Spin Cycle

The most intriguing Albany read today is this piece from the New York Sun describing how the Spitzer administration has sought to secure the support of Senate Democrats by inviting them to submit three proposals apiece for funding from a leftover pot of economic development slush controlled by the gov.

This kind of pork distribution, of course, is standard Albany politics. But with the new guy having put himself on a pedestal above all normal pols, it's the sort of thing that makes him seem a little phony. Check out the reaction to the story at The Albany Project, usually a very pro-Spitzer website into Clean Up The Capitol politics.

We called the press office of Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith, but we haven't gotten a call back from his reform-minded, transparency-minded conference. We did get a call back from Spitzer's press office, which answered various questions about the Sun story with various non-sequiturs, some of them off the record.

As to the basic question of whether the story is true is not, and whether the Spitzer administration invited its Senate Democratic pals alone to submit proposals for projects to be funded, there's no comment for now.

But, maybe later..........

UPDATE: The Spitzer line on this, from press secretary Christine Anderson: The administration hasn't invited any particular conference to submit a wish list, but it has told whoever may have asked that any legislator is welcome to submit economic development ideas for their districts.

That may have included Malcolm Smith, and he may have passed that along to his conference, but in any event no proposal is going to get favored consideration for political reasons, like making sure the Senate Democratic conference continues to vote Spitzer's way. "We'll judge each and every one on its merits," says Anderson.