OPINION: Spitzer’s problems: Not just sex
I don’t know much about Scott Stringer other than the fact that he’s the borough president of Manhattan. I also admire many of the things Eliot Spitzer did as attorney general and governor, such as aggressively prosecuting Wall Street malfeasance.
Nevertheless, I sincerely hope that Scott Stringer trounces Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary for comptroller. And it has nothing to do with sex, either.
If being married and either having alleged affairs and/or allegedly patronizing prostitutes disqualified officials from the political arena, it wouldn’t be just Spitzer who would be liable. It would be half the politicians in the state, going back to Jimmy Walker in the 1920s and forward to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congressman Fred Richmond, Rudy Giuliani, Vito Fossella, former Governor David Paterson, former gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, Bill Clinton — and I’m sure they aren’t all!
No, patronizing prostitutes isn’t the only reason to not support Spitzer. (Interestingly, when Rachel Maddow asked Spitzer whether he thought prostitution should be legalized, he refused to answer the question.) For me, it’s also what I see as his disrespect for the political process.
You see, politics is a profession as much as anything else. People who want to become involved in the political process or want to have political jobs usually begin by volunteering to work for candidates or for political clubs, or working as consultants if they have some sort of expertise. They go to meetings and spend hours petitioning, campaigning, making phone calls, sending out letters and more. People who do these things are the usually-uncredited “foot soldiers” of politics.