John Derbyshire, a transplant to my native Long Island, writes here of the palm-greasing, log-rolling, back-stabbing, and general grubbiness that pervade New York State politics, and the mediocrity and venality that characterize its practitioners — as seen most recently in Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s sordid hotel tryst, during which, like a true Albany hack, he used financial haggling as foreplay and spent an enormous amount of money in a vastly convoluted way on something he could have gotten much cheaper.

I’ve lived in New York State all my life, so in the normal course of events, I don’t notice these things. It’s like when we have summer guests at my parents’ house, and they appear at the breakfast table rubbing their eyes and say, “How can you sleep with all the noise from those crickets?” And we reply, “What crickets?” In similar fashion, for us Empire State lifers, the steady buzz of scandal and general oafishness emanating from up the Hudson River has long since faded into the background.

The trouble started way back in 1797, when the state capital was fixed permanently in Albany. Before then, the legislature had moved annually from place to place, meeting in Albany, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, and New York City. Eventually it became necessary to pick one place and stick with it, and the legislature chose Albany. There were many reasons, but the major one was to avoid concentrating too much power in the state’s biggest metropolis.

A lot of states have done similar things over the years. When I was in the fifth grade, Miss Rappe made us memorize all the state capitals, and it’s amazing how few of them anyone would ever have heard of otherwise: Pierre, Salem, Jefferson City, Montpelier . . . In most places, when a state government was organized, the collection of farmers and small-town lawyers who made up the territorial legislature got together and intentionally chose (or sometimes even created from scratch) a hick town far away from the temptations of the big city, where life would be pure and unsullied and opportunities for real-estate speculation would abound.

Another consideration was that the taxpayers didn’t want legislators to enjoy their jobs too much. If you spend all year plowing fields in Podunk, and then you get an expenses-paid trip to St. Louis or Omaha to transact the people’s business, naturally you’ll want to protract that business as long as possible. But if you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, you’ll wrap it up as quickly as you can and get the hell out, and your scope for screwing things up will be limited accordingly.

Technology destroyed this comfortable arrangement. Air conditioning, which came along in the mid-20th century, was one factor. Before a/c, nobody wanted to sit around a steamy building all day debating highway contracts, so state legislatures usually knocked things off sometime in mid-spring. Now there’s no limit on the mischief they can do, at least none imposed by the weather.

Another problem is modern transportation. Even in the railroad era, it could take a week in to get to Albany from remote parts of the state, and with the terrible roads of the early 20th century, auto travel was not much of an improvement. Today it’s routine for legislators to drive or fly home on weekends, so they don’t have to get homesick or neglect their businesses. Communications, too, have played a role; nowadays, even in Albany, one need not be cut off from civilization.

I don’t mean to put Albany down; it’s a nice place to live and work. There are plenty of universities in the area, with all the liveliness, culture, and stability that they bring, and a beautiful river landscape. But realistically, there’s nothing in the climate, the scenery, or the night life that sets Albany apart from lots of other small cities, which means there’s no particular reason to move there, temporarily or permanently, unless you’re intrigued by the idea of working in state government. And working in government, as a legislator or a bureaucrat, is one of the large class of occupations where if you actually want the job, you should be disqualified from holding it.

None but mediocrities are attracted by the minor opportunities that state government affords for changing society (or so Hillary says about Barack). If you have any marketable skills, you’ll need some kind of compensation for getting stuck in such a crummy job so far from home. And in Albany, the compensation usually comes in the interconvertible forms of money, power, or sex — or, in Governor Spitzer’s case, all three.

George Pataki, Spitzer’s predecessor as governor, was a typical Albany shnook, but a lazy one; he worked nineish to fiveish, took long lunch breaks, and went home to Peekskill on weekends. With that level of productivity, he couldn’t do too much harm, and a grateful electorate rewarded him with three terms. But our current governor shattered this cozily torpid arrangement by making sure everyone knew he was the meanest son of a bitch in New York State. That’s why it’s particularly pleasing to see Eliot Spitzer, who has made a career of slaying every dragon he finds that does not happen to be a political ally, impaled by his own lance.

– Fred Schwarz is an NR deputy-managing editor.