The time was 21 January 2010, the Governor was (and at the time of writing still is) David Paterson. He said the following:
“Drumbeats remind me of orchestras and orchestras remind me of orchestration,” Paterson said, offering a zinger to which reporters could not suppress a snicker. “This whole idea that all of these people got this idea at one time is rather hard for me to believe, and what I would just point is that while they’re beating drums, I’m a drum major and I’m working very hard and I’m going to get this budget done, and they can do whatever they like.”Paterson was alluding, of course, to Cuomo. He did not mention him by name, even when asked a follow-up question about whether the “orchestration” was for Cuomo or against his budget.
Governor Paterson was of course probably correct. That any given Governor of New York State, let alone the least popular one in recent memory, would have political enemies who would conduct an orchestrated campaign against him can scarcely come as a surprise, to Governor Paterson or anybody else.
This kind of thing would happen anyplace there was politics, which is to say everywhere, but it's especially true in New York State, where the political class is known to play rather rough.
However, to follow the Governor's not-inappropriate metaphor through, Governor Paterson's enemies may have provided the orchestration, but the Governor himself helped to write the tune. David Paterson has earned a spot in one of New York State's oddest political traditions: Governors who were not only out-maneuvered by his political enemies, but behaved in a self-defeating manner, handing their enemies the tune for their own orchestras to play and effectively out-maneuvering themselves about as well as their enemies could hope to out-maneuver them.
Why this occurs, how someone could rise to be Governor of New York State and make these kinds of errors, is a puzzle with no answer I'm aware of. That it occurs, however, is scarcely deniable.
And no it isn't yet another symptom of New York's much-ballyhooed political decline. Two of my examples reach back to New York's hallowed antiquity, and involve Governors who met their fates at the hands of the infamous political machine known as Tammany Hall.
• The Politics of Constitution-Making: Governor DeWitt Clinton
The time was 1821, the Governor was DeWitt Clinton, and the issue was whether or not New York State should revise its Constitution. The then-current Constitution of 1777 was, as historian Gordon Wood tells us, “a constitution in tension” between old world aristocratic principles new world democratic principles. The farmers of that Constitution created various constitutional mechanisms in order to resolve the tension.
Wood called these mechanisms “ingenious,” and in a way they may have been, but to the contemporary eye they simply look odd. The Council of Appointment, for example, was a body of Senators, appointed by the Assembly, which handled appointments to high-level administrative positions. Currently, these appointments are simply made by the Governor, subject to Senate review and confirmation. There was also the Council of Revision, which consisted of the Governor, the Justices of what was then called the State Supreme Court and is now called the State Court of Appeals, and the Chancellor of the Chancery Court (a judicial position that no longer exists). The Council of Revision had the veto power now possessed by the Governor. The Governor was the only popularly-elected member of the Council of Revision. Not only were the various judges on the Council not elected, but the judiciary of the Constitution of 1777 was a direct holdover from the colonial days.
The Constitution of 1777, written by folks who were alternately hunting and being hunted by the British Army, and yet also wished to maintain the colonial aristocracy where possible, had worked as well as could be expected for a number of years. But by 1821, historians agree, a consensus had developed among both ordinary folks and the State's political class that it was time for the Constitution to be amended to better fit the democratic era.
Then-Governor DeWitt Clinton was a former Tammany Hall operative who had since turned on the Hall and tried to stake out an independent position. Governor Clinton and Tammany Hall agreed that the Constitution of 1777 needed extensive revisions, or needed to be rewritten entirely, but the Governor didn't want to hand the Hall a victory if he could possibly help it. The Governor thus found himself in a bind when a bill, supported by the Hall but responding to statements he himself had made, calling for the holding of a Constitutional Convention passed the State Legislature in November of 1820. Governor Clinton used his vote on the Council of Revision to help veto the bill. The Council, speaking through Chancellor James Kent, argued that it was undemocratic for the Legislature to seek to hold a Convention without holding a popular referendum on the issue first.
Because, you see, the Constitution of 1777, though written in large part by the aristocracy it partially sought to preserve, somehow represented the will of the people. The irony here, the political language of democracy being used to stand in the way of drafting a more democratic State Constitution, is hopefully obvious. Historians also tell us that it was widely believed at the time that the people by and large supported holding a Convention.
If the situation was ironic for the Council or Revision as a whole, it was especially so for Governor Clinton in particular. He had already stated his support for a Convention, and the Tammany bill largely mirrored public statements he himself had made. (He'd never to my knowledge stated that he preferred amending the Constitution through referendum.) And of course Clinton was the only elected official on the Council of Revision. The fact that he went along with the Council's vote, and the obviously disingenuous public reasoning behind it, didn't speak to his favor.
