ALBANY - “Eliot Spitzer has one set of rules for Eliot Spitzer and one for everyone else.”

That's not from the now loud chorus of Spitzer bashers since the Democrat resigned March 17 after being implicated in a prostitution investigation. It was said, repeatedly, throughout the 2006 campaign for governor by Republican candidate John Faso.

Back then, though, Faso fought for any attention in the face of the Spitzer campaign. With the help of millions of dollars in slick television ads and a wildly popular crusader for a candidate, the Spitzer juggernaut drowned out what was perhaps the most talented bunch of candidates for governor in decades in New York.

Spitzer's popularity forced an early exit by Republican Bill Weld, the former Massachusetts governor with New York roots and the only candidate who ever ran a state and cut state taxes. It also forced out Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, who lost big to Spitzer in the September 2006 primary even though Suozzi had real experience in crafting budgets, cutting taxes and saying “no” to special interests.

Spitzer, as governor, eventually turned to Suozzi as the most qualified guy to run a special commission to find ways to cap property taxes.

But it was the warnings by Faso, trounced by Spitzer by a historic margin in the general election, that came back to haunt New York this week. And it came from Spitzer's lieutenant governor-turned successor, Gov. David Paterson.

It was Faso, Paterson said in central New York Tuesday, who forced the property tax issue back in 2006.

Now, Paterson is calling for up to a 10-percent cut in spending in the face of a screeching slow down of the economy, and a critical look at the STAR tax subsidy program. STAR now provides $5 billion in state funds to school districts which are supposed to use it to cut or curb school taxes, the biggest property tax for most New Yorkers. But school taxes keep going up, despite almost annual record increases in state school aid, on top of STAR increases.

“I just know that when we put STAR in, property taxes went up 7 percent for five straight years,” Paterson said, sounding a lot like Faso. “Our response as a government is to create more STAR.”

In 2006, Faso had warned voters that Spitzer wouldn't stand up to special interests, despite his promises to rein in state spending. Spitzer's 2007 budget ballooned to an 8-percent increase in spending; his January 2008 budget proposal called for a 5-percent increase, a figure that had to be whittled down as tax revenues continued to sink.

In 2006, candidate Faso promised to submit a first budget with no spending increase to head off the predicted hard fiscal times ahead.

In September of that year, The Associated Press had out-of-state tax and public policy authorities review the property tax proposals of Spitzer, Suozzi and Faso. Faso was credited with the one that would return money fast to New Yorkers and place a needed cap on spending - something Spitzer at the time opposed.

“Providing the STAR program without a cap is a recipe for failure,” Faso said Wednesday from his Manhattan law and lobbying office. “We would have been better off without STAR at this juncture because all it did was provide momentary relief without fixing the overall problem.”

Today it sounds prophetic. Back in 2006, Faso was dismissed or ignored by most voters, campaign donors and some news organizations.

The polls gave Spitzer a 50-percent lead through much of the race and Spitzer TV commercials were everywhere, while Faso had trouble scraping up enough for a couple regional ads. Less than a month before Election Day, Spitzer had raised $39.1 million to Faso's $3.4 million.

In October 2006, Faso even tried to tell New York that one of Spitzer's policy ideas was just plain crazy. That's when Spitzer's plan surfaced to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses. A year later, it would trigger a national firestorm and be Spitzer's biggest policy debacle, hurting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign in the process.

But the issue didn't get traction in 2006, despite newspaper coverage.

The point isn't - as some in Albany are now claiming - that Spitzer was a fraud. His ideas - some implemented, others on track to be - remain the best blue print for reform in Albany in decades.

The point is that in 2006, when it counted, few listened to Faso, Suozzi or Weld. Warm-focus TV ads, boisterous rallies and big endorsements carried the day and Spitzer had the market on those.

More people may be listening now to what Faso said then.

Perhaps most importantly, Paterson is.

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Michael Gormley is the Albany, N.Y., Capitol editor for The Associated Press. He can be reached by e-mail at mgormley(at)ap.org.

AP-ES-04-23-08 1451EDT