The Spitzer Fiasco

For those of you living under a rock, the news of the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal, and his subsequent resignation, have been the talk of the circuit this week. The New York Times broke the story on Monday (Affidavit: Client 9 and Room 871) which identified Gov. Spitzer as "Client 9" from a detailed 47-page FBI affidavit concerning an online prostitution ring.

In a Wednesday Los Angeles Times "Critic's Notebook" entry entitled "Spitzer scandal makes a perfect news storm," Mary McNamara describes the event as every reporter's dream story:

"They may be a journalist's five favorite words: Governor linked to prostitution ring. Now that's a TV crawl promising a very good week for everyone (except, of course, for the governor's family)."

McNamara goes on to describe how the drama and theater of the story, coupled with the high-profile politician, simplicity of the story, and even "the opportunity to talk about sex and still look professional" heightened its attractiveness to journalists, newspapers, and (especially) television news outlets. This description of the perfect news story resonates strongly with the ideas we've developed – due to its simplicity, drama, and titillation component, but also because it fits into a well-established journalistic frame of political corruption on a basic level.

In in daily "Post Political Hour" response and commentary feature with politics reporters, The Washington Post has explored the potential impact of the story on the 2008 presidential campaign. Spitzer was a superdelegate in the Democratic party, and had endorsed Clinton (Blog Post) in May of 2007.

On Tuesday, March 11, reporter Michael Shear responded to a question regarding the story's effect on Clinton, beyond her loss of one superdelegate vote:

"The broader question is interesting too: does the prospect of a new sex scandal remind people of the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair and make them want to run the other way?"

On the other hand, Thursday, March 13's coverage, reporter Lois Romano downplays any significant connection:

"I don't think it will have any impact on the presidential race whatsoever. Everyone is so focused on the presidential, that people are trying to create tenuous links. Spitzer's behavior is outrageous- but its his own. No one can fault anyone else."

It will be interesting to see whether the Spitzer scandal and resignation will enter into the campaign dialogue over the next week. It's hard to see Obama attempting to capitalize, since he's run as an ethics- and change-oriented politician promising a new kind of politics. However, the same could have been said about Eliot Spitzer.