“Scandal and Resurgence: Sanford, Spitzer, Weiner, and the Politics of Recovery”
Jeff Smith (The New School)
Jay Barth (Hendrix College)
David Nir (Daily Kos)
Abstract
Previous literature on scandals in American politics has generally focused on the media
dynamics that create an environment ripe for scandal (particularly at the presidential level) and
the impact of scandal on future electoral success and public approval. Much less attention has
been paid to those politicians who recover from scandal to achieve electoral success. Though it is
atypical, many high-profile officials have sought return to electoral politics post-scandal. In this
paper, we look at scandals among statewide and congressional officials that force individuals to
leave politics with an eye to those relatively rare instances when candidates leave politics but
later attempt to return. We hypothesize that a) electoral context (both in terms of the level of the
office and the partisan and social composition of the constituency) b) the nature of the past
scandal and the appropriateness of response (be that contrition or combativeness) with the
majority electoral constituency and c) a candidate’s charisma that allows him/her to reach over
the scandal-obsessed media directly to voters (and the absence of such gifts in key opponents) all
play equal roles in shaping the success or failure of a comeback attempt. After examining general
patterns of scandal recovery, we then focus on a series of case studies to better understand the
political dynamics of recovery.
“The State of the Parties: 2012 & Beyond” Conference,
The University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, November 2013
1 Political scandal is not a new phenomenon. During the 1824 presidential campaign, one
supporter of President John Quincy Adams, a Philadelphia printer named John Binns, published
the notorious “coffin handbill,” a poster showing six black coffins and claiming that thenGeneral Andrew Jackson murdered six troops under his command who were accused of
desertion. Other Adams backers noted that Jackson's wife Rachel had been married to another
man before Jackson, and asked when exactly she began living with Jackson; some publicly
accused her of bigamy. In retaliation, Jackson boosters began spreading a rumor that Adams,
while serving as ambassador to Russia, had procured an American girl for the sexual services of
the Russian czar. They called Adams a “pimp,” claiming that procuring women explained his
success as a diplomat. Members of the partisan media were only too happy to amplify the attacks
on both sides, which remained a staple of conversation but did not prove potent enough to drive
either man out of the race.
By the turn of the 21st century, the speed at which scandal moved had accelerated and
intensified, in many cases enough so to force politicians from office. But that does not always
mean they are finished. In fact, a political trend of the past year has been the return of candidates
scarred by scandals that had forced them from office or truncated their political careers.
Beginning with former Governor Mark Sanford’s reemergence as a successful candidate in a
South Carolina special election for Congress and continuing through the New York City
candidacies of former Congressman Anthony Weiner and former Governor Eliot Spitzer,
candidates presumed politically dead because of their very public indiscretions returned to
viability (at least momentarily). Journalists were, of course, fascinated by these cases and the
possible political trend they represented, but the political science literature that have examined
modern scandals in has not yet grappled with such political recoveries. While found in high-
2 profile cases over the past year, the phenomenon is not brand new, as we discuss. But given the
recent frequency and high public profile of comeback candidates – and because there are likely
dozens more recently scandal-scarred politicians contemplating comebacks as write – we feel
this literature merits updating.
This paper examines a series of cases, including those from South Carolina and New
York, and highlights an complex set of forces—involving the electoral context in which the
attempted comeback takes place, the nature of the scandal and the way that the candidate deals
with that past, and a candidate’s ability to supersede the scandalous past with a campaign that
connects directly with the people (and the comparative disabilities shown by key opponents)—
that explain the success, or failure, of a comeback attempt in the modern era.
The Modern Political Scandal
Watergate was an inflection point for American political scandal. Whereas reporters were
once inclined to look the other way regarding politicians’ personal lives – the White House press
corps was famously familiar with President Kennedy’s dalliances, for instance (Dallek 2001) –
the zone of privacy began to collapse during Watergate and further eroded months later when
Argentinian stripper Fanne Foxe leapt from the car of powerful House Ways and Means
Chairman Wilbur Mills and into the Tidal Basin, ushering in the Golden Age of the very public
Washington sex scandal. Of course, that zone of privacy all but disappeared when 1988
presidential candidate Gary Hart dared reporters, “Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If
anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored.”1 A decade later, Monica
Lewinsky’s un-laundered blue dress ushered in the modern era of political scandal, one
1
“Gary Hart’s Judgment,” New York Times, 05 May, 1987.
