One of the few arguments left for Senate GOP Lord Bruno and his fellows at the top to use to justify holding on to power (and keeping Albany as dysfunctional and closed as possible), is that “OMG!  If Dems take over the state senate, who will look out for Upstate???”

Umm, wrong.  Let’s take a look at who’s looking out for whom, shall we?

We mentioned yesterday that NYC mayor (last I heard NYC was downstate or something) was donating $500k to help the state senate GOP, and offering to personally campaign for GOP senators.  I’m sure he won’t want anything back from Bruno and crew for throwing them out such a huge lifeline in their darkest hour, right?  No obligation to NYC or anything? Speaking of NYC, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in if you buy that line of reasoning.

But don’t take my word for it.  Here’s an example from a recent NY Magazine article about Bloomberg and Bruno (h/t The Albany Project):

Bloomberg is one of the State Senate Republican’s most generous financial supporters; in turn, Bruno has delivered key political cover for many of Bloomberg’s projects, such as congestion pricing and gun control.

But let’s, for a moment, humor the state GOP fear/spin meisters and take a look at what might happen with Dems in control of the senate.   C’mon, what kind of checks/balances would they really provide?  Here’s two data points for ya, provided courtesy of observant writer politics64 (again, at TAP).

On State AG Andrew Cuomo (D):

 You will all no doubt recall the recent kudos of AG Andrew Cuomo regarding his prompt review and criticism of the Governors own investigation into the use of state Helicopters by Joe Bruno for personal use.   I can only imagine how the Bush justice department would have buried this if the President was the focus of criticism for this type of behavior!

On State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli (D):

New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli criticized Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his 2008-09 Executive Budget due to the increase in borrowed money in that budget. Debt burden cited as state’s fastest-rising budget line.

In a sobering assessment of the state budget proposal made last month by Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, the comptroller took to task his fellow Democrat’s plan. He said that it relies too much on borrowing and on overly optimistic ways to raise money, such as Spitzer’s controversial proposal to tax drug dealers.

Sure, I don’t like criticism of Spitz, but I also want him to “be all he can be”, as Syracuse blogmother NYCO put it once.  Constructive criticism is more than welcome, and far from the drowning, flailing propaganda put out by Bruno and crew (and Minarik and crew for that matter).

The upstate/downstate split is truly a red herring, intended to divide and conquer us, instead of reminding us that we’re all in this together, and the sooner we all start working towards a better, more hopeful, more sustainable and progressive future, the better off we all will be.