Newsday.com
Spitzer should drop license plan now, experts say
BY JAMES T. MADORE.james.madore@newsday.com

November 11, 2007

ALBANY - As the first crack seemed to appear in Gov. Eliot Spitzer's stone wall of support for driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, experts said yesterday that he should scrap the plan before it does further political damage.

With 72 percent of voters opposed to the license policy and Republicans whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment, the experts doubted Spitzer could reverse public opinion and advised him to concede defeat. They were responding to his comments on Friday, which suggested a willingness to consider shelving the license initiative.

"If he backs off, he helps Hillary Clinton and other Democrats running in 2008," said Stanley Klein, a political scientist at Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus and a GOP committeeman. "And if Spitzer doesn't, he won't be governor four years from now ... I think he finally came to recognize that."

Spitzer's spokeswoman Christine Anderson insisted yesterday that his less strident remarks did not signal a policy shift. Asked if the governor had changed his position, she said, "No, he has not."

In Puerto Rico on Friday, Spitzer said, "I don't think there's ever been an executive, a president, a governor who hasn't put out ideas, that at the end of the day there isn't support, and so things don't work out. But as of now, sure, I think this is the right idea from a security perspective. We'll wait and see."

Spitzer will discuss the license initiative on Wednesday in Washington with members of the state's congressional delegation. Democrats have said privately that they're worried the license plan will be used against them in the 2008 races.

Political observers accused Spitzer of bungling the issue. They said he shouldn't have surprised supporters with the plan and then not consulted them before agreeing to amendments.

"It's too late to recoup," said political scientist Jeffrey Stonecash of Syracuse University. "Eliot Spitzer harms himself endlessly by being so arrogant and so unwilling to say, 'I made a mistake.'"

Stonecash also said Clinton's campaign would be aided if Spitzer drops the licensing plan, but she still must recover from her flip-flop in a recent debate.

"She could salvage herself if she got out there and talked straight to people," Stonecash said. "She has to stop finessing."

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