Jacob Gershman of the New York Post thinks, again, that he has Shelly Silver all figured out, by not having him all figured out. Or something like that. Let's guess this is an improvement from Jacob's last iteration on Silver as The Devil who'd convinced New York State that he didn't really exist.
I'm not really sure why, but people like Jacob prefer to view Silver as if he exists in some kind of vacuum. And Jacob does so again in his latest piece. Spitzer made the same dumb mistake. A bunch of times. Here's what they can't seem to get: Thinking about Silver through this prism is akin to deconstructing the Yankee's championship run by psychoanalyzing Joe Torre. While this may be amusing, or even interesting, it's pretty much useless--without talking about the entire team.
Things just aren't nearly as complex as Jacob thinks they are. Silver is successful and able to function as "de facto governor" because he has with him 108 other Democratic members--the largest functioning political unit in the state (and maybe the US). Moreover, the Assembly has the only experienced programmatic and political staff in the state (with the possible exception of the now-scattered Pataki/Bruno holdovers). But building the core staff that helped get these 109 members elected--or can disambiguate MTA bond covenants at 2 AM--doesn't happen by accident. Which is to say there's a lot more hard work than suspiciously good fortune in this thing.
And don't blame the guy that the Assembly Republican conference made his life easier by electing this person as their leader. But he'll nonetheless work with them if treated with a modicum of respect (and lucidity). Again, this isn't exactly quantum mechanics.
Nor does it hurt that Silver doesn't hatch dumbass, banana-republic plots against people he doesn't like. Nor attempts to publicly humiliate them, even when goaded. And also unlike Spitzer, he puts people like Tom DiNapoli in office rather than Martha Stark--let's just leave it at that. Nor will you catch him hobnobbing with the elite in the Hamptons, or Davos or Telluride. How come? Because those places aren't in his district.
Ultimately, the speaker's got a tremendously difficult and taxing job. Given the geographic, economic and ethnic diversity of his conference, and how to lead this conference towards consensus, or let the conference lead him, isn't an easy thing. Yet the underlying calculus is easy: If he does this right, he gets to stay speaker, if he doesn't, then he doesn't. People aren't blind to any of this, and as a result, current and past conference members realize and appreciate the job he does for them--but mostly how unbelievably prescient his political judgment and instincts are. Don't believe this? Just ask any of them.
But if it's still a fashionable civic statement to despise Silver, or proselytize his demise like Jacob Gershman, or send e-hate mail to bloggers like NGD that "shill" for him, or maybe attribute his success to secret Santeria ceremonies--go right ahead, knock yourself out. Silver and the Assembly will just keep on doing what they're doing--which is doing what they've always done.
The only thing that's changed is everything and everybody else.
