a bright future, however as David & others have states he is in the wrong race. He has done an AMAZING job as County Executive. I have to disagree with Claufdio on it not being that big oof a deal because of how the GOP was. I think that actually shows how good of a job he has done. Its one thing to do well when handed a good situation or even an ok one, its completley another story when you make an amazing turnaround as quick as he did. However, he should run for King's seat & would win it if he ran.

Posted by: Smash255 at January 15, 2006 09:20 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment