First one of the Three Stooges of American political sex scandals — San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, was out. He resigned after being accused of being a serial sex harrasser. And now the other two of the scandal team, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, and former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer are out as well. Voters didn’t seem too forgiving this year.
Spitzer sputtered at the polls:
Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, whose political ascent came to a halt five years ago in a prostitution scandal, lost his bid for a political comeback on Tuesday.
Spitzer conceded to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in the race for the Democratic nomination for New York City comptroller, a post akin to the city’s chief financial officer.
In a speech that lasted less than two minutes, he said he would find different ways to serve the public.
“For me, politics was never a profession, it was a cause,” he said at his campaign party as about 150 supporters cheered.
Spitzer, 54, first won the limelight for taking on big Wall Street banks as state attorney general.
With 96% of precincts reporting Tuesday night, Anthony Weiner was far behind in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, with about 5% of the vote.
A onetime front-runner, Weiner was polling in fourth place as primary day arrived. His campaign all but collapsed after he was caught sexting again.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.