3 characterized by shirtless selfies, graphic sexts, and a Twitter-obsessed media horde desperate
for eyeballs.
Causes
There is a wealth of conjecture about the underlying causes of modern-day scandals,
which are often characterized by a “feeding frenzy” in which journalists act like sharks drawn to
blood (Sabato 1991). Sabato attributes scandals to 1) groupthink among the media; 2) the
equation of politicians’ private lives with their public actions, facilitated by the increase of
female reporters and acceptance of feminism; and 3) the growth of an intensely competitive press
environment driven by profit. Others attribute the rise in scandal coverage in part to a “new
world of mediated visibility” sped by technological advances in media culture (Thompson 2000),
including social media that accelerate the speed at which titillating information travels.2
Thompson (2005) also finds deeper structural causes of the scandal explosion noting the decline
of class-based party politics3 which forces candidates to compete more vigorously for voter
support largely by relying on a politics of trustworthiness and credibility. Matters of principle are
conveniently shed when necessary (see, for instance, the two parties’ reversals on raising the
debt ceiling) and leaders make political hay from opponents’ character failings.
Of course, the campaign finance system has not gone unnoticed as a factor contributing
to scandal. Wilentz (2000) argues that high-level politicians are glorified fundraisers – often
indebted to contributors for their election – leading to financial scandal, given the increasing
regulations of campaign finance, lobbying, and post-Watergate ethics restrictions. The failure of
public sector salaries to keep pace with private sector rewards – especially in heavy-donating
2
Peter Hamby, “Did Twitter Kill the Boys on the Bus? Searching for a Better Way to Cover a Campaign,”
Shorenstein Center at Harvard University, 2013.
3
Chronicled in Smith (2005) and elsewhere.
4 industries like finance, energy, entertainment, and technology – may have contributed to recent
personal financial scandals, as legislators are surrounded by wealth they cannot hope to (legally)
obtain.
Though many scandals are treated merely as fodder for late-night comedy, researchers
have identified important implications of pervasive scandal coverage. Wilentz (2000) asserts that
the poor quality and repetitive nature of scandal coverage, media sensationalism, and the
tendency to criminalize political differences lead to ambiguous or outright false “pseudoscandals.” Others lament the disproportionate resources spent covering scandal relative to the
gravity and relevance to government of the alleged misdeed4 (Quirk 1998). Given the consequent
shift of attention away from substantive issues, as well as the potential disruption to governance,
observers have argued that near nonstop attention to scandal promotes cynicism, mistrust, and
alienation among citizens, leaves the public ill-informed, and even undermines government’s
ability to deal with crises5, 6 (Quirk 1998).
Voter response to scandalized politicians has been mixed. Stoker (1993) examined voter
reaction to Gary Hart’s dalliance with model Donna Rice and found that only Republicans
judged Hart’s failings as disqualifying, suggesting that partisan attachments were responsible for
muting Democrats’ reactions. Similar dynamics appeared to be at work during the Clinton
impeachment drive, when independents and Democrats rallied to Clinton’s side. Though Sabato
(1984) found that scandalous behavior from someone with a history of it (such as Clinton)
receives disproportionate coverage, Maurer (1999) argued that due to public desensitization after
years of allegations, the strength of the economy, and Clinton’s charisma, Clinton experienced
4
Hamby 2013.
Ibid.
6
Sean Wilentz, “Will Pseudo-Scandals Decide the Election,” The American Prospect, 25 September, 2000.
5
5 only a mild feeding frenzy. Subsequent research echoed these findings (Miller 1999), and the
results of the 1998 midterm elections indicate that Republicans’ impeachment drive persuaded
few voters.
One general rule is that politicians can survive scandals by doing something very simple:
not resigning. That is, most incumbents who run for re-election prevail because of the protection
afforded by electoral rules that limit voters’ choices for a variety of reasons. (Brown 2006).
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter exemplifies this. In 2007, Vitter — a vehement advocate of
Clinton’s impeachment, banning same-sex marriage, and opening public meetings with prayers
— admitted that he was a client of D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfre,7 and was alleged by her
to have worn diapers when he patronized her prostitutes.8 Yet, without needing to face voters for
over three years, Vitter was able to rehabilitate his image sufficiently that he defeated his
primary opponent 90%-10%, and his general election opponent 57%-38%. Clinton’s gritty
resilience is another case in point.
