{"id":14850,"date":"2008-03-11T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14850.html"},"modified":"2008-03-11T09:00:52","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T13:00:52","slug":"what-are-the-political-implications-of-the-spitzer-scandal-are-there-any","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/what-are-the-political-implications-of-the-spitzer-scandal-are-there-any\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the political implications of the Spitzer scandal? Are there any?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within a few hours of the Spitzer scandal breaking, the comically desperate<\/a> National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) hoped to connect<\/a> the New York governor’s scandal to some of New York’s House Democrats.<\/p>\n

The NRCC, which is broke and in danger of sustaining more House losses, is grabbing at the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal like a lifeline, sending out e-mails about Dem incumbents with the following title: “Will John Hall Return Spitzer’s Sleazy Money?”<\/p>\n

So far we’ve received five e-mails over at TPM: Three messages targeting freshman incumbents Michael Arcuri, Kirsten Gillibrand and John Hall, plus two against challengers Dan Maffei and Eric Massa, all of whom the NRCC says are now “ensnared” in Spitzer’s scandal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s certainly possible NRCC officials are confused over the meaning of the word “ensnared,” but it’s more likely the Republican campaign committee thinks the Spitzer mess is a life-preserver that the GOP can use to … well, it’s not quite clear what they can use it for.<\/p>\n

How silly are the NRCC’s efforts? Even The Corner dismissed<\/a> the party’s emails out of hand: “[W]hatever voters think, Spitzer’s moral turpitude has no bearing on the contributions he makes to candidates in his party. Unless the money was stolen, its return is a public relations exercise with no basis in moral reality. And to tie its recipients to Spitzer’s behavior is a fallacious exercise in guilt by association.”<\/p>\n

Quite right. But it does raise the broader question of the political impact of the Spitzer controversy. What’s the fall out? Is there one?
\n
\nI suppose every political development has to be connected in some way back to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but I just don’t see why Hillary Clinton’s name is coming up so much<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton carefully sidestepped questions Monday about the sex scandal engulfing Eliot Spitzer, her home state governor and political ally.<\/p>\n

“I don’t have any comment on that. Obviously I am sending my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family,” Clinton said, opening her first campaign swing through Pennsylvania, which holds its presidential primary April 22.<\/p>\n

Spitzer apologized Monday after he was accused of paying for sex with a high-priced call girl. Authorities say he was caught on a federal wiretap arranging a tryst with the woman at a Washington hotel room. It was a blow to Clinton, who recently had intensified her criticism of rival Barack Obama’s relationship with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a political patron on trial in federal court in Obama’s hometown of Chicago for alleged fraud and corruption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whether one supports Clinton or not, it’s hard to see why Spitzer’s scandal hurts Clinton. Yes, he supports her campaign, but they haven’t campaigned together, and Spitzer has hardly been a high-profile advocate. Indeed, the two aren’t even personally close. Why would this undermine Clinton in any way? This mess really has nothing to do with her.<\/p>\n

Yglesias wondered<\/a> whether the Spitzer controversy might “make people worry about the fact that putting Bill Clinton back in the White House seems to raise the possibility of once again having a Democratic administration derailed by a sex scandal.” Maybe, but it seems like a stretch to me.<\/p>\n

There are times in which a sex scandal affects the party of the accused. When the Mark Foley matter first arose, congressional Republicans were reeling. When it looked as if the party’s leadership may have put partisan considerations above the safety of kids, the Foley scandal made the GOP look worse, and may have contributed to Republicans losing their congressional majority.<\/p>\n

But the Spitzer scandal is in no way similar. Indeed, in most instances, personal humiliations like these have no bearing on the person’s party at all. It’s just not realistic to think a voter will conclude, “I was going to vote for a Democrat in November, but Eliot Spitzer hired a prostitute.”<\/p>\n

Sorry, Republicans, there’s just not much to be gained here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within a few hours of the Spitzer scandal breaking, the comically desperate National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) hoped to connect the New York governor’s scandal to some of New York’s House Democrats. The NRCC, which is broke and in danger of sustaining more House losses, is grabbing at the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal like a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}