The Democrats' Engine Room
No one accuses Eliot Spitzer of being a nice guy. His handshake is bone-crunching, his wide smile vaguely predatory. As attorney general of New York state, he terrorized Wall Street, collaring a pin-striped menagerie of inside traders, CEOs and other club-level ganefs . Campaigning for governor last week in the Hudson River Valley, he sounded more like a prosecutor than a happy-talking Democrat. In fact, Spitzer's hero is not FDR, but the other New York governor named Roosevelt: Teddy, a trust-busting Republican. To inspire the state, Spitzer vows to flush out the "ossified" systems of government in Albany; to spur the economy, he wants to trim taxes and lance a bloated health-care system. "There are going to be tough decisions," he told editors of the Middletown newspaper. "We're going to close hospitals. We have to brace for reality."
Outside Washington, D.C., realism was selling well in this campaign season. Spitzer, dutifully working the booths of diners along the interstate, was poised to set a vote-getting record, besting the Roosevelts, Grover Cleveland, De Witt Clinton, Thomas Dewey and Mario Cuomo.
Up on the "national" flight deck of the Starship America, the usual fistfight (only worse) erupted for control of Congress: $3 billion worth of nightmarish sloganeering and name-calling that did little to settle the world's most pressing issues. Down in the engine room--where power comes from--the governors' races were once again giving an indication of where the country is really headed.
One course setting: toward leaders who are smart, knowledgeable, cold-eyed and not driven by ideology--in other words, the exact opposite of the folks who brought us Iraq. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger got back in the game by championing the environment and stem-cell research in California; in New Hampshire, Democrat John Lynch stressed his business background as he balanced budgets in close concert with a GOP-led legislature. New candidates had to offer specifics. "In a governor's race, you can't avoid putting forward a vision of your state," said Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor of New Hampshire who teaches at Harvard. In Iowa, Democrat Chet Culver set out a 30-page plan for renewable energy; Spitzer, ever the brainy honor student, spouted details on subjects ranging from power-distribution "load pockets" to the tomato-enhancing quality of Hudson Valley soil.
The other setting: toward Democrats, especially in an arc from New England through Ohio, in which President George W. Bush was especially unpopular. Democrats such as Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, Gov. Ed Rendell in Pennsylvania and Rep. Ted Strickland in Ohio were leading by colossal margins, poised to become advisers to Democrats in Congress and key players in the presidential race.
As for Spitzer, he was bracing for Albany like an attorney preparing his first case. He has prospered by acquiring a reputation for brutal incorruptibility--an image his many enemies regard as a mere cloak for naked ambition. Now he'll have to operate without a sheriff's badge and the power of the law to compel things, and compromise is inevitable. "I'm leaving a binary world and going into one where there are triage decisions to make," he said soberly. His strategy is to overwhelm the capital hacks and lobbyists with the size of his mandate. "Where there is resistance," he vows, "I will stand up to it--Democrat or Republican, it won't matter." He is eager to take on "docs who rake off high-value procedures," to expand the school year, to build high-speed rail lines. Sparks will fly; enemies will multiply. Spitzer won't be nice. Soon enough, he'll find out whether he is being realistic.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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