Eliot Spitzer these days seems to be a man with a shovel, enthusiastically digging a hole deeper and deeper. Witness this quote from the New York Times:

But Mr. Spitzer denied that the furor over his license policy had stalled the rest of his agenda.

“Just the opposite — we are moving,” the governor said, adding later that “things are moving ahead in a spectacular manner. We couldn’t be happier.”

Clearly, this is snark. It has to be, considering that it comes a bit after this paragraph:

The clashes over the driver’s license policy overshadowed nearly all other business on Monday, and further dimmed the prospect for passage of major legislation that the governor and the Legislature have been negotiating for months, such as campaign finance reform and a property tax rebate for elderly homeowners.

Let's have a reality check.

A letter to the editor in the Murdoch Post calls for Spitzer's impeachment; clearly, Louie Rey of East Meadow has had enough.

The Senate voted yesterday to derail Spitzer's plan. Very troublingly, eight Democrats joined with republicans, led by Frank Padavan, to cast votes against the governor's plan. There was even a demonstration outside the Capitol.

Ignore the merits or lack thereof of the policy for a moment and think about the politics of it. Spitzer has thrown the NYS GOP what nobody would have imagined a few months ago, an issue that aligns them with a solid majority of New Yorkers. And because the debate over illegal immigration and security is so emotionally charged, and has such deep resonance with the well-established republican fear meme, the governor's ID card policy is going to be a gift that keeps on giving for Joe Bruno and his geriatric caucus of obstructionists.

But to be fair, who could have guessed that a policy that can easily be framed as 'Hey, let's give Osama bin Laden a state ID' would lend itself so handily as a tool to a republican party struggling for survival?

Fredric Dicker, ever the political animal, gleefully crows in the Murdoch Post about precisely this. In this instance, he's worth quoting at length.

October 22, 2007 -- ALBANY - Top Democrats fear that Gov. Spitzer's controversial plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal aliens has endangered their party's candidates across the state -- and even threatens the presidential prospects of Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Post has learned.

A half-dozen senior Democrats told The Post that Spitzer's licensing plan is producing what one called "a mass exodus" away from the party's candidates that may lead to unexpected losses in November's local elections.

They are also warning that growing voter unhappiness with Spitzer on the licensing and other issues - illustrated in several recent polls - could carry into next year and end the Democrats' hope of winning control of the GOP-dominated state Senate.

"The driver's-license issue is a killer for us in the suburbs," a senior party strategist said.

"The Nassau County Legislature is in danger, and so are the big Buffalo races," said a prominent elected Democratic official, referring to election battles to retain slim, Democratic control in Nassau County and carry hotly fought contests for county executive and clerk in Erie County.

This debate moved some time ago from a rational discussion of its beneficial and detrimental aspects into the realm of political circus. Today's endorsement by William Bratton, like the earlier words of support by Richard Clarke, can't change that; the frame has been established as giving dangerous brown people full legal cover.

And who are New Yorkers, strongly opposing the policy as they do, going to turn to to protect them?

Republicans, of course. May lightning strike me, but Dicker is right: unless there's a course correction, one that gives the governor a bloody nose but lets him live to fight another day, Democrats stand a good chance of paying a heavy price in the elections a few days away, and probably in 2008 as well.

If the governor doubts that, let him take a look at the Democrats who voted with the republicans on the Senate bill derailing his policy; they are

The most interesting Democratic "yes" vote came from Deputy Senate Minority Leader Jeff Klein, who as of last week was still saying he had not yet decided where he stood on Spitzer's proposal.

The full Dem list: Johnson, Klein, Kruger, Savino, Stachowski, Stewart-Cousins, Thompson, Valesky.

Klein and Noach-Dear-endorser Diane Savino, of course, are charged with heading the fight to take back the state Senate in 2008.

There's a lesson in that, and one would hope that the governor learns it more quickly than his happy talk Times quote would suggest.

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