Spitzer Mania Begins!
Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced he's trying to make a political comeback on Sunday, and madness ensued. Spitzer was supposed to meet voters in New York's Union Square, but he was surrounded by an enormous pack of reporters instead, heckled, and forced to buy overpriced artisanal honey before jumping into a taxi to escape.
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Spizter is running for New York City Comptroller, a significant step down from governor, a job he quit after it was revealed that he slept with prostitutes. That means Anthony Weiner is out as the hot sex scandal redemption story in New York. Spitzer only has until Thursday to get at least 3,750 signatures from Democrats to get on the ballot for the September primary. To do that, he will have to talk to voters. As he told The New York Times, "I am going to be on the street corners…. We will be out across the city." The media mob did not make that easy.
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"Eliot Spitzer, trying (but failing) to disperse reporters so he can interact with, ya know, voters," reporter Dan Hirschhorn tweeted.
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Another view of the mob, by Hirshhorn:
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The New York Times' Michael Barbaro tweeted this angle:
BuzzFeed's Ruby Cramer said there were about seven satellite trucks waiting for the candidate.
And here are the photographers, snapped by Politico's Maggie Haberman:
On his first day of campaigning, Spitzer could not escape the sexy sex scandal angle. Yahoo's Holly Bailey tweets, "Woman asks me what's happening: 'Is Spitzer the one who had sex pics? Or was that Weiner? I can't keep up.'" A heckler yelled, "You cheated on your wife," the New York Daily News' Jennifer Fermino reports. Another said, "When was the last time you got laid?" The Guardian's Kayla Epstein reports. Politico's Maggie Haberman tweets, "A guy running a honey stand calls Spitzer over. 'let's taste the honey,' he says." Spitzer bought the honey for $20. The swarm did not disperse. He traveled four blocks, got eight signatures, and fled by cab.
(Top photos by Kayla Epstein, Maggie Haberman.)
