Eliot Spitzer, the Attorney General of the State of New York, spoke at the home of Joan Kaye Cauthorn tonight. Spitzer is making the circuit of Democrat strongholds in his bid for the Governorship of New York this Fall.

The invitation was free (or rather, included with membership to the Democatic elite), as were the valet parking, beers, sauerkraut, hotdogs, and potato knishes. The 'who's who' of Arizona Democrats mingled comfortably.

The photographer explained that he had been called at the last minute by Joan... that's just the way she does things... 'remember that thing I told you about on the 24th?'. One time she had asked him to photograph a Gabrielle Giffords function - as he was preparing to leave, she stopped him. She was writing out a check. 'I was going to pay you, you know... I just wanted to see if you would do it for free.'

As I stood in line for a beer, two political candidates introduced themselves to me. I took my beer back to my seat in the shade of a tree, as Joan got up to the microphone on the porch. "Let's go folks. I'm Joan and this is my house." She introduced a Judge, who introduced Gabrielle, who then introduced the Judge again, who introduced Spitzer.

The Judge read quotes about Spitzer, one of which was from the Wall Street Journal. Spitzer explained that it's not often he doesn't read a headline attacking him. One read, 'Mr. Spitzer on line one. Four words you never want to hear.' "You couldn't open the paper without thinking I was the major force undermining capitalism today."

Spitzer has used his position as Attorney General with jurisdiction over Wall Street to prosecute big corporations for white collar crimes. He told a story about a corporation who tried to defend themselves against charges of fraud by saying that they were not guilty because their competitors were worse. Shareholder value was more important than obeying the rules. "We have very powerful friends," they warned him. He said that his response would have been censored on network television, and that it was a stupid thing to say. Spitzer sued them, and on the morning of the judgement, the company's stock fell $8 billion. "Where are your powerful friends now?" he asked. "Why aren't they buying stock in your company?"

He went on to make the point that without transparency and accountability in corporate and state governance, we will end up with an aristocracy or an oligarchy. The audience applauded this sentiment, despite the fact that they are about as close to an aristocracy as the State of Arizona has ever seen.

The main theme of the talk was "No one is too big to evade the law, and no one is too small to not have access to the law."

Spitzer ran for office using a law that is unique to New York. Candidates can run for several different parties on the same ballot. In 1998, He ran on the Liberal Party ticket, and in 2002 on the Independence Party ticket.

I approached Spitzer after the talk, as no question time was allowed. I asked him if he thought there was any way to break the two party deadlock and allow other parties to get seats in congress. "Not any time soon." he replied.

"Do you think you would have been elected without a multi-party system?" I asked.

"As it turns out, no, I would not have"

"The Democrats have quite a bit of leverage on this issue. So would you support lowering the barriers for other parties on a Federal level?"

"I don't think that's going to happen any time soon."