The Council won temporarily, however, as the Legislature did not override the Council's veto. Rather, the Legislature simply passed another Convention bill in 1821, this bill requiring a referendum first. The Council, backed into a corner by their own reasoning, allowed the bill to become law. (Chapters 190 of the Laws of 1871, with a Chapter Amendment, Chapter 246 of the Laws of 1821.) The referendum was held. The people voted overwhelmingly to hold a Convention, thus suggesting that the historians are correct that the people's will was overwhelming and likely was known to the political class. The Convention was held, and a new Constitution was written. The Councils of Revision and Appointment were both easily done away with.
Governor Clinton, having gone back on what was probably one of the most critical, if under-rated political stances of his career, was not nominated by his party to run for Governor. In a further, insult, the changeover between Constitutions shaved shaved 6 months off Clinton's term.
History has actually been kind to DeWitt Clinton. He's known in large part for his work on the State canal system, and some years after these events he would regain the Governorship. However, his own actions, combined with Tammany Hall's orchestration against him, in addition to making him have to look for work, denied him at least two important honors: To be the first post-Colonial Governor of New York with the power of veto and the power of appointment, two of the most important powers a Governor can hold; and to be Governor in 1825, when the project he's best known for today, the Erie Canal, was completed.
It's a lot easier for your enemies to orchestrate against you when you hand them a tune to play. Governor Clinton did just that, by turning his back on a measure he supported in order to avoid the appearance of handing his enemies a victory. In taking this action, Governor Clinton handed his enemies a still-bigger victory: His own political head on a platter. (Though, in politics, one can eventually recover from decapitation, as Clinton did.)
One would think New York State Governors would learn from Clinton's error. But one would be wrong.
• William Sulzer: Tammany Man, Would-Be Reformer, Disgrace
The time was 1912, and New York's Governor was a stone-faced fellow by the name of William Sulzer.
There was every reason to think that William Sulzer was an astute politician, who knew the politics of New York State very well. He had successfully navigated the Empire State's always-treacherous political waters since 1889, when he assumed a seat in the State Assembly. He served as Speaker of the Assembly from 1893 to 1894. In 1894 he successfully ran for U.S. House of Representatives, and held a seat there from the beginning of 1895 through the end of 1912. In 1912, he ran for Governor, won, and took office in 1913.
He had previously enjoyed the support of Tammany Hall, but after becoming Governor Sulzer suddenly turned reformer and decided to take on the Hall, leading to a feud with Tammany's “Boss,” the ruthless Charles F. Murphy. The newspapers of the time described secret and confrontational meetings between the Sulzer and Murphy. It's potentially telling that Sulzer appears to have taken the train to New York City for these meetings more often than Murphy took the train to Albany.
The feud started out being over Sulzer's refusal to take Tammany “suggestions” for appointees, Highway Commissioner for example, but soon moved into fighting over legislation, and the fight played out in various bills passed by the Legislature and vetoed by Sulzer, including an early Workers' Compensation proposal and a bill to enact direct primary elections.
The latter issue was particularly salient. Sulzer had openly supported a direct primary, but considered the bill passed by the Legislature to be watered down from his own proposal. Sulzer vetoed the legislature's bill, and delivered a veto message that two Political Scientists called “caustic,” but from their own description excessively confrontational sounds like a better term. Sulzer angrily rejected proposals both from the Legislature's Tammany-controlled Democratic majority and the Republican minority, though part of his “caustic” veto message had chided the Democrats for not listening to the minority, and called the Legislature into Extraordinary Session (what the newspapers call “special session”) to pass his own bill. Which of course they did not do, and he couldn't actually make them do. You know, the whole seperation of powers, checks and balances thing.
In addition to Sulzer's policy objections, however, it can be fairly presumed that Sulzer didn't want to be perceived as handing a victory to Tammany Hall and Charles F. Murphy.
This story should sound familiar. In Sulzer's backing away form a measure he had supported in part to avoid handing his enemies a victory we can see a shadow of DeWitt Clinton. In his being so “caustic” and openly confrontational, we can see a foreshadow of Eliot Spitzer. Neither of these shadows, one in front and one behind, are good omens for Governor Sulzer's fate.
Taking on Tammany Hall is hard enough when one is a genuine reformer. A Tammany-supported Governor biting the hand who fed him, however, is an especially bad idea. In Sulzer's case, Tammany Hall knew where Sulzer had buried a few corpses. Presumably in part because they'd helped him with the burial.
