GOV. Paterson got a lot of applause at yesterday’s convocation of the usual suspects in Albany – but his inaugural ovation was no longer, nor more enthusiastic, than that tendered for state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
And why not? DiNapoli’s mere presence in the ornately appointed Assembly chamber was a rebuke to the man who was going to scrape Albany down to bedrock and rebuild it to his own specifications.
Eliot Spitzer has other things on his mind these days, but it’s worth recalling that he isn’t the only person elected to statewide office on Nov. 7, 2006, subsequently to disgrace himself.
Alan Hevesi, once a paragon and now a felon, resigned the comptrollership as part of a plea bargain involving the misuse of public money. And a newly minted Gov. Spitzer was determined that he, and not the Legislature, was going to fill the vacancy.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver decided otherwise; presently his personally dictated candidate, then-Assemblyman DiNapoli, got the job.
Spitzer never recovered, and yesterday’s ceremony in Albany was as much a celebration of his departure as it was an affirmation of Paterson’s arrival.
But make no mistake: David Paterson, after 23 years in the Legislature, was flanked by old friends as he delivered his inaugural speech yesterday afternoon.
Among them were:
* The dubious Silver. His ties to New York’s tort-law industry would be shocking if such conflicts weren’t so commonplace.
* Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, himself the subject of a lengthy federal corruption investigation.
* The 210 other members of the Legislature, each of them long beholden to Silver and Bruno for their personal perks in Albany, and for the home-town pork that gets them re-elected every year.
* And DiNapoli, hand-picked by the ethically compromised Silver for one of the most sensitive jobs in government – oversight of New York’s $124 billion budget and pension funds worth scores of billions more. As watchdogs go, this one seems pretty tame.
Thus is Albany ripe for another plucking.
Now the questions is: Can David Paterson transcend his past alliances and associations?
One can only hope.
And think back to the inauguration of Hugh L. Carey, in 1975. Carey was, essentially, a hail-fellow-well-met machine pol from Brooklyn – of whom not much was expected.
But when it counted, he transcended those expectations – did he ever! – and New York was saved from fiscal disaster.
Carey, of course, had surrounded himself with high-caliber advisors and appointed a quality cabinet.
In the crunch, that paid off.
Paterson can do no less than that if he expects to weather the troubles now on his horizon.
New York voted for profound change in 2006, and was profoundly disappointed in the results. What irony that the revelations of the past week couldn’t possibly have driven Spitzer’s poll numbers any lower than they already were.
So Paterson can expect a honeymoon, as well he should.
He needs to spend that time wisely, and he needs to keep in mind that those who were cheering him so loudly yesterday will be trying to take advantage of him tomorrow.
He has no friends now, and he mustn’t forget it.
mcmanus@nypost.com