Earlier today, Assembly Democrats gathered in the Brooklyn Marriott and with Speaker Sheldon Silver acting as host, asked questions of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and Gov. Eliot Spitzer. 
Pols are funny types, so more than one of them noticed how Schumer mentioned exactly 24 of his same-party colleagues by name during his session and Spitzer mentioned approvimately two. That's just emblematic of the difference in styles. As he did on Oct. 1 before a gathering of the state Democratic committee, Schumer -- without mentioning the governor by name -- criticized those who knocked the comptroller appointment of former Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli (apparently without offending the two other then-candidates for the post who were in the room).
For his part, Spitzer said he talked about the state Democrats as family, who talk and sometimes squabble. Mercifully, he did not go so far as to recycle Gov. Mario Cuomo's 20-plus-year-old Family of New York riff. Nor did he mention this family's driveway wars with its Republican neighbors who occupy the house next door, the Senate.
School budgets were a concern...
Dan Janison
... but one Long Islander said despite looming fiscal troubles it could prove a good year for education funding. One participant expressed surprise that with all the talking, the Senate-negotiated issues of campaign finance, capital spending and the state's racing franchise never came up. Silver was asked by Newsday after the Spitzer meeting if he expected the governor to go around attacking members of his conference again in their districts as he did back in the DiNapoli episode.
“I think that’s part of the learning experience," Silver said, "and I think that he’s learned that that’s not really productive. Period.”