Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York during a news conference in New York on Feb. 27, 2008.
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Politicians occasionally survive sexual misconduct, as Clinton did. Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Senator David Vitter of Louisiana both stayed in office despite their prostitution scandals. Spitzer could not because, in the end, "he's got no friends," says Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who worked on two of Spitzer's campaigns. "If you're seen as being the source of all moral behavior and then you turn out not to be that way, people are happy about it."
Sheinkopf recalls a sad moment from Spitzer's 1998 attorney-general campaign: Spitzer had been charged with improperly using his father's money to help finance his career. He denied the truth until the last possible moment, when he finally admitted that his dad made it possible for him to lend his campaign millions. "I looked over and saw this man--thin, in shirtsleeves with frayed cuffs, holding himself in the corner," Sheinkopf says. "I thought, This must be the loneliest man on the planet. And in fact, he turned out to be."