What are the political implications of the Spitzer scandal? Are there any?
Within a few hours of the Spitzer scandal breaking, the comically desperate National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) hoped to connect the New York governor’s scandal to some of New York’s House Democrats.
The NRCC, which is broke and in danger of sustaining more House losses, is grabbing at the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal like a lifeline, sending out e-mails about Dem incumbents with the following title: “Will John Hall Return Spitzer’s Sleazy Money?”
So far we’ve received five e-mails over at TPM: Three messages targeting freshman incumbents Michael Arcuri, Kirsten Gillibrand and John Hall, plus two against challengers Dan Maffei and Eric Massa, all of whom the NRCC says are now “ensnared” in Spitzer’s scandal.
It’s certainly possible NRCC officials are confused over the meaning of the word “ensnared,” but it’s more likely the Republican campaign committee thinks the Spitzer mess is a life-preserver that the GOP can use to … well, it’s not quite clear what they can use it for.
How silly are the NRCC’s efforts? Even The Corner dismissed the party’s emails out of hand: “[W]hatever voters think, Spitzer’s moral turpitude has no bearing on the contributions he makes to candidates in his party. Unless the money was stolen, its return is a public relations exercise with no basis in moral reality. And to tie its recipients to Spitzer’s behavior is a fallacious exercise in guilt by association.”
Quite right. But it does raise the broader question of the political impact of the Spitzer controversy. What’s the fall out? Is there one?
I suppose every political development has to be connected in some way back to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but I just don’t see why Hillary Clinton’s name is coming up so much.
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton carefully sidestepped questions Monday about the sex scandal engulfing Eliot Spitzer, her home state governor and political ally.
“I don’t have any comment on that. Obviously I am sending my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family,” Clinton said, opening her first campaign swing through Pennsylvania, which holds its presidential primary April 22.
Spitzer apologized Monday after he was accused of paying for sex with a high-priced call girl. Authorities say he was caught on a federal wiretap arranging a tryst with the woman at a Washington hotel room. It was a blow to Clinton, who recently had intensified her criticism of rival Barack Obama’s relationship with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a political patron on trial in federal court in Obama’s hometown of Chicago for alleged fraud and corruption.
Whether one supports Clinton or not, it’s hard to see why Spitzer’s scandal hurts Clinton. Yes, he supports her campaign, but they haven’t campaigned together, and Spitzer has hardly been a high-profile advocate. Indeed, the two aren’t even personally close. Why would this undermine Clinton in any way? This mess really has nothing to do with her.
Yglesias wondered whether the Spitzer controversy might “make people worry about the fact that putting Bill Clinton back in the White House seems to raise the possibility of once again having a Democratic administration derailed by a sex scandal.” Maybe, but it seems like a stretch to me.
There are times in which a sex scandal affects the party of the accused. When the Mark Foley matter first arose, congressional Republicans were reeling. When it looked as if the party’s leadership may have put partisan considerations above the safety of kids, the Foley scandal made the GOP look worse, and may have contributed to Republicans losing their congressional majority.
But the Spitzer scandal is in no way similar. Indeed, in most instances, personal humiliations like these have no bearing on the person’s party at all. It’s just not realistic to think a voter will conclude, “I was going to vote for a Democrat in November, but Eliot Spitzer hired a prostitute.”
Sorry, Republicans, there’s just not much to be gained here.
When the Corner says there’s nothing to get hysterical about, there’s really nothing there.
Why do so many people on top make such bad decisions? What is it that makes a person who has it all think they can walk on water? I can’t understand it. What goes through their mind?
LET’S SEE, I’M RICH, I’M POWERFUL, I’M FAMOUS, I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL SPOUSE AND FAMILY, I LIVE IN A MANSION – I GUESS I CAN WALK ON WATER!
I have a message to those who happen to think they’re completely invincible:
Hey, egomaniac! Wake up! You are no better or worse than any other human being! You are neither above nor below any other human being! We are all the same…all equal. Wake up.
Steve,
You may be right.
