Politicians and pundits are already pairing him with mayoral hopeful and late-night TV show comedy fodder Anthony Weiner. Business types and unions, in a rare moment of consensus, are eying him with disdain.
Yet in his 24 hours back as a declared candidate for public office, disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is having a ball — released after a five-year sojourn through the political wilderness of short-lived talk shows and online columns. His campaign rollout even won a few grudging points from his longtime nemesis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
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And Democrats are privately admitting what most are afraid to say publicly: Spitzer has a very real chance of winning the race for New York City Comptroller, a job for which he is vastly overqualified.
“Anybody who discounts Eliot Spitzer is an idiot,” said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, a consultant to mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson.
(Also on POLITICO: Wall Street braces for Comptroller Eliot Spitzer)
Sheinkopf made the comment at an impromptu gaggle with reporters in Manhattan, moments before Spitzer arrived by subway to start gathering signatures to get on the ballot. In an only-in-New York scene, the disgraced ex-governor traveled solo, venturing into a sea of photographers, TV cameras and reporters that tracked his every step.
His arrival into an already-chaotic open-seat election caught even most of Spitzer’s circle by surprise. He had been looking to get back into politics almost from the moment his prostitution scandal forced his resignation in 2008—but even the people who thought they were in his inner circle had already written off his reentry in 2013.
He’d talked to them about running for something. He’d laid out a plan and talked to them about trying for the almost completely unknown office of New York City comptroller, and what he’d do on the job if he won.
(PHOTOS: Eliot Spitzer’s career)
“There was a sense in the last year that he very much wanted to get back in the game – he would tell you flat out that it was just, ‘Bide the time,’” said one former Spitzer adviser who’s been regularly in touch with the former governor.
As his rocky 15 months at governor showed, Spitzer was better at poking and instigating than being in charge. By the time he was outed as Client 9, his administration was mired in a scandal involving the misuse of state troopers to track the Republican State Senate majority leader and an ultimately abandoned push to give illegal immigrants drivers’ licenses.
Now Spitzer’s looking at the very real possibility of winning and transforming the office into a major new force in the financial world, and a four-year-long migraine for the city’s next mayor. Sheinkopf pointed out that the labor unions that are aligned behind his would-be opponent, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, will not make the comptroller’s race their priority; they will be focused on the mayoral race.
(Also on POLITICO: Spitzer explains his return)
How prepared Stringer is for a knife fight — and how ready Spitzer is to deal with questions about his marriage (he insists his wife Silda will campaign with him) and his prostitution scandal — remain to be seen.
But no one would be surprised if Spitzer won. And a victory could put him on a path overnight to run for mayor in 2017, on the expectation that the next mayor will struggle to get escape Mike Bloomberg’s shadow and that Spitzer would have four years of redemption and new accomplishments.
“No one runs for comptroller so he can spend his life in the comptroller’s office,” said Sheinkopf. He added that Weiner may have the most to lose from Spitzer’s arrival: Not only will the former congressman face new competition for headlines, but he’ll brought down to the first rung on the Scandal Recovery Ladder by virtue of being lumped in with Spitzer in news stories.
Already, Spitzer appears to have done the impossible: won at least a bit of respect of Cuomo, a political strategy obsessive — and a man who came back from his own political and personal embarrassments after being forced out of the 2002 governor’s race after a messy public split with his wife, Kerry Kennedy.
(Also on POLITICO: Spitzer launches political comeback)
“Cuomo himself, despite the continuing hatred that the both have for each other, wasn’t too jazzed up. He was just like, ‘Is he kidding?” said a person who spoke with the current governor after Spitzer broke the news of his candidacy Sunday night.
Cuomo’s office described this account as a “lie,” but wouldn’t comment on the governor’s reaction. Cuomo knows what a comeback through a lower office — for him, attorney general — looks like. Assessing Spitzer’s promises to ask for forgiveness and talk up harnessing the unused powers of the office, Cuomo, the person said, was “slightly sympathetic.”
“‘If he can do that convincingly, maybe he’s got a shot,’” the person recounted Cuomo saying.
