Can Spitzer Hurt Clinton?

Fellow New Yorker's fall from grace is an unwanted distraction, unpleasant reminder
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 11, 2008 3:40 PM CDT
Can Spitzer Hurt Clinton?
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer at a news conference on children's health care in New York, Thursday, Aug. 30, 2007. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)   (Associated Press)

Will the Eliot Spitzer scandal hurt fellow New York Democrat Hillary Clinton, who's all too familiar with the travails of philandering men? Writers are weighing in:

  • Clinton had trouble securing Spitzer's endorsement, writes John Nichols in the Nation, and now, "He is a distraction—the big player in her adopted home state who is now in big, big trouble." One positive: David Paterson would "instantly become Clinton's most prominent African-American backer."

  • The London Times reports that if Spitzer resigns, he won't be replaced as a superdelegate, so she's down one, and Spitzer's "difficulties will undermine her efforts to paint her rival Barack Obama as morally dubious due to his links with Tony Rekzo."
  • Glenn Thrush of the Chicago Tribune runs down the scandal's potential impact on other New York pols and speculates about Clinton's private reaction: "From a payback perspective, she must be having a discreet chuckle."
(More Eliot Spitzer stories.)

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