If you want to know just how far Eliot Spitzer's political stock has fallen in New York, you have to look no further than this somewhat bizarre appearance he made before Democratic party members of the New York Assembly. The New York Times reports:
At first, Gov. Eliot Spitzer told a packed room of Assembly Democrats yesterday, his wife didn’t like him much either.
After meeting his bride-to-be, the Southern-bred Silda Wall, at Harvard Law School in the 1980s, he asked her out, and she said no. But he was persistent, Mr. Spitzer said, and she finally agreed. Now, they are happily married.
All he wants from the Assembly members, whose affections for him have largely evaporated in the last 11 months, is a similar sort of second chance, Mr. Spitzer told the group.
“That set the tone for the whole meeting,” said Assemblyman Rory Lancman, a Queens Democrat, who attended the closed-door meeting with the governor at the Marriott Hotel in Downtown Brooklyn. “People didn’t feel the need to stand up and harangue him for being a bad partner.”
It was an atypically self-deprecating appearance for Mr. Spitzer, who faces a difficult legislative season in the months ahead and is doing his best to woo lawmakers in advance.
The Times adds that the meeting resembled a taping of a Dr Phil show more than a typical New York political meeting. Given Spitzer's recent fall in the polls, I suspect this was an act of desperation on his part. Because if he does not mend fences pretty quickly, his political career is going to continue to sink. I dunno if marriage counseling is the answer, though.
Maybe he should have brought flowers.
And candy…
“After meeting his bride-to-be, the Southern-bred Silda Wall, at Harvard Law School in the 1980s, he asked her out, and she said no. But he was persistent, Mr. Spitzer said, and she finally agreed. ” – Sounds like a stalker to me. Maybe the wife is a walking example of Stockholm Syndrome?