Gianaris Says GOP Is Taking Page from Mitt Romney Playbook

Politicker wrote about the passage of major Democratic priorities during the special legislative session.

he buzz around Albany yesterday was that Gov. Andrew Cuomo did the Senate Republicans a huge favor by taking the millionaire’s tax off the table in his tax overhaul plan. The thinking was that without that wedge issue to run against, Democrats have been denied a key talking point going into the 2012 elections.

On Fred Dicker’s radio show today, Queens Sen. Michael Gianaris, who is in charge of the Democratic effort, said Republicans should be praised for adopting the Democratic agenda.

“They helped us pass same-sex marriage in June. They helped us pass a progressive tax structure just yesterday,” he said. “I am giving them credit for helping us achieve the goals that we set out to achieve at the beginning of this year.”

Mr. Gianaris said that it was not a winning strategy for them, “When given the choice between Republicans that act like Democrats or actual Democrats, we can expect that the voters are going to elect real Democrats to run the state legislature.”

He noted that the GOP flip-flop on pledging to not raise taxes, just as they appear set to flip-flop on non-partisan redistricting, and he compared them to another prominent Republican to be labeled with the flip-flopping charge.

“I noticed a lot of the leadership of the Senate conference endorsed Mitt Romney last week. It sems to me that are changing their positions about as frequently as he has,” he said.

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