Soon enough, revelations came out about Governor Sulzer that made him look rather less like a reformer than he'd have liked. He'd committed perjury in Vermont, for one thing. For another, he had stolen funds from his own campaign to invest in the Stock Market. He had also openly threatened to use his veto power not just against legislation he didn't like, but against legislators who had defied him. (At the time this was apparently a bigger deal than it would be now.) He was finally impeached by the State Assembly and removed in a trial after judgment by the State Senate and the Justices of the State Court of Appeals, mostly for the campaign finance violations.
Conventional wisdom holds that Governor Sulzer was a genuine reformer, who was railroaded for defying Tammany Hall, by a Tammany-controlled, corrupt Legislature. There is surely an element of truth to this. Tammany Hall was definitely orchestrating against Sulzer. They made no secret of it, and even if they had tried to keep it a secret, it would have been widely guessed. And the Hall's corruption is as-legendary in most circles as there genuine contribution to democratic principles and popular political mobilization is in other circles. And I suppose it's likely that Sulzer's anti-Tammany effort was at least in part sincere. Otherwise why take it so far?
However, as was the case with Clinton before him, the orchestration of his enemies cannot alone explain Sulzer's downfall. At least some of the Justices of the Court of Appeals also appear to have voted to remove Sulzer, along with the Tammany-controlled Senate. I recall nothing in what I've read to suggest that the Justices were Tammany-controlled. Many of the legislators of course doubtlessly were. But if Sulzer's being an innocent-man-wrongly-accused was as obvious at the time as we like to pretend it is now, why did the Court of Appeals go along?
Ultimately, “Plain” Bill Sulzer, as he was sometimes known, was not a reformer. He was a Tammany Hall operative who saw the light only after a long career in politics. He openly defied people he had to have known knew exactly where to look for material to use against him.
Was Sulzer the victim of orchestration? Surely. But, like DeWitt Clinton before him and others after, Sulzer owes his downfall not only to orchestration but also to his own political failings. It's frightfully easy to paint Governor Sulzer as a hero, as I fear Governor Spitzer may be painted as a hero in the coming years.
But was Sulzer a hero? Or simply inept?
It depends, I suppose, on who is writing the history, and why.
• Eliot Spitzer: Enough Said
Governor Spitzer's downfall is well-chronicled elsewhere. See my own thoughts on Spitzer if you want or need some links to the details.
Like Clinton and Sulzer before him, that Spitzer had enemies, and that these enemies were orchestrating against him, was undeniable. That he was largely responsible for his own downfall, however, is also undeniable. I have seen no reasonable suggestion of anything else. Even Roger Stone's famous tip to the FBI, which the FBI denies was the deciding factor in investigating Spitzer, wouldn't have amounted to anything had Spitzer's own actions hadn't been of potential interest.
And Spitzer performed all these actions in the middle of bitter and highly public fights with the Legislature, when literally all eyes were upon him.
That, I feel, is what puts him in the pattern I am outlining here.
• Governor Paterson: The Accidental Governor
The time is where we started, the present, and the Governor is David Paterson, oft-referred to as the "Accidental Governor" due to his elevation following Spitzer's resignation. Ironically, though, Paterson's plans for being elected in his own right have been scuttled by a swirl of scandals and circumstances. Though the drumbeat for Paterson's own resignation has calmed down some at the time of writing, no one thinks the drums have gone away entirely. They're just, perhaps temporarily, quieter.
Governor Paterson pointed out, as quoted above, that the drumbeat against him has the feel of an orchestrated campaign. He's right on how it feels, and is probably right on the substance as well.
However, did Governor Paterson rise to the occasion and meet the political challenge? Did he meet his enemies' orchestration with orchestrations of his own?
No he didn't. Instead, as profiled in the New York Times, he appeared to be lazy, inefficient, and disinterested. The Governor, having unexpectedly defeated many years of conventional legal wisdom in New York State, managed to appoint his own Lieutenant Governor, only to largely marginalize the talented and experienced operative, Richard Ravitch, that he appointed.
Governor Paterson had set an extremely important precedent but didn't seem all that interested in benefiting from it himself.
Further, Paterson has further taken actions that, even if were completely legitimate, he had to have known would be wildly misinterpreted. One example would be being seen at a steak house, in New Jersey no less, with a lady not his wife. Perhaps the lady was just a friend, as Paterson indicated, but that isn't the issue. What is the issue is that Paterson should have known better. He should have taken others with them to eat, he should have brought work to the restaurant, should have taken any number of actions. But he didn't.
