Bill Clinton and Mark Sanford may have gotten away with bad boy behavior while in office, but New York City voters gave a thundering No to Anthony Weiner and a solid No Thanks to Elliott Spitzer in yesterday's election for mayor (Weiner) and comptroller (Spitzer).
Spitzer had to resign his position as governor of New York during his second year after a scandal involving prostitutes. Weiner had to resign from Congress over a scandal involving repeated sexting with young women.
In contrast, Clinton overcame impeachment; and Sanford won his come-back election to return to the Congressional seat he had previously held. What made the difference?
There are many factors, including the opponents, the political climate, previous accomplishments, the way they handled the revelation and repentance. The sample is too small to draw conclusions, but there are some noteworthy observations.
1. Clinton and Sanford are Southerners (Arkansas and South Carolina). And Southerners love to be magnanimous toward repentant sinners. We just love our reformed bad boys, but they have to be contrite and humble.
2. Weiner and Spitzer are New Yorkers, and New Yorkers are perhaps less forgiving. They both confessed and were open about what they had done. But they both come across as arrogant goats. Even in their confessions, they conveyed more a sense of defiance than of contriteness.
Well, maybe that's all totally irrelevant. But I do think Southerners are more forgiving than New Yorkers. And, at least in the mayors race, there were three others who were better candidates for mayor anyway.
Ralph
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As of late Wednesday afternoon, Bill De Blasio has 40.3% of the Democratic votes. It's slated for a recount to verify that he got over 40% which would mean no recount required.
ReplyDeleteAnthony Weiner did even worse than expected. He came in at 4.9%, in 5th place behind John Liu. He proved his gracelessness by flipping a bird at a reporter as he left where he had given his concession speech.
The other big factor to consider in Weiner's case is competence. He had good ideas, but he did not have the temperament to be mayor of New York. And he was not a work horse in Congress; he was a grand-stander. Critics said that his support for colleagues' bills was directly proportional to how close they let him get to the microphone. More than once, he did no work on a bill, then jumped in to take credit as a sponsor at the last minute.
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