At the Albany Project, NYBri reports on how Gov. Spitzer had a particularly steamrollin' day yesterday, taking on SEIU 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association over Medicaid, and Mayor Bloomberg over education.

We've seen Spitzer's "crybabies" ad, directed at those who are opposing him on Medicaid. Yesterday, the steamroller kept the pressure on with a PowerPoint presentation to civic and business leaders in the city:

Suddenly a new slide popped up on the giant screen behind Mr. Spitzer on the stage of the Hilton New York ballroom. It said, in huge letters, “Guardians of the Status Quo,” and it bore the logos of the two groups, the Greater New York Hospital Association and the union, 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, which have joined forces to become one of the most powerful lobbies in Albany.

“Now, my good friends at 1199 and Greater New York, I want to put your logos up here just so everybody will know who you are,” Mr. Spitzer began, before launching into a point-by-point rebuttal, with 16 more slides, of their claims about his proposed cuts.

The health care officials seemed stunned afterward. Kenneth E. Raske, the president of the hospital association, said, “I have never in my professional life seen anything like that.”

Meanwhile, 1199 and Greater New York have fired back with an ad of their own - featuring nurses who ask why the governor is "attacking" them (h/t Capitol Confidential):

Setting aside the merits of the debate, the governor may be getting into dangerous territory here.

(More after the flip...)

It's one thing to take on entrenched but deeply unpopular legislative majority leaders. But making war against nurses, as Arnold Schwarzenegger discovered, can take the steam out of a steamroller pretty quickly. People like nurses. People don't like people who appear to bully nurses.

The Times article further notes the risks:

But Mr. Spitzer’s decision to take on two of the most powerful groups in state politics was not without risk. The television ad campaign the groups waged to try to restore proposed cuts early in the Pataki administration were widely credited with driving Mr. Pataki’s poll numbers down. Now they are on the air with ads attacking Mr. Spitzer.

And as one of Mr. Spitzer’s slides at the breakfast noted, the groups have $65 million in their “education fund,” which can buy more ads; they have made $22.5 million in campaign contributions since 1999, and spent $12.7 million on lobbying since 2003.

Of course, Spitzer was elected with a far clearer mandate than Arnie ever was. And there's a considerable amount of public readiness to support Spitzer's forceful tactics in Albany (especially given the high property taxes required to support the current Medicaid structure). And he may even be right on the issue itself. But he's flirting with considerably more danger here than he was in the Comptroller kerfuffle.

The best solution would be a system of universal health care that would make this particular battle moot. But meanwhile, we may be about to see a test of just how strong the steamroller is.

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