Even when incumbents face competitive elections on shorter timetables, they usually
win. Basinger (2013) finds that of 237 scandal-scarred U.S. House members, over 80 percent of
incumbents who sought re-election prevailed – and even that relatively high percentage would be
higher if not for the enhanced challenger quality found in contests against scandal-plagued
incumbents. Though evidence suggests that incumbents are slightly more vulnerable in primary
elections because partisans want to nominate a strong general election candidate, incumbents are
still overwhelmingly likely to win. This is also true also in general elections, though scandalstained incumbents average a five percent reduction in their victory margin (Brown 2006).
7
8
Mary A. Akers, “How David Vitter Got Nabbed in Madam Scandal,” Washington Post, 2007.
Ken Layne, “David Vitter Likes His Diapers,” Wonkette, 11 July, 2007.
6 Obviously, some incumbents mired in scandal never make it to Election Day; Basinger
(2013) finds, intuitively, that scandal-tainted incumbents are more likely to retire than other
members, and that they are more likely to lose in primaries than in general elections. But even
after accounting for resignation, retirement, primary losses and general election losses, 60% of
scandal-ridden incumbents get re-elected. And once scandal-tainted incumbents pass the critical
re-election test, they’re usually home free; as Doherty (2013) shows, a scandal’s negative impact
dissipates over time because it is seen as “old news” and therefore impacts voters less as time
passes.
Other research has suggested that electoral repercussions vary depending on the severity
of scandals. Scandals involving bribery allegations appear to be most damaging, costing
incumbents eight percentage points, while sex scandals reduce incumbents’ vote shares by five
points (Basinger 2013). Some contend that the relationship between the scandalous behavior and
the official’s formal responsibilities is critical; voters respond more negatively to financial
scandals than moral scandals as long as they do not involve abuses of power (Doherty et al
2011). Related research focuses on the type of officeholder felled by the scandal as opposed to
the malfeasance itself. Brown (2006) contends that moral scandals hurt Republicans more
whereas financial scandals hurt Democrats more, and that campaign finance misdeeds appear to
have little if any impact; perhaps politicians are better able to rationalize such violations given
the tangled web of campaign finance laws. Apostolidis (2005) and Berinsky et al (2011) find that
that society’s racial predispositions exacerbate sex scandals featuring black men.
Most extant literature, then, focuses on structural factors leading to scandal, institutional
features that affect politicians struggling to overcome scandal, and voter and media response to
scandal. However, scholars have neglected examination of post-scandal comeback candidacies.
7 One of this paper’s authors has suggested that scandalized pols return to the same ego-nurturing,
soul-crushing arena that facilitated their demise because the artificial “politician” personas they
painstakingly created are the only versions of themselves they still recognize (Smith 2013).
Perhaps the narcissism leading some politicians to obsessively seek approval both causes sex
scandals and motivates comeback attempts. Yet successful comebacks may be easier in an age
when voters are so deluged with news of bad behavior that they now expect and/or overlook it,
provided the politician appears competent. 10 As we grapple with the recent surge of post-scandal
comeback candidacies, an investigation of factors shaping their success or failure will help
illuminate broader questions about both voter behavior and the psychology of strategic
politicians – even those whose strategy may be impaired by narcissism.
The Politics of Recovery
This project begins to investigate this previously underexamined, but increasingly
regular, electoral phenomenon. We believe that three overarching factors drive the possibility of
a comeback by a former officeholder who has been forced from office by a scandal. Based
partly on this previous, more general, literature on scandals, these key factors are: the electoral
context in which the comeback is attempted, the nature of the scandal itself and the candidate’s
response to it, the candidate’s personal political skills that can be employed to supersede any
negatives created by a scandal-marred past (and those of key opponents that may make such
efforts even more complicated).
10
Alexander Burns, “Why Sex-Scarred Pols Keep Coming Back For More,” Politico, 09, July 2013.
8 Context: Unquestionably, the electoral context in which the comeback attempt occurs is a
fundamentally crucial factor shaping the result. Candidates attempting to recover, already
running against a headwind, do not need further obstacles in their paths created by an
unfavorable political context.
Perhaps most obviously, an electoral context that favors a candidate’s political party
creates the richest opportunity for a political resurgence. In closely contested partisan settings, a
political party is more likely to be focused on candidate electability in the general election and
past scandal is likely to raise concerns in that regard. An electoral context skewed in a partisan
direction means that the election that matters most will likely be a party primary.
