After gradually emerging out from under his scandal rock, former Governor Eliot Spitzer has stepped fully into the spotlight, with a sprawling profile in today's Times and the forthcoming issue of Fortune. The magazine interview, by Peter Elkind, is timed with the release of his new book on Spitzer, Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. In Fortune, Spitzer says a run for office in 2010 is "hard to see," but he also wants everyone to know this: "I've never said I would never consider running for office again."
Spitzer tells Elkind he's "in unceasing agony" and "incredibly frustrated" over no longer being "where I would like to be [i.e., in the Governor's office]. Anybody who says disengaging from it in any way is easy is not being straightforward. Obviously, removing myself the way I did is that much more painful." Spitzer's long road back to public office may begin with a run for New York state comptroller, which, according to Elkind, "he sees a chance to become a national force, wielding the billions held in public pension funds to force corporate reform in a way that even lawsuits and regulation cannot."
"Most people faced with that kind of disgrace would disappear off the face of the earth for a longer period of time," P.R. big shot Howard Rubenstein tells the Times. "But there is a lot of curiosity about him. And he is a publicity steamroller." But according to Rubenstein, a recent Masters of the Universe-type society dinner didn't bode well for Spitzer's return to politics. "Some thought he is making a play to come into elected office," says Rubenstein "That didn’t get a lot of support. But they thought, 'He’s having an influence on policy, so let’s look past that episode in his life and appoint him as an adviser to something. That was the consensus."
In the meantime, Spitzer's keeping his face out there, teaching at City College, lecturing at Harvard about ethics, getting a Colbert bump, opining on love on BigThink.com, and writing a twice-monthly column for Slate. But is another scandal on the horizon? In a shocking lapse, Spitzer revealed to the Times the secret to his column's success: "I keep pressing the button on the Slate column, so it looks like I’m getting a lot of hits." Which may be another thing he has in common with blogger Ashley Dupree.
