Everybody knows politics is a dirty business, and some elected officials are far dirtier than others. Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer learned that fact the hard way, and last week, they watched their potential political comebacks fizzle like the Gators’ offense did in the red zone against Miami.
Weiner and Spitzer were once two of the brightest political stars in New York.
Weiner was the hard-charging liberal congressman, and Spitzer was the state attorney general and then governor who took pride in putting cheating investment bankers behind bars.
However, once Weiner sent lewd photos over Twitter and Spitzer was caught having sex with a high-priced escort, the game was over.
Both men resigned in disgrace and their political careers appeared to be dead.
Oh, how short the memory of a voter can be — or so Weiner and Spitzer hoped.
Earlier this year, both men took bold steps to rehabilitate their political careers, but — especially for Weiner — it all came crashing down.
Weiner ran for mayor of New York City, while Spitzer ran for city comptroller.
At the start, both campaigns appeared solid, and it seemed, for an instant, that New Yorkers were just as forgiving toward Weiner and Spitzer as much of the United States was toward Bill Clinton.
Spitzer remained relatively quiet in the national press throughout his campaign and actually fared well last week — but still came up short.
The defeat of both Weiner and Spitzer underscores the fact that not all politicians can find forgiveness following sex scandals.
By and large, Americans don’t trust politicians. Elected officials are typically behind lawyers and repeat offenders on the list of people Americans trust least. We find them to be dishonest, disloyal, self-serving and out-of-touch.
What is so funny about this is though lawyers aren’t hired by the mass numbers of voters, we continue to give jobs to the politicians we dislike just as vehemently.
We can either continue to send people we distrust to serve as public officials at all levels of government, or we can stand up and find a person who is honest, delivers on his or her promises and is getting involved in government for the right reasons.
Despite our tendency to ignore the hard work of elected officials, many of them throughout the country are upstanding citizens doing the people’s work. We might spend our time focusing on the crooks, the cheaters, the liars, the partisan hacks or the slimeballs, but more often than not, politicians are just trying to do the right thing.
There was a time in this nation’s history when we revered our elected officials. They were strong individuals who stood up for what was right and served the people before special interests.
It sounds like a pipe dream, but it has happened before, and if we care enough — like New Yorkers did last week — we can make it happen again.
Good, upstanding citizens are everywhere, and some are even willing to take the plunge and run for public office.
If we get them elected, hold them accountable and are willing to fire them if they fail, we can put an end to the politics of Weiner and Spitzer and find the politicians who actually put the people first.
Joel Mendelson is a UF graduate student in political campaigning. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 9/16/2013 under the headline "Scandalized politicians’ losses offer hope"
