Eliot Spitzer's been making the upstate rounds the past couple of days, and he took a bus tour through Syracuse yesterday.

He stopped in exactly two places – the Inner Harbor and the SU men's basketball game – and said the city has "potential."

Fantastic.

He's stepping into the top job in the state – a state that owes back taxes on a building in town, holding up a major renovation there; a state that, when it reports to us in mid-January what it plans to do with respect to the Inner Harbor, will have been sitting on its hands for fully 11 months after it said it was dumping the Pyramid Cos. as preferred developer.

Spitzer ran on a platform of change  being a political outsider  not being connected downstate well, people know his name and he's not George Pataki.

So, his telling the mayor, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and other officials that the city has "potential" and that he'd "try to divert some development money" our way might make him feel good, but it doesn't actually help the city in any way.

We'll just have to wait and see if we're getting something besides lip service. I'm not holding my breath.