I’m delighted to see that Eliot Spitzer is running for Comptroller of the City of New York. Spitzer was an excellent public servant, especially as State Attorney General, where he reduced corporate big shots to sputtering and perhaps worse. I’m entirely open to the suggestion of the film Client 10 that with his predileciton for prostitutes, Spitzer gave his enemies a sword that they used against him. (You don’t really belief that children’s fable that investigators `accidentally’ ensnared the governor, do you?) And as City Comptroller, he will a large platform on which to reestablsih himself as a fighter for the people.
But I don’t think that City Comptroller is really the office that Spitzer wants. The group of candidates for Mayor this year is particularly weak; it’s not hard to imagine that whichever one of them emerges will struggle with the office, and enter 2017 with high vulnerabilities. As I look into my crystal ball, I see Comptroller being highly supportive of Mayor Whomever in 2014 and 2015, and then starting in 2015, distancing himself from Hizzoner. Then, maybe in 2017, and if not, certainly in 2021, Spitzer will run for mayor.