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Madam-Turned-Pol Kristin Davis: Can NY Stand a Gov Who's Convicted *Before* Taking Office?
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June 7, 2010
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5:20Now PlayingKristin Davis rose to notoriety as the madam who provided New York Attorney General and Gov. Eliot Spitzer with the escorts that led to his demise. Davis ended up going to jail for providing a business populated by and for consenting adults. Spitzer's penalty? Possibly getting a show on CNN.
Now Davis herself is running the Empire State's top slot in Albany, on a platform this is simple and straightforward in libertarian sanity: She wants to legalize (and tax) marijuana and prostitution. For a state as deep in the red as New York, that's no joke. She has also proposed liberalizing gaming laws and called for gambling casinos in the Catskills.
"I built a multi-million dollar escort service from scratch before pleading guilty to promoting prostitution," she writes. "Prostitution in New York is estimated to be a $5 Billion a year business. Legalization and a reasonable tax rate could bring $ 1Billion in new revenues to New York State each year. Legalizing Marijuana would reap another $2 Billion a year. Then New York could balance the budget and still cut property and income taxes."
Additionally, she wants to legalize gay marriage because the state shouldn't discriminate and highlight the inequities of a criminal justice system that treats the politically powerless far worse than the politically powerful. Read more here.
Davis' official campaign site is at
Davis has enlisted the aid of legendary political operative Roger Stone for a campaign which has no chance of knocking off presumptive gubernatorial shoe-in Andrew Cuomo. But her run gives voice to a series of issues that deserve to be heard now more than ever. And her run gives form to a vision of smart governance and policy that is not simply provocative but utterly persuasive.
Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Davis to talk about her platform, the hypocrisy of elected officials, and her coming web-based reality show, Madam Governor, which will document her campaign.
Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg; edited by Bragg. Approximately 5 minutes.
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