ALBANY - Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer rolled into office on a promise to clean up and energize a moribund government beholden to special interests, and one of the state's top Republicans looked like a man with a target on his back.

Instead, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno has the upper hand on Spitzer - nicknamed the Steamroller - just seven months into the governor's first term and as the GOP fights to keep its slim majority in an increasingly Democratic state.

“Steamrollers don't do very well when the going gets tough. Going uphill, they just spin,” Bruno said, “and he didn't know that. But he's finding out now.”

The turning point came last week, when Attorney General Andrew Cuomo issued a report on the Spitzer administration's attempt to embarrass Bruno over flights to New York City on state aircraft.

Cuomo found Bruno's mixed itinerary of politics and policy made the trips legal under the state's loose regulations. But Cuomo condemned two top Spitzer aides for using state police to compile the records on Bruno and for orchestrating media leaks.

Spitzer spent the week backpedaling, writing an apology on The New York Times opinion page.

Pushed out of the news were stories about a federal investigation into Bruno's business dealings.

Bruno himself announced the probe in December but said he has done nothing wrong and was cooperating with the investigation. Federal prosecutors have refused to discuss it.

With his earthy nature and head of snow-white hair, the canny 78-year-old Bruno is something of an anti-Spitzer. While the jut-jawed, 48-year-old governor is a son of privilege who went to Harvard, Bruno was raised poor - “next to the box cars” - and struggled in school before joining the Army and getting a business degree.

Bruno didn't stay poor. He made his fortune selling a phone system business and was first elected to the state Senate in 1976.

In 1994, he led a successful coup against then-Senate Majority Leader Ralph Marino, a fellow Republican, and has aggressively worked to maintain what is now a 33-29 GOP majority, even inducing some Democrats to switch parties through promises of pork back home, according to one Senator who refused the offer.

Bruno has been aggressive in directing millions of dollars into his own Albany-area district for everything from airport improvements to the construction of Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, known locally as “The Joe.”

Now, he says he's a victim of “political espionage” by the Spitzer administration and is calling for further investigation - a move that would continue to sidetrack the governor's ambitious agenda, which includes health care reform, improved schools and property tax cuts.

“This is not going to go away,” Bruno said. “This is not going to be swept under a rug until we know the truth.”