Maybe she's really ticked off that her defense of Spitzer's proposal derailed her campaign. She was thrown off balance for nothing.
She looked like a slimy, indecisive, word-parsing politician because she couldn't answer a simple question: Driver's licenses for ILLEGAL immigrants -- YES or NO?
Now it doesn't matter.
From the New York Times:
Gov. Eliot Spitzer is abandoning his plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, saying that opposition is just too overwhelming to move forward with such a policy.
The governor, who is to announce the move formally on Wednesday, said in an interview Tuesday night that he did not reach the decision easily. “You have perhaps seen me struggle with it because I thought we had a principled decision, and it’s not necessarily easy to back away from trying to move a debate forward,” he said.
But he came to believe the proposal would ultimately be blocked, he said, either by legal challenges, a vote by the Legislature to deny financing for the Department of Motor Vehicles or a refusal by upstate county clerks to carry it out.
“I am not willing to fight to the bitter end on something that will not ultimately be implemented,” the governor said, “and we also have an enormous agenda on other issues of great importance to New York State that was being stymied by the constant and almost singular focus on this issue.”
Mr. Spitzer’s plan touched off a national debate over whether issuing licenses to illegal immigrants would make the state more secure or improperly extend a privilege to them that should be reserved for legal residents.
Opposition to the proposal sent his poll numbers plunging and stalled his broader agenda.
The decision is likely to be a relief to many of his fellow Democrats in Albany and in Washington, who feared the issue could haunt them into next year’s election season.
In the interview, the governor sounded disappointed but resigned. He acknowledged that he would be criticized for changing course on the issue for the second time in three weeks. (“You think so?” he said facetiously when a reporter suggested as much.)
“Part of leadership is listening to the public’s opposition,” he said. “Having heard that, and assessed the realities of implementing this policy, part of leadership is realizing that getting results is more important than sticking to what may be a principled position.”
Spitzer isn't a leader.
He's a follower, a follower of the polls.
His poll numbers plunged, so he flip flopped.
Contrary to what Spitzer says, part of leadership is sticking to a principled position in the face of opposition.
I don't think Spitzer and other Dems were prepared for the public's outrage over issuing licenses to ILLEGAL immigrants.
...Mr. Spitzer’s decision to abandon his plan comes as a poll released Tuesday by Siena College found that seven in 10 New York voters who had heard about it — and more than 80 percent of the 625 registered voters polled had — opposed it. It also found that for the first time, more people viewed the governor unfavorably than favorably.
The governor and his aides said that they were not reacting to the slumping poll numbers, but acting pragmatically. That the dispute had even tripped up Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who stumbled to answer a question about it in a presidential debate, “was symptomatic of where we were,” he said.
What a load!
Of course Spitzer was reacting to the poll numbers.
Do you think for one minute that he would have abandoned his plan if his poll numbers had been soaring?
I think it's funny that it's noted even Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton stumbled to answer a question about the proposal, as though if the brilliant Hillary couldn't handle it, no one could.
The reason she tripped up was because she was trying to defend an indefensible plan. Simple.
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