After a tumultuous fourteen months in office, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace after being caught in a prostitution sting. What was once a promising political career that some thought would eventually take him to the White House lay in ruins, all that was left was the image of the disgraced pol standing at a podium with his shell-shocked wife standing next to him. Nineteen months later, some are wondering, could Eliot Spitzer be on his way to a political resurrection?
Spitzer's problems started long before his escapades with Ashley Dupre became headline news for the tabloids. Spitzer's first major scandal as Governor came early in his administration when word broke that top Spitzer officials had ordered the State Police to keep special records of State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno's whereabouts when he used police escorts in New York City and directed the New York State Police to create politically damaging documents about Bruno, a Republican and long time enemy of Spitzer. The event came to be known as "Troopergate". The effects were almost immediate, Spitzer's approval numbers dropped and hypothetical polls on the 2010 election showed him losing to potential candidate Michael Bloomberg, the current Mayor of New York City. Scandals continued to haunt Spitzer when in the fall of 2007 he proposed issuing special driver's licenses to illegal aliens. The plan was criticized by people on all sides of the political spectrum, caused a major headache for Hillary Clinton, then the state's junior US Senator and a Presidential candidate, and after many adjustments to the plan, Spitzer dropped it all together, and his poll numbers went with it. Spitzer's resignation came a few months after the license scandal and most people, myself included, thought they had heard the last of him.
We were wrong.
Spitzer's problems started long before his escapades with Ashley Dupre became headline news for the tabloids. Spitzer's first major scandal as Governor came early in his administration when word broke that top Spitzer officials had ordered the State Police to keep special records of State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno's whereabouts when he used police escorts in New York City and directed the New York State Police to create politically damaging documents about Bruno, a Republican and long time enemy of Spitzer. The event came to be known as "Troopergate". The effects were almost immediate, Spitzer's approval numbers dropped and hypothetical polls on the 2010 election showed him losing to potential candidate Michael Bloomberg, the current Mayor of New York City. Scandals continued to haunt Spitzer when in the fall of 2007 he proposed issuing special driver's licenses to illegal aliens. The plan was criticized by people on all sides of the political spectrum, caused a major headache for Hillary Clinton, then the state's junior US Senator and a Presidential candidate, and after many adjustments to the plan, Spitzer dropped it all together, and his poll numbers went with it. Spitzer's resignation came a few months after the license scandal and most people, myself included, thought they had heard the last of him.
We were wrong.
|
|