Russell Simmons: I'll Campaign Against Spitzer

As he said this week on NY1, Russell Simmons told me today that he is angry that Eliot Spitzer has failed to reform the Rockefeller Drug Law sentencing guidelines—one of his campaign pledges.

“Not only will I campaign against him," Simmons said over the phone. "I’m going to campaign for a change in those laws and he is going to have to stand up and explain why he promised the state of New York that he is going to make this change and when he got in office, he pushed it to the side.”

“We know Eliot Spitzer has to be our target," he added.

When I asked Simmons about his plans for 2010, the hip-hop mogul said, "Is he going to run again? He ought to step down.”

But Simmons will be more likely to keep talking than to financially back a challenger.

“I don’t raise money," he said. "That’s not what I do. I raise awareness. [That] is much more valuable, much more hurtful. My tool is not money. My tool is the relationship with the people. And my tool is the fact that I can bring an awareness to this guy not living up to his promise.”

One occasionally-mentioned potential challenger to Spitzer is Andrew Cuomo, who Simmons endorsed for governor in 2002 and attorney general in 2006.

Would Simmons encourage Cuomo to challenge Spitzer? Not really, he told me, saying that Cuomo hasn't acted on this issue either.

“He needs help too. He needs people to push him too,” Simmons said.

But there is one elected official Simmons has positive words for.

“Governor Pataki, every year I would call him up every Christmas and he would give me somebody. Every Christmas he would give someone. He would stand up and release people and stand up and look at their records and pay attention.”