Eliot Spitzer's Inaugural Address

As a native New Yorker, I'm very excited about Governor Eliot Spitzer's agenda for reform that starts on "Day 1."  Governor Spitzer is an old friend of NDN and the need for new, progressive government was at the heart of his inaugural address this morning:

The reform we seek is substantial in size and historic in scope.

It will require a new brand of politics – a break from the days when progress was measured by the partisan points scored or the opponents defeated. No longer can we afford merely to tinker at the margins of the status quo or play the politics of pitting one group against another. We must replace delay and diversion with energy and purpose in the halls of our capital.

What we needed now more than ever is a politics that binds us together, a politics that looks to the future, a politics that asks not what is in it for me, but always what is in it for us.
We must embrace a progressive vision of government once more – a vision that upholds the values of individuality and community; of entrepreneurship and opportunity; of responsibility and fairness. No one any longer believes in government as a heavy hand that can cure all our ills, but rather we see it as a lean and responsive force that can make possible the pursuit of prosperity and opportunity for all -- by softening life’s blows, leveling its playing field and making possible the pursuit of happiness that is our god given right.

Governor Spitzer also looked back to two of New York's most famous former Governors, calling for a sense of shared responsability and hard work, as Teddy Roosevelt did before him:

As New York’s former Governor Theodore Roosevelt once remarked, there can be no great progress without first entering the arena.

My fellow New Yorkers: join me in that arena.

Lend your sweat, your toil and your passion to the effort of building One New York of which we can all be proud.

And recalled the energy of FDR, while channeling his optimism:

Franklin Roosevelt advised us to be, "bold," and to recognize that people demand "action, and action now." 

...no matter how great the hardship, no matter how daunting the challenge, the promise of our democracy makes it possible to overcome the greatest odds so that we -- individually and as a society -- may arrive at a greater good.

Here at NDN we applaud Governor Spitzer's modern, forward looking agenda, and committment to creating new politics in the Empire State.  We'll be watching his administration closely in the days, weeks and years ahead.

Read the entire speech

Update 1/3/07: watch video of the speech