Fifteen months ago, Eliot Spitzer came to Albany riding a wave of popular discontent with the ossified state capital. Day One brought us, in the all-too-brief honeymoon, such startling novelties as an on-time budget, workers comp reform, more equitable educational financing.

Such achievements as Eliot managed to notch on his belt were won in the face of the Western hemisphere's best argument for term limits, the Augean stables [1] of the New York State legislature. The otherwise observably inert mass of that body threw itself in the path of the self-proclaimed steamroller, and the unstoppable force hit the immovable object.

With Tuesday's special election results - Democrat Darrel Aubertine was elected to the State Senate in a district generically only slightly more favorable to Democrats than North Dakota - there is movement again. City Room [2] quotes Wayne Barrett of the Voice:

“I think yesterday’s results were in some respect a referendum on the first year,” he said. “And I think it calls for sober and objective analysis on my part, so let me say: ‘Hallelujah! Free at last We’re almost free at last!’”

Heh. So now what?

In an ideal world, the governor and his allies in the Senate Democratic caucus will now lay out their vision for the state. The lesson from Spitzer's first term are obvious: despite having gotten elected in a landslide, both chambers of the legislature opposed his agenda to the extent it was incompatible with the perks and expectations of the bipartisan Albany Incumbency. That was in part a reaction to the diffuseness of Spitzer's 2006 message, which allowed the legislature to pay rhetorical homage to the governor's mandate while opposing him in practice.

So go ahead: sketch out a bold vision for change. The national and state environments both are conducive to it. Vow to pass the Brennan Center reforms [3]. Lay out a concrete agenda for upstate economic development. Here's an idea: why not embrace the Brodsky Telecom bill [4]? If Democrats give New Yorkers a reason to vote for them that's more than that we simply can't stand the republicans, we'll win big, and with the mandate for change the state needs.

Bill Samuels, finance chair of the DSCC, likes to say that Democrats should "win with a reason". He's right. The more ambitious and compelling an agenda New York Democrats spell out now, the better for when we actually take the State Senate in November. We have an opportunity in 2008, one that probably won't come again for a long time.

The leadership for this will have to come from the Executive Chamber. Eliot's upswing couldn't have come at a more propitious time.

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