Spitzer To Run For City Comptroller

Another weiner returns to politics:

Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York five years ago amid a prostitution scandal, is re-entering political life, with a run for the citywide office of comptroller and a hope that voters are ready to look past his previous misconduct. 

Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, said he was eager to plunge back into politics and believed he could revolutionize the often-overlooked city office into a new model for government accountability and shareholder activism. 

“I’m hopeful there will be forgiveness, I am asking for it,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday night. 

His re-entry comes in an era when politicians — like Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina and the New York mayoral contender Anthony D. Weiner — have shown that public disapproval, especially over sexual misconduct, can be fleeting, and voters seem open to those who seek forgiveness and redemption. 

Mr. Spitzer, an aggressive watchdog over Wall Street when he served as attorney general of New York, said he wanted to transform the comptroller’s office into a robust agency that would not merely monitor and account for city spending, as it does now, but conduct regular inquiries into the effectiveness of government policies, in areas like education. 

Such a reading of the office, which would significantly expand its scope, could put Mr. Spitzer into conflict with the city’s next mayor, much as his reign as attorney general put him at odds with federal regulators of Wall Street.

He has to get all his signatures collected by Thursday to make the ballot.

I guess there is no disgrace that can keep a politician from re-entering politics these days.

Good thing Nixon and Agnew are dead, eh?