The big talked-about piece of the day, even at this early hour, is clearly The New York Times [1] depiction of what it calls Détente in Albany, between a mild-mannered Governor Paterson and an ebullient Joe Bruno.
The shift is noticeable in many ways. Mr. Paterson waved through pork-barrel spending bills that provided $350 million apiece to Mr. Bruno’s Senate and to Assembly Democrats. Mr. Paterson’s predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, held up the legislation for months. Mr. Paterson has also abandoned Mr. Spitzer’s insistence that Republicans agree to legislation limiting campaign contributions.
He consults regularly with Mr. Bruno, whom Mr. Spitzer had stopped speaking to altogether, visiting his office to chat about legislation and talking on the telephone with him several times a week.
In doing so, Mr. Paterson has changed the tone in the capital from one of combat and animosity to one that is joshing and affectionate, a marked shift from Mr. Spitzer’s rough-and-tumble approach in trying to overhaul one of the nation’s most reform-resistant statehouses.
That's roughly as naked a description of Senate republicans' raison d'être as you're ever likely to encounter in a family newspaper. Give them their member items, and you'll be surprised how quickly the rancor quiets down.
There are several kinds of conflicts in politics, one substantive, one ideological, one personal. What we saw in the Spitzer era was a conflict of ideology and substance, between the crusading and abrasive governor, transformed in the funhouse lens of the media into a simple conflict of personality.
That funhouse view of things shouldn't distract from the real and substantive hurdle republican control of the Senate presents to the enactment of any agenda in this state. A good personal relationship between Bruno and Paterson has at least the redeeming grace of removing the temptation to write tabloid stories instead of, like, about the glaring contrasts in the underlying issues agenda.
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