And then of course there's the potential use of the State Police, and his own personal power as Governor (in the form of an ill-timed and pointless phone call) to silence a lady who had accused an aide of his of domestic abuse. Even if Governor Paterson's, and those of the State Police for that matter, were perfectly legitimate, which seems unlikely, the point is that Paterson had to have known it would appear not appear legitimate.
After all, he himself pointed out that there was an orchestrated campaign against him. Why not give the campaign as little material as possible?
Governor Paterson's many other missteps have been well-chronicled elsewhere. See here and here.
The closer to right Governor Paterson was about the campaign against him being orchestrated, the dumber he was for not behaving as a vulnerable Governor who is being orchestrated against should behave. You need to be careful, knowing, and diligent. You need a talented, educated, and experienced staff who is not afraid to tell you what you don't want to hear.
Voters no longer ask for exemplary behavior from politicians. It is, however, a bit much for a politician to behave so self-defeatingly.
• Conclusions
The fates and circumstances faced by Paterson, Spitzer, Sulzer, and Clinton were not identical by any means, but all exhibited similar patterns. All had enemies, knew they had enemies, and yet behaved in self-defeating manners. And none of them got to remain Governor for as long as they would have liked.
New York is not a naïve state. It doesn't ask a lot of its politicians, it is even willing to tolerate contradiction as long as it can be sold as nuance.
But one pattern is surely clear: New York does not want its Governors to be incompetent as politicians. When one considers the amount of power New York grants to its Governors, this really isn't unreasonable. The least that can be expected as Governors of New York State is that they should be able to survive orchestrated campaigns against them. Or, at the very least, not hand the orchestras the tune to play.
When New York's Governors fail to live up to this pretty reasonable expectation, there's a high price to be paid.
And, really, that's how it should be.
David Paterson's answer should not have been to whine about orchestration. It should have been to beat Andrew Cuomo at the game.
Or, at least, to not seem to throw the fight.
• Sources
Albany Exile. “Eliot Spitzer: A Response to Something Posted on Yahoo Answers.” Notes From an Exile (blog). 22 September 2009. http://albanyexile.blogspot.com/2009/09/eliot-spitzer-response-to-something.html
Charles Lincoln. State of New York: Messages from the Governors. 1909.
Charles Lincoln. The Constitutional History of New York (many volumes). 1906.
Danny Hakim, Serge F. Kovaleski, and Nicholas Confessore. “As Campaign Nears, Paterson Is Seen as Increasingly Remote.” The New York Times. 18 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/nyregion/19paterson.html?pagewanted=1&hp
David Hossack. Memoir of DeWitt Clinton. 1829.
David M. Halbfinger. “The Accidental Lieutenant.” The New York Times. 26 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/nyregion/28ravitch.html?pagewanted=all
“DeWitt Clinton.” http://www.eriecanal.org/UnionCollege/Clinton.html
Dixon Fox. The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York. 1976
Dorothie Bobbe. DeWitt Clinton. 1962.
Evan Carnog. The Birth of Empire: DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience. 1998.
Frank Prescott and Joseph Zimmerman. The Politics of the Veto of Legislation in New York State (2 volumes). 1980.
Gordon Wood. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. 1998 (2nd edition, originally published in 1969).
Jay W. Forrest and James Malcolm. Tammany's Treason: The Impeachment of Governor Sulzer. 1913.
Jeffrey Toobin. “The Dirty Trickster: Campaign Tips From the Man Who's Done It All.” The New Yorker. 2 June 2008. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/02/080602fa_fact_toobin
Jimmy Vielkind. “Paterson: I smell ‘orchestration.’” Capitol Confidential (blog). 21 January 2010. http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/21819/paterson-i-smell-orchestration/
Matthew Nestel, Frederic U. Dicker, and Dan Mangan. “Dave Paterson's Latina lovely.” The New York Post. 18 January 2010. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/dave_latina_lovely_sRI4hN1iRjRomshAacs3PM
John Horton. James Kent, a Study in Conservativism. 1969 (2nd edition, originally published in 1939).
Samuel P. Orth. Five American Politicians: A Study in the Evolution of American Politics. 1906.
The Erie Canal. http://www.eriecanal.org/
United States Congress. “Official Biogrophy of William Sulzer.” http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S001065
William K. Rashbaum, Danny Hakim, David Kocieniewski, and Serge F. Kovaleski. “Question of Influence in Abuse Case of Paterson Aide.” The New York Times. 24 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/nyregion/25paterson.html?emc=na
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