Why Spitzer is No Weiner

Ben Smith: “Eliot Spitzer’s attempt to return to public life — with a perilously late entrance into the race for New York City Comptroller — was being compared to Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign about 20 times a minute on Twitter, last I checked.”

“But Spitzer has basically nothing in common with Weiner, aside from their low body fat, and shared (and lightly observed) Jewish faith. Weiner is a talented politician who left Congress with no major legislative accomplishments and everything to prove. Spitzer was a major force in American public life for eight years despite having no particular talent for politics. Weiner’s online romances brought him down because they were weird. Spitzer’s ordinary sin — any number of politicians have survived prostitution scandals — ended his tenure as governor because his governorship was already going terribly.”

Spitzer himself told the New York Observer of Weiner’s comeback attempt: “I don’t see any parallels between that race and this one.”