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Target: Spitzer

Langone contributed to Suozzi’s recent reelection, and in an interview on NY1 last month, Suozzi said that he thought Spitzer was “overreaching” in the Langone-Grasso case based on recent depositions. Independent political consultant Hank Sheinkopf says if Suozzi runs and accepts money from Langone, “it could make a good television commercial for Eliot because it goes to his strengths—that he took on Wall Street for average people.” He adds that Suozzi may be in the position where he might “have to talk away Langone’s contributions, and that’s not insignificant.”

Suozzi hasn’t committed to run; his campaign manager, Kim Devlin, will say only that “right now Tom is still enjoying his great reelection victory, and setting forth his agenda for the next couple of years.” But aides say he has taken preliminary steps, and he is in regular consultation with Langone. The two are becoming so close that just as I begin quizzing Langone about Suozzi’s chances, he receives a call from the man himself. They chat for about five minutes, discussing some conversation Langone had with his deep-pocketed friends about Suozzi, before Langone tells him, “The bottom line is we’re going to do everything we have to do to get you elected in a way that we can all be proud that we did it.”

That might be more than $30 million can buy. As Spitzer’s staff never tires of pointing out, Suozzi, for all his political gifts, is a nobody outside Nassau County, and polls show Spitzer beating him by a comfortable margin.

According to Langone, Spitzer has tried to call a truce. Spitzer comes from a real-estate family, and their circles overlap a bit. Last year, they ran into each other at a black-tie event, where Spitzer remarked that “we have mutual friends who say in another life you and I would be friends.” Langone replied, “Not likely,” and then walked away. At another point, Spitzer was so angry at what Langone was saying behind his back that he told former GE chief executive Jack Welch that he wanted to “put a spike through Langone’s heart.”

Early on in this case, Spitzer’s rhetoric had a hard edge. In the New York Post, he called the Grasso pay package “grotesque,” said that both Langone and Grasso “violated the law,” and that he has nothing but “disdain” for the way they both acted. Spitzer declined to comment for this story, but his spokesman, Darren Dopp, says the attorney general remains committed to seeing the case through. But in recent months, it’s clear that Spitzer has toned it down—an indication that he may be feeling less confident about his chances after taking depositions from NYSE board members.

At the Cato Institute speech, Langone says, he will try to show that his problems with Spitzer aren’t purely personal—that there’s a broader argument to be made about how out-of-control prosecution hurts business. “Why would any businessman ever want to come to New York State if this guy becomes governor?” he asks. Spitzer’s staff says the attorney general is ready to debate Langone on this point by point. “There isn’t an industry that we’re involved in that hasn’t emerged stronger,” says Dopp. “The investment banks have come roaring back; the mutual funds are seeing better inflows of customer money.” And Marsh & McLennan’s recent earnings have been strong, too, he says.

Dopp adds that “Mr. Langone is free to express his opinion, and he seems to enjoy doing it.” That’s something anyone who knows Langone would readily admit. Several weeks ago, when Grasso suggested in a brief interview that he might want to settle, Langone went nuclear, telling his good friend that he wouldn’t speak to him if he did that. Grasso, who declined to comment for this story, later said he had no plans to settle the case, but he has told people that he thinks the mess has “added ten years to Kenny’s life.”

When he walks into San Pietro, Wall Street’s version of the high-school cafeteria, Langone says, he is constantly being stopped and told to keep fighting the good fight. “My view is that Spitzer will delay the trial until after the election,” he says. “He doesn’t have the guts to confront me in court.”