Quoted Text

Spitzer, Cuomo play nice before cameras amid rivalry rumors ANALYSIS
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

   Democratic darlings past and present, Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo, acted like regular pals Thursday in a rare public appearance.
   They shared a private whispered comment and a chuckle, like a joke just between friends — in front of a couple dozen television cameras and reporters at a Manhattan press conference.
   In the question-and-answer session with Spitzer at the podium, Cuomo leaned in to break the tension of a reporter’s tough question, telling Spitzer, “But he said it in a nice way.”
   More chuckles, more smiles, all caught on camera.
   “It must have been nice for the two old friends to get together,” said pollster Maurice Carroll sarcastically. “You don’t have to be particularly politically astute to realize they are obvious rivals — two statewide officials, one who is governor and the other guy wants to be.”
   Thursday’s Spitzer-Cuomo sighting may have been in part to dispel talk of tension that has prompted pollsters to already start matching the them up for the next governor’s race — just 1,100 days away.
   Always a somewhat unclear relationship, any pretense of a close alliance seemed to dissipate in July. That’s when Cuomo released his investigative report of a Spitzer administration scandal. Cuomo reported that two Spitzer aides acted improperly in a plan to embarrass the state Senate Republican leader by providing travel records to a reporter.
   Spitzer promptly suspended his longtime communications director, a friend, who eventually resigned for a private sector job.
   But Republican Senate leader Joseph Bruno has used the Cuomo report repeatedly for months in attacking Spitzer. The attacks didn’t ease up even after the Democratic Albany County district attorney’s subsequent report in September found no wrongdoing and no evidence of a plot to smear Bruno.
   “Cuomo’s report is really the ammunition that has been used by the anti-Spitzer element in the Spitzer-Bruno confrontation,” Carroll said.
   During those months, Spitzer’s once record-high polls have dropped. Meanwhile, the popularity of Cuomo — who dropped out of the 2002 governor’s race low on support and money — has risen in one of New York’s greatest political comeback stories.
   And while Spitzer would still win a hypothetical race against Cuomo, the numbers are relatively close compared with Spitzer’s untouchable status a year ago. He won with a higher share of the vote than any other candidate before, including Franklin Roosevelt.
   Cuomo has benefited from a fast start.
   He has made early national headlines with his investigation of the student loan industry, which had been turned over to him by Spitzer in his last months as attorney general. On Thursday, Spitzer and Cuomo also noted that Cuomo’s current probe gaining national attention, an investigation of the subprime mortgage industry, began under Attorney General Spitzer. Cuomo, however, has forged the new focus in which he claims banks pressured appraisers to inflate home values to get bigger loans.
   So Cuomo’s riding high, while Spitzer’s poll numbers, though still good, have dropped.
   Exactly one year ago, the story was much different.
   Cuomo was elected as Spitzer’s successor as attorney general, campaigning as the next Eliot — the untouchable who was a crusader for justice on Wall Street.
   Today, Cuomo’s political future is bright four years after some were ready to write his political obituary. Meanwhile, Spitzer is finding few friends these days, even among Democrats after conflicts with the Legislature and following his plan to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses, despite his inclusion of powerful anti-fraud and other homeland security measures.
   Now, Spitzer and Cuomo are the same under-50-ish age with the same reformer mantra and are facing a narrowing political road ahead.

LOUIS LANZANO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, right, and Gov. Eliot Spitzer address the media at the governor’s New York offi ce on Thursday.