The (un)favorability of an electoral context can take a variety of other forms beyond
party. First, as has been observed back to V.O. Key’s (1949) articulation of the concept of
“friends and neighbors” voting, we know that a candidate’s ties to the voters of certain
geographical areas can pay off at the ballot box, particularly in relatively low-information
elections or in elections where candidates fail to differentiate themselves in other ways.
Party
primaries often fall in this latter scenario and a candidate who can pass the “I’m one of you” test
may be able to partly evade a focus on a scandalous past. Therefore, whether a candidate is
running in friendly (a place which she has represented before or has other roots) or unfriendly
turf can shape the ultimate outcome.
Certain one-party districts are still skewed ideologically. For instance, a heavily GOP
district might be dominated by business conservatives or Tea Party conservatives. In such
cases, it is crucial that a comeback candidate be in step with the majority in the district. One
ideological dimension that is particularly relevant in electoral contexts, again most often in the
Republican primary electorate but in certain Democratic districts as well, is religiosity. Districts
9 in which evangelical voters dominate create unique challenges for candidates attempting to
recover from past scandals, particularly those of a sexual nature.
Evangelical voters represent not just an ideological worldview, of course, but also a large
social grouping that guides individuals’ definitions of themselves politically. However, they are
not the only social group that could be of a size to be a key attribute of an electoral context.
Because of their special status under the Voting Rights Act, as amended in 1982 and beyond,
racial and ethnic groups have particular political relevance. A candidate coming back from a
scandal, therefore, would need to be in step with the voters in any district in which she sought to
represent, not just in being a member of the group that dominates but in a perception that they
authentically represent that group.
There is one final piece of electoral context that is not tied to place or constituency and
that is one based on timing. We know that certain election cycles are ones in which being an
“outsider” is an advantage because of the animus towards the way that government is
functioning. Those who are recovering from scandals were, of course, “insiders” previously.
However, after having their political careers short-circuited by scandal, most candidates become
“outsiders” because during scandal, most co-partisans typically want the scandalized politicians
to disappear before he causes the party any additional reputational harm. In comeback bids, the
lingering aroma of scandal is usually enough to repel party elites, forcing the scandalized
candidate to run as an “outsider.” While that dramatically limits the potential for institutional
support, reducing scandalized candidates’ ability to win the backing of interest groups and
10 veteran pols with personal organizations, it can, In certain election cycles, have electoral benefits
if they emphasize that trait in their self-presentation.11
Contrition (or Combativeness): Previous research on the nature of scandals suggests that
fiscal scandals are more damaging than scandals that are primarily sexual in nature. We believe,
however, that way candidates address their prior scandals during their comeback bids is just as
important. While every scandal and every electorate is different, we hypothesize that in most
settings, genuine contrition is a critical first step of recovery. Ideally, while the genuineness of
such contrition should show itself in any discussion of the scandal after the initial moments of
the campaign, it should become less of a focus as the campaign continues and other issues come
to the fore. In sexual scandals, in particular, the embrace of a candidate by a wronged spouse
can be a potent partner, but not a substitute for, the candidate’s own contrition to the voting
public. Therefore, we would also suggest that anything that varies from this pattern would keep
the issue an albatross during an attempted comeback from a sex scandal.
While effectively presented contrition is the norm for the response to scandal that can
facilitate a successful recovery, there are scenarios where a very different response will pay off
for candidates. In settings where the constituency feels consistently bullied and disempowered
by a dominant group, a candidate attempting to recover can cite his downfall as just one more
case of their social group being dominated by a media (and, in some cases, law enforcement) that
is controlled by the majority. Here, in certain circumstances, combativeness may supplement or
even replace contrition as the appropriate response in the eyes of the voters who determine
whether the candidate gets a second chance. While, in the American context, “persecutions”
that are perceived as race-based create the most likely scenario for a combative approach to work
11
In her analysis of women candidate’s advertising, Shauna Shames (2003) has found a greater propensity by these
candidates, members of a traditional “outsider” group, to emphasize “outsider” themes to great benefit in certain
electoral settings.
11 as the key to a politics of recovery, there are other situations where it would also be successful.
Therefore, because of the interplay between constituency and candidate self-presentation, there is
no “one size fits all” response that can facilitate success on the comeback trail.
