Wanted: bigger leaders

I met Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, who got his job last summer, for the first time today. We were on the same radio show.

I of course had heard a lot about him and my impressions that he is a serious, smart man with much to offer to the state were confirmed.

I had just arrived in 1975 when New York City almost collapsed financially, and remember he had a key role in pulling it out of the hole.

Now, at 76, he is trying to help the state to do the same thing. This is a much harder job, he said.

It got me thinking about whether leaders were just bigger then, or is it because I am older now and have seen more that they just seem smaller now?

Through the prism of time, the city's fiscal crisis of 35 years ago is generally viewed as the finest hour in New York government and politics in the current era. Republicans, Democrats, unions, business and others all pulled together to help solve the city's problems. Gov. Hugh Carey was seen as a tower of strength.

Where are such leaders now? Can't anybody think beyond the next election? Can't anybody think of the state's financial situation beyond this year? Can anybody move the antagonistic parties to the myriad disputes tying us in knots to to compromise for the greater good?

These questions obviously aren't limited to either politics or to New York. Have bankers always been so dumb and greedy, Congress so partisan, unions so short-sighted and selfish?

Ravitch and his plan to get the state back on track both seem like throwbacks to an earlier time. We could use some contemporary leaders to help get us out of the jams we're in now.