Frontrunner Draws Support From CU Dems

Spotlights and smiles lit up West Harlem last night as hundreds of staff members and volunteers for New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer celebrated a landslide victory over Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi in Tuesday's Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que-which opened its first restaurant in Syracuse, N.Y.-hosted victory parties at its three locations in Spitzer's honor. The 131st Street location served up chicken wings and pork sandwiches as the attorney general spoke to the crowd under the lights of every major news outlet.

While the Columbia University College Democrats will focus on other, more contested races in the New York State House and Senate heading into November's general election, support for the gubernatorial favorite does not exist without passion.

Students for Spitzer, one of the Columbia Democrats' candidate-based umbrella groups, has supported the campaign since its inception in fall 2004-starting with a Facebook group called, "Eliot Spitzer Kicks Ass"-and sent a small contingent of volunteers to the event.

"It's very exciting that we're going to have New York taken back and controlled by Democrats," said Kristen O'Neil, BC '07, who is applying for an internship on Spitzer's campaign. "Something about Eliot Spitzer, the first time I saw him speak ... I realized that he was going to be big, and I wanted to be a part of that."

The group was the first of its kind in the state to support Spitzer, and since, it has been replicated at several college campuses around New York, although Columbia Students for Spitzer president Jess Blakemore, BC '07, says Columbia's is the most organized.

Several of the students involved in the Spitzer group also have ties to Senator Hillary Clinton's office-Blakemore volunteered for the senator for two years before starting with the Spitzer campaign. She now works at the Spitzer campaign's Madison Avenue office four days a week, usually until 10 p.m.

"It's a huge part of my life," she said. "I don't really consider any of it work, because it's so much fun for me."

Outside of Tuesday night's event, volunteers were confronted with a sight familiar to many Columbia students-about 10 protesters marching with signs, denouncing Columbia's proposed expansion into Manhattanville, and demanding that Spitzer oppose the use of eminent domain in the area.

"Eliot Spitzer is portraying himself as a progressive candidate," said community activist Tom DeMott, noting that many of the protesters voted for Spitzer in the primary. "Unfortunately, in practice, his real estate connections and his basic position on eminent domain-which is in favor-will result in a very unprogressive position in terms of the West Harlem community."