George,

To put Mayor Rudy Guiliani's AD in it's proper historic context, it was the first big New York City politician - Alexander Hamilton - who was Jefferson's great rival for the philosophic soul of the nation. Admittedly, Hamilton and Jefferson's protege - James Madison - hooked up to get the Constitution approved, surely something seconded in Virginia (although the Old Dominion vote was reasonably close and in doubt until Madison and others took control of the debate). .

But Hamilton and Jefferson had a different take on certain key concepts, as did Jefferson's greatest Virginia rival, John Marshall of Richmond, who in many respects rewrote the Constitution as far as Jefferson was concerned.

Tom Jeff and Alex were the odd couple in Washington's cabinet, with Tom Jeff seen as the tribune of the working people and Alex seen as the protector of the financial class.

Yet they eventually were part of a VA/Empire State electoral college coalition and in that regard were part of the first real political party-type alliance in American politics. The two states cut a deal and it began with the Jefferson/Burr ticket of 1800. Aaron Burr was another New Yorker and surely what followed in the presidential election of 1800 is proof positive of the old political adage: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Aaron and Alex hated -- that is the only way to put it -- each other, and some say it stems from something which occurred while both were at Valley Forge on the staff of General Washington.

Anyway, the founders of the nation had created a glitch in the electoral college procedures for choosing a President and this was not discovered until the balloting in 1800. Jefferson, the Virginian, was supposed to be the President candidate and Burr, the New Yorker, was supposed to be the VEEP choice on the first-ever quasi-party ticket.

But they each wound-up with the same number of electoral votes due to the way the electoral votes were counted. This put the election into the House of Representatives. It went more than three dozen ballots. Legend says neither Jefferson nor Burr tried to cut any deals for the job, which strikes me as totally out of character really for both of these practical politicians.

At any rate, Jefferson eventually prevailed (I think it was the vote of the guy from Rhode Island, but I can't remember and am too lazy to look it up), and
he got the Oval Office and Burr got the job John Adams called the most bizarre ever created by sane men and women.

As we know, Burr and Jefferson didn't get along, and Aaron knew he was like Henry Wallace in 1944; he wasn't going to be asked to serve a second term.

SO, in 1804, he ran for Governor of New York, a job Mr. Guiliani may want some day. But he got beat, in part due to the efforts of Alexander Hamilton, who wrote a letter suggesting Mr. Burr had some skeletons in his closet of a sexual nature.

After losing the GUV race, Burr used the letter to get Hamilton into a duel in Weehawken, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. Aaron baby was still the sitting VEEP.

As I remember the stories, Burr is alleged to have switched guns or something, and Alex's seconds claim he never shot at Burr, but rather aimed
at tree. We do know Burr had been taking target practice for weeks, and his aim was true. The wounded Hamilton was taken back to the Big Apple, but died the next day.

Murder warrants in two states were issued for the sitting VEEP, but he fled South to Phillie and I think ultimately to South Carolina.

No one missed him in Washington and the murder charge was never pursued.

But so started the Virginia/New York connection. Jefferson's second VEEP was Dewitt Clinton, former Governor of New York, who actually opposed passage of the Constitution.

This led to the great irony of James Madison, one of the true fathers of the Constitution, also agreeing to take Dewitt Clinton as a VEEP.

Monroe had former New York Governor Daniel Tompkins as a VEEP for two terms.

This era of Virginia Presidents and New York Vice-presidents is known as the Era of Good Feelings and the boys won election easily. Three VA Presidents had a total of 3 different New Yorkers for 5 terms in the second spot. Elbridge Gerry (the shape of his congressional district gave raise to term "gerrymander") of MASS served one VEEP term under Madison, dying in office.

Now, two centuries later, hat in hand, Mr. Earley has gone up to New York in hopes apparently of recapturing the spirit of 200 years ago.

For me, Mr. Earley has run a retro campaign, with little vision of the future and a lot of old, negative attacks and tactics we basically demolished in 1989 with the Wilder campaign.

Okay, maybe demolished is too strong given the razor thin margin of victory; but as the Richmond Times Dispatch said the other day, Earley was making the same complaints about Warner's successful campaign strategy as Coleman made in 1989 about Wilder's. Must confess, these complaints are music to my ears.

Last I heard of Rudy in Virginia politics, it was then AG Earley suing Mayor Rudy for turning Virginia into the out-of-state trash heap of the Southland; and Rudy telling us we should be proud to take his trash.

SO, at least we know where the copies of the Mayor's TV will be buried once the election is over and Mr. Earley has all the time he will need to
read up on Burr and Hamilton and Clinton and Tompkins and the whole Virginia/New York connection of those many years ago.

Paul Goldman (electronic mail, November 3, 2001).