I observed last week that the familiar partisan lines around school choice keep getting blurred.  Latest sign of change: Democrat Eliot Spitzer, likely to become the next governor of New York, said this Sunday.

Gubernatorial hopeful Eliot Spitzer said yesterday he favors funneling more state cash to private schools.

Spitzer, speaking to Orthodox Jews at a Brooklyn yeshiva, said it is unjust that private schools educate 15% of the state’s students but get only 1% of the education budget.

"We will work on that," promised Spitzer, a graduate of the prestigious and private Horace Mann High School in the Bronx.

No, he doesn’t support vouchers–not surprising, since he does want to become governor of a union-dominated state–but he endorsed the state’s child tax credit, and is willing to consider expanding it.  Over at Cato at Liberty, Adam Schaeffer suggests that the child tax credit is becoming a way for Dems to straddle the fence, which sounds right; it allows them to capture centrists for whom school choice is becoming increasingly attractive while not alienating liberals for whom vouchers remain anathema. 

I see at least two positive products from this development.  First off, the extreme politicization of education may actually be fading.  Of course, education will be politicized so long as public money is involved in the process, but K-12 might finally be moving beyond the ridiculous red-vs-blue fistfight that has characterized it for far too long. 

Secondly, union clout might show some signs of fading as well.  Look, if they can’t even keep New York liberals like Spitzer in the fold, something has gone awry.  (For similar signs, Joe Williams has thoughts on a legislative race in Buffalo, where the Democratic challenger is openly touting his pro-school choice stance.)  Again, a good thing–it’s a bit extreme for any interest group to have the kind of outsized leverage the unions have enjoyed.

Another question: why are Democrats increasingly favoring school choice?  The cynic might say they’re just reading the political tea leaves: just about the only way to get a negative poll on school choice is to doctor it thoroughly, so it’s pretty clear that public sentiment is tilting in our favor.  However, it’s also worthwhile to consider that school choice may actually be returning to its progressive roots, bringing many Democrats along for the ride. 

All of these are welcome developments, especially with Democrats on the verge of recapturing the governor’s mansion and the state legislature (not to mention the state’s ongoing charter cap struggle).  Schaeffer suggests that New York school choice coalition TEACHNYS should gear up for a major push next year.  They might want to consider that the playbook for advancing school choice under Democratic governors has already been favorably tested in states like Arizona (and that was under a governor that has never looked favorably upon school choice).