The Orange County Register and Left Angeles Times report today on Rackauckas' official announcement of his intent to seek re-election to a third -- and final -- term.
In response to the "final" part, Spitzer began laying the ground-work for abandoning his challenge without looking like he's backing down in the face of overwhelming opposition from elected officials, the Republican Party, donors, activists and law enforcement. He told the LAT:
"My intent has never been to split the Republican Party, the law enforcement community or the general public over a race for district attorney," Spitzer said. "I'm still very motivated to run. But what I'm saying is, you can't ignore the fact that he's saying he's running for just one term…. Given the fact that he's made this announcement, it has to be analyzed," he said.
Translation: after a decent interval, I'll be a unifying hero and withdraw for the sake of party unity, after extracting commitments from movers-and-shakers to back me for D.A. in 2010.
Spitzer must realize he has boxed himself in and needs an honorable exit strategy. In addition to staring at the likelihood of entering political oblivion by losing to Rackauckas, Spitzer knows that an increasing number of candidates are circling his Assembly seat. If he waits too long to decide to run for re-election, some of those candidates might feel too committed to drop out in his favor. So instead of cruising to re-election to a final Assembly term, he'd have to burn a lot of campaign dollars staving off an unnecessary primary challenge -- dollars he could otherwise use to run for Dick Ackerman's Senate seat in 2008.
Furthermore, if Spitzer persists in carrying on his D.A. campaign too long, he might so alienate Rackauckas supporters that they'd support a challenge to Spitzer in order to give him a taste of his own medicine -- or at least sit on their hands and not help him.
Comments