Good morning.

I’m Julia, and Digby’s asked me to put some stuff up here for a few days.

I thought I’d introduce myself by giving you a little background on our local New York Republican mess, since it’s been in the national papers quite abit lately, and there’s nothing quite so… operatic… in its sheer byzantine silliness as our local New York Republican mess.

from the Times: Republican federal corruption OG Al D’Amato sticks his oar in on behalf of the Democrat

Alfonse M. D’Amato, the former senator, sharply criticized a leading Republican candidate for governor, William F. Weld, saying last night that Mr. Weld was under the “cloud” of a federal investigation for once running a “sham college.”

Mr. D’Amato, a Republican, also chastised Mr. Weld for resigning as governor of Massachusetts in 1997, before his second term was over, and then seeking to lead New York “without any real experience here.”

…

Mr. D’Amato also said that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, had done an “excellent” job in office.

This is remarkably interesting for what it says about the current state of New York Republican politics.

a brief digression about Mr. Pataki, Mr. D’Amato and local politics, recent and not-so-recent, here in New York

Mr. D’Amato was, for many years, the autocrat of the New York Republican party, and he pretty much invented our departing Republican governor (mostly to piss Rudy Giuliani off – New York Republicans don’t much like Mr. Giuliani, but Mr. D’Amato likes him less than most. Mr. Giuliani is also a bit of a crook, but not part of this group). Unfortunately for the former Senator, Mr. Pataki isn’t doing all that well, and the rest of his current political stable is – shall we say – not quite ready for prime time.

Mr. Pataki (like NYC Mayor Mr. Bloomberg) cut a sweetheart deal with a politically well-placed union to get their endorsement in his re-election campaign. This hurt him badly with the national Republicans he’s desperately courting for a federal appointment (he’s pretty much played out here in New York).*

In this, parenthetically, he differs from Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire who is in it for the good the Republican party can do his media empire through judicious deregulation. There are those cynical souls who think that his single-minded focus on the good of media company stockholders might have had something to do with the universal press support he got at election time for his less-than-universally-appreciated performance in office, but I digress.

Back to the strike: Like Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Pataki saw an opportunity to get himself back in the good graces of fiscal hawks by cracking down on the transit union. With his usual deft political touch, he saw this opportunity after Bloomberg, badly bloodied in the court of public opinion, caved, declared victory and went home.

Part of Mr. Bloomberg’s cave-in was a deal to give the transit workers a refund of pension contributions they had made prior to an earlier contract which lowered the percentage of their pension contributions. This is particularly humiliating for Mr. Bloomberg, since the givebacks will more than cover any Taylor Law fines (two days’ pay for every day out on strike-public employees are barred by law from striking in New York) that were levied against unionmembers during the course of the strike, but of course Mr. Bloomberg doesn’t much care how much of the MTA’s money he spends to make his little problems go away (you’d want to keep in mind that Mr. Bloomberg might only control four out of the nine MTA board, but Mr. Pataki needs Republican friends with money very badly right now).

This left the field wide-open for Mr. Pataki, who is currently playing to the balcony by attempting to retroactively derail the contract agreement. Says the MTA board (which kept him apprised of the negotiations) never told him about the giveback (they say they did). Now he wants to unilaterally change the MTA’s agreement with the union to remove the givebacks, which would most likely send the union back out on strike, as well as (and here’s the beauty part) removing the “bargaining in good faith” component of the MTA’s negotiations that trigger the Taylor Law.

Honestly, it’s better than All My Children. You just have to find someplace other than the Times to read about most of it. I recommend Newsday.

end of brief digression about Mr. Pataki and local politics, recent and not-so-recent, here in New York

Back to Mr. D’Amato and Mr. Weld: it seems that the former Senator is still a bit testy about the former Governor leading the Justice Department investigation of the former Senator’s brother for misusing the former Senator’s office for private profit which ended in the conviction of the former Senator’s brother (later overturned on appeal). This is one of the factors that led to the former Senator’s defeat by Mr. Schumer, thus ending a staggering series of ethics violations and endless televised bootless trips to the fishing hole on Whitewater.

Amusingly, Mr. Weld’s experience in Tennessee is controversial specifically because it involved, er, for-profit education, working-class students getting screwed and backdoor union-busting.

It’s a shame. He sounds like Al’s kinda guy.

*This has been a real boon to New York politics watchers who needed a good laugh, as the national party gifted us with Mrs. Pirro’s short-lived Republican challenge to Hillary, which was the greatest thing since State Senator Espada and we all appreciated it