Halloween Comes Early to WALL STREET JOURNAL - Activist AG Dressed As Good For Business

Today, the bible of business THE WALL STREET JOURNAL has a commentary titled "Spitzer Is Good for Business."  The John Hancock on it is that of Donald G. Kempf Jr., former executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary of Morgan Stanley.  I have no idea why Kempf Jr. restricted his claim to just Eliot Spitzer.  He should have gone on to opine how other activist Attorney Generals - e.g. Rhode Island's Patrick Lynch and Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal - are also wonderful for a state's economic development.  That would have made this early Halloween costume party of dressing up an activist AG as business-friendly a brilliant noir comedy (right up there with "Desperate Housewives").

The very headline "Spitzer Is Good for Business" gets our guard up or it should.  It's lthe old Richard Nixon saying: I'm no crook. 

Actually, my hunch is that Spitzer has been such a threat to economic development that he has no option, when elected New York Governor which seems a sure thing, to do an extreme makeover in his attitudes and actions.  He could become good for business, that is if he can.  Think about it: Can a former worker-bee state AG like Spitzer morph into a macro economic development type?  Take a peek at Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class" to check out what those economic development types need to be in the 21st century.  No way Jose do Spitzer, Lynch and Blumenthal measure up to performing that mission as mapped out by Florida.

No question, Spitzer is in as Gov.  But we can prevent the other activist state AGs like the Lynch and the Blumenthal kinds from also taking on a higher office.