Down with Spitzer; Viva Paterson

The politics of this country have been changing for the better in so many ways over the past few months. Tens of thousands of people have come out in record numbers in states across the country to vote for one of the two Democratic presidential candidates, and there is a huge anti-ultra right upsurge going on. Sen. Clinton has acted somewhat moronically, using Republican fear tactics against Obama, employing racism in her campaign, making ridiculous statements about "experiene," etc., but still. Hopefully Obama will win the nomination, and hopefully Clinton will stop playing to the right... And even if she wins, that's still a hell of a lot better than what we've had.

But no matter what, there is a huge Democratic, and democratic, groundswell across the country that could really change politics for better, for a generationt to come, this November.

And then our good ol' New York governor, who came into office on the wings of an angel, had to go and start dominating the news with his stupidity. He's made me much prouder of Massachusetts, with our governor, Deval Patrick, actually doing good things.

I was a big fan and supporter of Spitzer for quite a while. When he first came into office I was excited to see that what seemed like centuries of Republican domination of the executive branch of NY state (ok, not centuries, or even decades, but that's what it felt like) had come to an end. He was a bit bad on tactics, but still, I supported him, and he was really bad on health care at first--but he changed. And the Democratic Party in NY had started to really get on a roll--they were only one seat away from unseating that dictatorial Republican Bruno and ending the days of "three men in a room" politics in Albany. All the Democrats had to do was pick up one seat!

Then it came to light that Governor Spitzer imported a prostitute to DC from NYC (are Washington prostitutes not good enough for our good governor?).

Now, I'm no prude, and I don't really care about prostitution ... in a general sense, that is. The problem is that, in a particular sense, the women who are prostitutes are, for the most part, victims of pimps, sex traffickers, poverty or whatever else and have been forced to sell themselves. Perhaps this was some high class prostitution ring; perhaps the prostitutes are treated well, but I find this unlikely. Even some of the highest price "escort services," the ones that advertise in the backs of sleazy newspapers like the NY Press and the Village Voice, are victims of trafficking. In any case, I digress. Let's just, for the sake of argument, assume that Gov. Spitzer was going to some non-victimizing prostitution venue.

Now the Governor is in a scandal. The Democratic Party is getting a bad reputation, and the Republicans are threatening to impeach him. What is the use of Spitzer failing to resign yet?

Nothing.

His problem isn't so much that he made a mistake and went to a prostitute or whatever (though he wasn't as intelligent as once could be about the way he booked it, according to the reports in the news). His main problem, and the main problem of a NY state progressive, is that he is, for his personal reasons of ambition or whatever, standing in the way. We have an important election coming up, with the real chance that for the first time in God knows how long, the Democratic Party could take control of the State Senate. Having a cloud hanging over the Democratic executive branch is a major hinderance.

We have a good man in Paterson--someone who is much more of a progressive and likely a better Governor anyway--who, if Spitzer did the right thing and stepped down, could become the first ever African American Governor of NY state. We'd have a governor not tarnished by some idiotic personal scandal, someone who is more progressive on issues, someone who won't be like flypaper for the Republican Party's assaults.

It's time for Spitzer to go.

Welcome Governor Paterson! (Sooner rather than later.)