However, the smear machine has never concerned itself with facts or logic. They simply throw stuff out there to see what sticks. While this may go nowhere, who knows what tortured logic will catch the fancy of the lazier members of the MSM. After all, if they don’t regurgitate some narrative spoon-fed them, they have to actually work to report about something else.
If this ends up being a case of money laundering, then the whole prostitution part of it becomes a sidebar. Then it becomes much more serious for Spitzer, Clinton, the Democratic Party in New York State, and possibly the Democratic Party across the board (although maybe not as much).
When asked whether Gov. Spitzer could survive politically [Clinton] said “let’s wait and see what comes out of the next few days. Right now I don’t have any comment. I think it’s appropriate to wish his family well and see how things develop.”
The Governor of New York? A married man with three kids? The Emperor’s Club?
Admittedly, he didn’t call anyone a monster… still…
Survive this politically?
Wait and see?
Crickets chirping….
maybe i’m just grumpy because i haven’t had my coffee yet, but the very first story about this i read in national media included quotes from the Repub party talking about the Democratic Culture of Corruption.
given the complicit nature of the MSM, it only takes about 1 Rep. Jefferson or 1 Gov. Spitzer to offset 20 or 30 GOP crooks and make the problem “bipartisan.”
so, yeah, i think Spitzer hurt the entire party, at every level, across the board with this one.
of course, if fairness mattered one iota, one might ask why everyone is speculating that Spritzer – a prominent Dem – might be facing criminal prosecution from Republican prosecutors while Republican David Vitter remains a US Senator, suffered exactly zero consequences, and everyone seems to have put the entire sordid affair behind them.
Although Spitzer screwed up, he handled the disclosure in the best conceivable way: “Yeah I did it, it was inappropriate and stupid, and it harmed my family.” No dissembling, no excuses, no spin at all.
Quite different than “the definition of is . . . ” or Craig or Vitter or – really about anyone else you could name in a similar situation. In fact, other than him having his wife at his side (which seemed to add needless humiliation to her already difficult situation) I found it extremely refreshing for a pol to just come out and admit to something bad.
Here’s the nightmare scenario in New York: Spitzer resigns (I don’t see any other choice), and Republicans try to shoot the moon in digging for dirt on Governor Paterson. If they’re the least bit successful, Paterson’s removal will mean the installation of third-in-the-line State Senator Bruno. A Republican.
It’ll be the Pataki days all over again to kick off another decade-plus of Republican control of the governor’s mansion in one of the bluest states in the union.
Once again the world is safe for corruption until we find a eunoch born of a virgin.
i don’t get it. is there such a shortage of hookers in d.c. that they now have to be imported from new york? or are new york hookers better than d.c. hookers?
inquiring minds want to know!
You know the Republicans will try to make some hay out of this, but with his honest admission of error and the tangential connections to Clinton, I doubt if the public will forget all the Republican screwups because Spitzer paid for sex. As long as he comes clean on the deal I think the media will not have much to slobber over for long, and it will fade.
One thing’s for sure the Republicans would gladly trade Larry Craig’s scandal for Elliot Spitzer’s.
I am puzzled about the use of federal anti-corruption resources to investigation of prostitution. That hardly seems a good use of resources.
It isn’t the getting caught that’ll hurt down the line; it’s the righteousness—the “cleaning up New York” while simultaneously catering to the hooker ring that’ll do him in. His credibility has flat-lined. He is seen as a major force in NY politics, and he will be an albatross around the neck of NY politics for years to come.
That is a raw, unfettered fact.
Remember the Swift Boat Liars’ Club? You can strike up the brass band when you can honestly believe that the Rethug machine won’t find a way to tie this to the Clinton camp. It’ll be triangulated into a Monica-Gate sequel, and they’ll only have to mention two little words:
Spitzer. Clinton.
I’m really not hearing that brass band right now. Just crickets chirping….
Does it really matter how similar the two scandals are? At least to part of the electorate, the Democratic Party allows and accepts vice, and is evidenced by the behavior of its representatives. This scandal could reinforce that narrative, and could even affect Obama re: drug use. In the end, it may not matter how similar the two scandals are because they will contribute to a general ill ease with the morality of the party.
