With Election Day in a little more than two weeks, candidates are pushing into the home stretch by rallying their supporters and looking for undecided voters. The NY Times made some more big endorsements. The Gray Lady threw support behind Eliot Spitzer for Governor and Andrew Cuomo for Attorney General. The Spitzer endorsement was enthusiastic and hopeful, while the Cuomo one...well, here's a bit from it which contrasts Cuomo with the embattled Republican Jeannine Pirro:
The race to succeed Eliot Spitzer as New York’s attorney general has come down to a riveting if uninspiring brawl between two flawed candidates, the Republican Jeanine Pirro and her Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo. Both candidates have strengths. Their records also contain glaring weaknesses, making either seem an uncomfortable fit for the state’s top law enforcement job...
Ms. Pirro has portrayed the mess as her private business and herself as a victim of ill-motivated prosecutors. But coming on top of all her other baggage, the new revelations are more than just a bit dismaying. New York deserves an attorney general untainted and undistracted by scandal.
Mr. Cuomo’s record as housing secretary under President Bill Clinton is not very reassuring, either. He spent too much time on public relations, gaining a reputation for shaping his agency’s program to advance his ill-disguised political ambitions. His decision to take an extravagantly well-compensated job with a developer he had sued over a kickback scheme also gives us pause.
Ouch! The Times did say Cuomo's HUD experience would be good "managerial experience" and that if he does things the Spitzer way, he's a worthy candidate. Yes - it's all about choosing the lesser of two evils.
On a lighter note, the Daily News showed photographs of various candidates to 100 New Yorkers to see if they knew who they were. One person said about Spitzer, "Is that Luke Perry? It is, isn't it?" Somewhere, Spitzer is beaming and Luke Perry checks his hairline.
