There will always be candidates for public office who are ethically compromised, temperamentally unsuitable and politically incompetent, but if they insist on running anyway, who has the right to tell them not to? Campaigns sort out the good public servants from the bad.
That said, Eliot Spitzer's bid to recycle himself by running for New York City comptroller is unnerving on many levels, and not just because he has suddenly decided to undo the buckles of self-restraint that used to keep disgraced ex-politicians (for soliciting prostitutes, in his case) from re-entering the public sphere. Beyond that, there are Mr. Spitzer's colossal failures in what he did and didn't do as governor of New York.
This was the man who built a solid record and shiny reputation as a hard-charging attorney general, then squandered it in 14 months in the governor's office. He had whipped Wall Street and was going to fix Albany, but left it more broken than when he got there.
When he quit — and who can forget how Mr. Spitzer's stricken wife stood beside him as he announced that it was all over? — he betrayed not just the voters, but the staff members, agency leaders and employees who had followed him to Albany, or moved over from the attorney general's office, with the goal of healing the Capitol's sick culture. They were his team, bursting with all the idealism and commitment that he professed to have, promising to make the Spitzer administration a model of integrity and effectiveness.
That never happened. Desperately needed reforms were thwarted, opportunities lost — and it was more than a sexual scandal that made Mr. Spitzer's truncated governorship an exceptional debacle in a capital city that is debacle central. It was that he saw himself as a "steamroller" instead of a leader, that he stoked alienation and resentment in his allies as well as his adversaries, the opposite of what a competent politician should do.
New Yorkers, like all citizens, deserve serious and thoughtful political campaigns, but between Anthony Weiner, the former sexting congressman, and Client 9 (the name given to Mr. Spitzer in the federal investigation of the escort service he used) and the self-described madam who ran that escort service and now claims she's going to run against her former customer, the stage is set for a summer of farce.
Mr. Spitzer, like Mr. Weiner, is a political animal who clearly finds it hard not to have an audience. That's understandable, but did they have to bring us all along on their journeys of personal ambition? For these two charter members of the Kardashian Party, notoriety is looking like the quick, easy path to redemption. Witness the TV-and-tabloid free-for-all on Monday in Union Square, where Mr. Spitzer went to greet voters, collect petition signatures and get his face out there. If he makes it on the ballot, he will doubtless discuss issues and ideas like the policy wonk he is. But he will also use his money and name recognition to suck all attention from the other candidates, especially the capable Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, who deserves better treatment.
Voters will have to do their best to tune out the noise.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 8, 2013
An earlier version of this article said Client 9 was a code name for former Gov. Eliot Spitzer at the escort service he used. It was actually the name given to him in the federal investigation of the escort service.
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