Letitia A. James is a talented politician. Her terrific interpersonal skills, keen eye for the camera and ear for messaging, and a preternatural instinct for navigating the state’s cutthroat politics have served her well. Leveraging her base in Brooklyn and her background as a public defender, she won a seat on the New York City Council, and then, as the city’s public advocate, springboarded herself to statewide office. In 2018, she became the first woman and Black attorney general.
Unfortunately, these instincts generally have not served her well in her first term. But overall, she has been capable and effective.
Only the naive would believe that politics can be scrubbed from one of the most powerful offices in the state. James’ elected predecessors — Eric Schneiderman, Andrew Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer — were intensely ambitious. But at a time when trust in…
