Joe Bruno a complex man and politician

It was about 2003 when the phone rang in my newspaper office.

“‘Fred? Joe Bruno. Listen, I hear you’ve gotten bad news about your prostate. I’m sorry about that, and of course listen to what your doctor tells you, but nutrition is very important. Tomatoes. Eat a lot of tomatoes, tomato sauce. Stay away from red meat. You can beat this.”

He also recommended some vitamins and supplements, although I’ve forgotten what they were.

A bit overwhelmed, I didn’t say much, thanked him for his concern, and he was off the line.

It took a minute, but finally it dawned on me how happy I was to hear from him. For one, he seemed totally genuine in his concern. And, given that we were not the best of friends, and he was a busy, busy man, such a call was totally unexpected.

As it fortunately turned out for me, a biopsy was negative. Joe was not so lucky. I believe he was undergoing robust and rather nasty therapy at the time, and I saw one published report last week after we learned he had died at 91 that the cause was prostate cancer.

I do wish we had that conversation back again so I could have given him a boost right back.

All of this is a lead-up to my view that Joseph Louis Bruno, both the man and political creature, were pretty complicated.

To be sure, this is not the time or place to give a hard look at the big ledger, but he was such a significant player in the Capital Region, Joe’s memory invites a respectful observation or two. Others, no doubt, will see him differently. So be it.

By significant, I mean top tier. Having a clear view of the parade as a newspaperman here in Albany for 53 years, I watched the rise and fall of Joe Bruno, and many others. In terms of impact on our region, largely through his adroit use of state funds for small and big ticket economic development projects that are well documented, I put him in the same class as Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and Rep. Sam Stratton. Rockefeller gave us a billion-dollar plus rehab of Albany, and Stratton provided a federal pipeline to the Watervliet Arsenal, General Electric, the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, and gave us I-88. One report I read says Joe got us around $3 billion in financials.

Politically, he could be hardheaded, vindictive, hyper-partisan and plainly wrong-headed. He was a deeply conservative Republican and I was none of

that. At the same time he was plain spoken, said what he meant and meant what he said, and his word was bond. That sounds like boilerplate for a politician, but in truth it is exceedingly rare. He also returned his own calls, was easily annoyed, didn’t care for lawyers and would tell you if he thought you were wasting his time.

Personally, he was warm, really funny, could meet and greet anybody — and he loved to. I’ve never seen any politician warm to a crowd like Joe Bruno. Rocky didn’t give a poop about the people of the Capital Region. He was pouring big money into the capital city because its shabbiness reflected on him.

Joe, and Sam for that matter, really loved this region and the people in it.

A member of the management team at Joe’s company, Coradian, remembers him as a so-so businessman, but a stellar salesman. He loved dealing with people and could easily relate to anyone, a rare gift.

So back at my desk, during the Gov. George Pataki years, which was Joe’s heyday. At a time when we had a robust two-party system in state government and were so much the better for it. I wrote a column poking at the influence he peddled to find lucrative state employment for a number of relatives.

He called.

“‘Fred, why should my family suffer because I have a big state job?’ ’’ I admired how he flipped the obvious. What he was really saying was, why shouldn’t my family benefit from my having the pull to get them jobs. We agreed to disagree, which was another hallmark of his style. But it points to the one great and yawning blind side that brought him down eventually.

The acceptable perks of old school politics were admittedly ill-defined. Even so, within the political community, there was a lot of wincing and eye-rolling that went on during the two federal trials. Much was revealed about how Joe Bruno defined those perks, and it was not flattering.

The feds were not wrong to go after him. At the same time, Joe never accepted that he had done anything wrong.

Joe was smart enough to get the best legal talent around with E. Stewart Jones and Bill Dreyer, and the feds muddled the prosecution. The acquittal speaks for itself.

Or does it?

Was it vindication? In name only.

By my observation, federal prosecutions destroy reputations regardless of verdicts. Time, though, can bring a reputation back. Joe would like that.