“I want to talk to you about
the 13th largest state.”
That’s how state Attorney
General and gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer led off his speech to a group
of Rochester-area business leaders last Thursday. The speech — along with one
made later in the day in Syracuse
— was designed to be the formal unveiling of his economic-development
strategy.
And the 13th largest state?
It’s not a real state at all, of course, but what Upstate would be were it
untangled from the New
York
metropolitan area. Spitzer understands, as just about all the statewide candidates
this year seem to, that Upstate has grown restive politically. And his speech
was tailored to match that understanding in rhetoric, if less so in substance.
He rattled off facts about “the 52 counties north and west of Rockland and Putnam,” and spoke about how the state needs to
pay better attention to these areas.
He did not, however, go so
far as to suggest — as a coalition of business leaders, including Rochester
Business Alliance’s Sandy Parker, has — that Upstate might need some
exemptions from state law. His speech did include a nod to that sentiment: “We
know government can make things better, but we also know — especially in this
state — government can make things worse.” And he said the way that the state
does economic development right now, mainly through tax breaks and other
incentives, is “fragmented, politically driven, and unaccountable.”
Yet Spitzer’s plan for
economic development relies heavily on state investment to build what he calls
the infrastructure for “an information economy.”
In one phrase that seemed
particularly designed to become a sound bite, Spitzer said, “If we do not
invest in our generation’s Erie
Canal, we will be left
behind.”
Exactly what “our
generation’s Erie Canal” is wasn’t clear. Spitzer wants the state to help
each major Upstate metro area to invest in strategic industries. (For Rochester, he mentioned biotech and photonics).
In fact, the steps he
outlined bear a curious resemblance to the current economic-development system,
albeit with a bit of tweaking. For instance, Spitzer still wants to use
incentives to achieve development; he just wants to make them smarter. They
would have to demonstrate, unlike Empire Zones, for instance, a measurable
impact when it comes to creating jobs. And he wants to make them less political
(the implication being that under the current administration, incentives go to
politically favored businesses, while under a Spitzer administration, they
would not).
In the category of paying
more attention to Upstate, Spitzer proposed giving the Empire State Development
Corporation an Upstate headquarters with more resources and authority. He also
acknowledged that “the amount for venture capital in Upstate New York has been
paltry” and talked about changing that.
Most of Spitzer’s ideas
garnered applause from the business leaders gathered to hear him. Still, it’s
tough to gauge their impression of him.
Many, like Center for
Governmental Research head Kent Gardner, were reserving judgment. When it comes
to economic development, says Gardner, “I’m convinced that the devil’s in the details.”
All of the ideas Spitzer presented were fine, he says; “The question is, who
does he appoint to execute them.”
Spitzer wasn’t the only statewide politician stumping through Rochester on Thursday.
Later that afternoon, former
New York City Public Advocate Mark Green was here, formally announcing his bid
to fill the large set of shoes Spitzer’s leaving behind when he vacates the
attorney general’s office at year’s end. It’s probably a credit to Spitzer,
who’s made the New York AG office into a national one, that the field in that
race is so crowded. Green — who has pledged to run the AG office as a
public-interest law office — joins five other Democrats and Republican
Jeanine Pirro in vying for the seat.
If endorsements mean
anything, Green has a good foothold in Rochester, where a handful of political players, including
former Democratic chair Bob Cook, City Councilmember Adam McFadden, and former
Mayor Bill Johnson, have given him their early backing.
Still, polls — including
one this weekend at the Democratic Rural Conference Convention in Ithaca — have former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo in the
lead. In a jab at Cuomo on Thursday, Green dismissed such polls, saying: “Polls
this early essentially test name recognition — or last-name recognition.”
He also dismissed the
possibility that a New
York City
lawyer might struggle to win votes Upstate.
“People want to know who’s
the best people’s lawyer,” he said. “What counts ultimately is your record, not
your ZIP code. Ultimately we’re one state.”
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2006.
