Behind the Albany Coup
By …is apparently Tom Golisano, who didn’t like the fact that New York state tax polcies weren’t being constructed for his personal benefit:
Mr. Golisano, a billionaire business executive, had spent heavily to help Mr. Smith and other Democrats win control of the Senate in the November election, and was angry to hear they were now planning to raise taxes on the wealthy. He expected an audience befitting a major financial patron.
Instead, he said, Mr. Smith played with his BlackBerry and seemed to barely listen.
“I said, ‘I’m talking to the wall here,’ ” Mr. Golisano recalled in an interview on Tuesday.
That meeting led to the dramatic collapse Monday of the Democrats’ grip on the Senate majority as a frustrated Mr. Golisano secretly planned with Republicans to persuade two Democrats to join them in ousting Mr. Smith.
If you want to see some major league wanking, see this video, in which he defends his plutocratic self-interest in the language of Broderism.