Yes, Spitzer is a hypocrite. But there is really no similarity with Foley, more with Vitter. And Spitzer never prosecuted johns in his vindictive days. But you have to wonder how the DOJ will invoke the Mann Act to ensnare a state gov.for hiring prostitutes, this to me reeks of a political game. What role did Stone, Gonzalez, Rove etc play in this?
I think that Gov. Spitzer should pledge to resign, right after ALL the Republicans caught in scanals resign.
Honestly, these Republicans make me want to puke. Did anyone hear any serious call for Bush and Cheney to resign after it was clear that no WMDs were in Iraq? That’s a decision that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, has cost America its prestige (Bush vetos an anti-torture bill, too!), and what, trillions of taxpayers dollars?
And their panties are in a twist because Spitzer employed a hooker?
BTW, you do know that the Republicans wear panties, right?
To SteveIL, re: #4
…and if cows had wings we’d all wear big floppy hats. We all saw how the Foley and Craig scandals decimated the Republican Party across the board…right? It was mind blowing how fast Craig did the right thing and resigned…wasn’t it?
Maybe if people were satisfied with their own sex lives they wouldn’t be so obsessed with everyone else’s?
I don’t know whether to pity or envy someone who gets $5,500 sex.
this will all be forgotten in a few months, america is the land of the short attention span
Quite right.
Wait, someone at The Corner was right about something and you didn’t make that it’s own post? How often are you going to get the opportunity to congratulate them in the future? This comes along less often than February 29th, you should have taken your chance now.
Just in case anyone wondered why it was so crucially important for the government to have warrant-free wiretap authority . . .
“Will John Hall Return Spitzer’s Sleazy Money?”
Bwahahaha! Spitzer’s money was only sleazy when it was spent on hookers. If it was sent to someone’s political campaign at least it didn’t wind up in the coffers of a prostitution ring. Idiots.
As far as connecting this to Hillary, I bet some Republican prosecutor if figuring that if there’s an Emperor’s Club, there must be an Empresses’ Club as well. Look out Hill, they’re digging for dirt!
The far reaching implication is how does Hillary Clinton answer the following question: Is the current First Lady of New York now qualified to be a New York State Senator or a future Governor?
By Friday, he will announce that he intends to resign, by the end of the month.
The sole connection I can think of was Clinton’s temporary praise of Spitzer’s illegal immigrant licensing policy which she seemed to use to link herself to a fairly popular politician.
Weak, yes.
Harper’s says Spitzer was set up and this sure sounds like he was:
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002589
The GOP has taken down another Democratic governor.
The press colluded in the hysteria with its deceptive headlines yesterday: “Spitzer linked to prostitution ring,” which implied that he was a member himself, an organizer, an investor or something of the sort. The correct headline would have been “Spitzer was client of prostitution ring”
Here’s some real impact in New York State: gay marriage is unlikely to advance without his championing it.
Capt. Kirk #17, Republicans have been publicly telling Craig to resign since what he is accused of doing has come out. Of course they want this because they know how it affects them. I still haven’t heard specific Democrats saying Spitzer needs to resign. I’m not saying they haven’t, but I’ve only seen one Buffalo Democratic assemblyman join the Republicans. NPR indicates both Dems and Repubs have called for it, but doesn’t actually quote anybody.
If anybody benefits, it’s Obama.
Like it or not, the fact that Spitzer publicly endorsed Clinton in her bid to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president WILL have an effect on her campaign. How much of an effect is still not known. This is the downside of endorsements. You take the bad with the good.
There is MORE than a WHIFF of selective prosecution here. There is a BONFIRE.
Spitzer was targeted because of his courageous stands. Where did he MEET the whore in the first place? Was he entrapped by a hot babe? Obviously, he did more than just agree to meet her. But somehow someone targeted him, and set him up with a hot babe.
Spitzer deserves the same consideration he gave those of whom he prosecuted as NY AG. His resignation is a start.
Make no mistake. This scandal leaves a long-lasting scar on an already divided and entangled Democrat party.