Candidate Charisma: As the literature review shows, in the post-Watergate era
traditional media is primed to cover the scandal angle of a story extensively; this was shown
clearly in journalistic accounts of the 2013 comeback efforts. Therefore, we believe that it is
crucial for candidates to go over the heads of the media and connect with voters directly during a
comeback effort. Certain candidates will have the charisma necessary to make such personal
appeals and others lack it; that may determine the difference between those who succeed and
those who fail in this tricky task of a political recovery.
Social media does create some additional opportunities to bypass traditional media cover
and connect directly with voters. We also hypothesize that, during contemporary comeback
efforts, there may be greater reliance on social media than in campaigns lacking that dynamic.
Of course, the candidates attempting a comeback are only one of the candidates on the
political stage during a campaign. The political talents and infrastructure of competing
candidates can also create opportunities for comebacks and also make them more difficult. It is
also important to note that the enhanced media coverage accompanying a political comeback
creates higher pressure for opponents as well. While there is some element of luck in this part
of the politics of recovery, it is a very real factor in a comeback’s success or failure.
One notable factor absent from our analysis is money. Given its pre-eminence in previous
election-related research (see, e.g., Jacobson 1980; Jacobson 1992; Burroughs 2013), our
omission might raise eyebrows. However, money simply did not seem to be a key factor in the
comeback candidacies we studied. Some candidates had ample funding (such as Anthony Weiner
12 and Eliot Spitzer, who spent twice as much as his opponent) and showed quite poorly, while
others were lightly funded but won regardless (Marion Barry and Alcee Hastings). One possible
explanation for the seeming incongruity is that the intensity of media coverage on the comeback
bids of scandal-scarred candidates reduces the influence of paid media in a campaign.
Frequency of Comeback Attempts
Table 1 shows, to the best of our knowledge,12 the universe of modern cases involving an
officeholder having his or her political career ended by scandal where the politician then
attempted a comeback.
While cases at lower levels of politics within states have
unquestionably occurred over time, this list captures modern situations in which the candidate
was, at the time of the scandal, a member of the US House, held a statewide elected position, was
a large city mayor, or was a federal judge. As is shown from the data, while this is certainly not
a regular occurrence, it is now occurring with some frequency.
Most interestingly, these
candidates have had success in their comeback efforts approximately half of the time.
12
This data was collected by the authors from journalistic accounts across recent decades as well as through a
“crowdsourcing” exercise on Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/11/1222706/-Who-are-the-newcomeback-kids-Help-us-uncover-them#). The authors would appreciate being contacted about any additions that
need to be made to this list.
13 State
OH
Previous
Office Held
U.S. House
(D)
Scandal
Tax evasion
Drug abuse &
adultery
DC
Mayor (D.C.)
(D)
Campaign $ misuse
IL
U.S. House
(D)
Corruption
LA
Governor
Lost
Dropped
out
(D)
Bribery
FL
Federal District
Court Judge
Removed
(D)
Campaign $ misuse
KY
U.S. House
Lost
OH
U.S. House
FL
Name
Jim Traficant
Party
(D, I)
Marion Barry
Barbara
Rose-Collins
Edwin
Edwards
Alcee
Hastings
Carroll
Hubbard
Mary Rose
Oakar
Claude
Pepper
Mel
Reynolds
Eliot Spitzer
Anthony
Weiner
Buddy Cianci
Jim Bunn
Newt
Gingrich
Roy Moore
Mark
Sanford
Manner of
Departure
Removed
Finished
term
Later Office(s)
Sought
U.S. House
City Council;
Mayor
City Council
(Detroit)
Won
Governor
Secretary of
State;
U.S. House
Won
Lost
Lost
State Senate
Mayor
(Cleveland);
State House
U.S. Senate
Lost
U.S. House
Won
Lost;
Won
(D)
House banking
scandal
Support for Soviet
Union
(D)
(D)
Child molestation
Prostitution
IL
NY
U.S. House
Governor
Resigned
Resigned
U.S. House
NYC Comptroller
Lost
Lost
(D)
Exhibitionism
Assault &
racketeering
Adultery
NY
U.S. House
Mayor
(Providence)
U.S. House
Resigned
Mayor (NYC)
Lost
Resigned
Lost
Mayor
State House
Won
Lost
GA
President
AL Supreme
Court
Lost
AL
U.S. House
AL Supreme
Court
Resigned
(R)
Tax ethics & adultery
Constitutional
violations
(R)
Adultery
SC
Governor
U.S. House
Won
(D)
(R, I)
(R)
(R)
RI
OR
Removed
Finished
term
Lost;
Won
Won
As the number of cases is not large enough for any quantitative analysis, it is most
appropriate to use a comparative case analysis. As such, the remainder of this paper examines
the interplay of these factors in a series of key cases. First, we examine the cases of Anthony
Weiner and Eliot Spitzer in New York City elections, for mayor and comptroller respectively, in
2013. Spitzer’s close loss and Weiner’s devastating loss in their Democratic primaries provide a
good comparative case analysis of the key variables noted before at work in the same electoral
context. Next, we examine a successful comeback: the return of South Carolina’s Mark Sanford
to Congress through a 2013 special election victory just over four years after an affair came to
Outcome
Lost
Won;
Won
14 light that led to the governor’s censure by the South Carolina legislature and apparently doomed
any future in politics in the state for a person once often mentioned for a future national ticket.
