The breaking news of the hour is the implication of NY Governor Eliot Spitzer in high end prostitution ring with connections to both New York and Washington. Reporters in across the country are standing by for a news conference by the governor any minute now. Aside from the obvious implications to Spitzer's political career and record as fighting and principled reformist charged with removing corruption from the state government, there are potential implications in the presidential race as well.
While this is all conjecture at this point, there will undoubtedly be questions directed towards Hillary Clinton, (and for that matter NY's senior senator, Charles Schumer), regarding whether she was aware of Spitzer's potential misdeeds. Even though such questions distract from the issues in the presidential campaign, she will certainly have to face them, even if they are unfair. It seems near impossible that Clinton would even have known anything about this, but as the presidential campaign approaches a six-week hiatus, news organizations will be more than happy to report on this state issue in the context of a national campaign. We will have to wait for Spitzer's press conference for more information. Even as someone who has never lived in New York, I am very disappointed that such a promising Democrat, Spitzer, would throw away his political capital in such a juvenile way.
UPDATE (1:15pm): The governor's press conference is over, and although he did not specifically mention it, New York's CBS2 News is now reporting that Spitzer is expected to resign.
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