Eliot Spitzer has gotten so eager to end his war with Joe Bruno that he’s been amenable to letting Alfonse D’Amato, the state’s ultimate backroom deal-maker, help broker a peace. He and Spitzer have “gotten to know each other in recent years,” says a Spitzer confidante. “And it’s no secret he’s also close to Bruno.” Of course, D’Amato, the ex-senator and Republican lobbyist, would love to play elder statesman “and has made it known that he’d like to be helpful,” the source says. D’Amato broke ranks with his party to support Spitzer, and his family gave him money too. His first effort at getting the two together failed though, after D’Amato invited both to his 70th-birthday bash August 1 and neither showed. Spitzer was at a funeral in Rochester for five girls who died in a car crash. As for Bruno, when D’Amato called to invited him, his staff suspected backchannel diplomacy was afoot. Why end such a good war so soon?

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Geoffrey Gray
• Table of Contents: Aug 13, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!