As the grim first anniversary of his governorship nears — with Albany as much of a mess as ever — Eliot Spitzer is backing up the steamroller, the Sun reports. According to the paper’s mysteriously high-placed source, the governor is shaking up his staff “at the urging of his wife and one of his closest friends.” The former is, of course, Silda Wall, while the latter is Lloyd Constantine, a mentor figure since Spitzer’s law-school days. Their advice, supposedly: Ditch chief of staff Richard Baum and chief political operative Ryan Toohey, both stained by the Troopergate, as a show of a “clean break” for the voters. Frankly, we had no idea the duo held such sway over Spitzer’s staffing choices; the recent Vanity Fair feature, for example, mentions the governor “turning more to seasoned advisers such as Constantine,” but Silda only rates a cameo as the girl that “made him smile.” If true, this is fairly huge: It means that the governor, like all beleaguered leaders, is getting all Circle of Trust on us — which amounts to a tacit recognition of failure. For his part, Spitzer has “yet to make a move.”

In the meantime, the one Troopergate character that did get tossed out, Darren Dopp, is continuing to make waves from well outside the inner circle. Spitzer’s former communication chief is in the headlines for supposedly calling Andrew Cuomo an animal; it’s all part of an utterly tedious dispute over whether the statement Dopp gave to the attorney general is a valid document or an unsworn dodge. The Gov has Dopp’s back, kind of: He endorsed his side of the story yesterday … “through aides.” And we all know how much Spitzer values his aides these days. —Michael Idov

Spitzer Readies a Shake-Up of Personnel [NYS]
Spitz Vs. DA on Dopp ‘Lie’ [NYP]
Former Eliot Spitzer Aide Calls Andrew Cuomo 'An Animal' – Sources [NYDN]