Finally, we examine a group of cases, all in overwhelmingly African-American districts, in
which two of three comebacks examined were successful. Here we are able to examine the
power of “outsider” messaging with a constituency particularly dubious of attacks, by media and
prosecutors, on African-American elites. Together, full examinations of these critical cases
provide the first systematic examination in what is likely to become a regular component of
American electoral politics moving forward.
New York City 2013: One Debacle and One Close Call
As former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner prepared to launch his political comeback
bid in the spring of 2013, he and his wife, Huma Abedin, sat down for a lengthy interview with
Jonathan Van Meter of The New York Times Magazine.13 Van Meter also consulted Weiner's
pollster, David Binder, who had just successfully helped re-elect Barack Obama and whom
Weiner had paid over $100,000 for public opinion research. Binder explained that voters were
prepared to forgive Weiner if he were to seek office again, but only as part of a special compact:
There was this sense of "Yeah, he made a mistake. Let's give him a second
chance. But there are conditions on that, and there are a couple of things we're
going to want to know: What have you been doing since this incident occurred?
Did you learn anything from this mistake? How did you deal with it?" They want
to know that they've put it behind them.
13
Jonathan Van Meter, “Anthony Weiner and Human Abedin’s Post-Scandal Playbook,” New York Times, 10 April,
2013.
15 "This incident," of course, referred to the sexting scandal which drove Weiner out of
Congress in the first place. Just two years earlier, Weiner had been caught sharing—publicly—a
photo of himself clad only in underwear with a young woman on Twitter. Weiner first claimed
he did not send the photo in question, but simultaneously told reporters that he could not "say
with certitude" whether the picture was of himself.14
Weiner soon reversed course and acknowledged the provenance of the photo, admitting
that he had "not been honest" with the public.15 Weiner initially resisted calls to resign over his
dissembling, but revelations that he had exchanged explicit messages with other women soon
followed. Pressure to quit grew from members of his own party,16 culminating with President
Obama saying "if it was me, I would resign."17 On June 16, 2011, barely three weeks after his
errant tweet was first discovered, Weiner announced that he would step down.
Now, after his very brief sojourn in the wilderness, Weiner was contemplating a return to
public life with a second run for mayor of New York City. To regain acceptance with voters,
Weiner's own pollster told him that he had to demonstrate that he'd changed during his time
away, and that his foibles were a thing of the past. But at the same time Weiner accepted this
new burden, he cautioned that further salacious details about his social media escapades might
yet emerge:
If reporters want to go try to find more, I can't say that they're not going to be able
to find another picture, or find another … person who may want to come out on
14
Epstein, J., and Jake Sherman, “Rep. Anthony Weiner ‘Can’t Say with Certitude’ Photo Isn’t Him,” Politico, 01
June, 2011.
15
“Transcript of Weiner’s Statement Confessing to Twitter Photo, Past Relationships,” New York 4, 07, June 2011.
16
Sam Stein, “Anthony Weiner Seeks Treatment, Requests Leave of Absence As Top Democrats Call for
Resignation,” Huffington Post, 11, June 2011.
17
“Obama on Anthony Weiner: If I Were Him I’d Resign,” Huffington Post, 13, June 2011.
16 their own, but I'm not going to contribute to that. The basics of the story are not
gonna change.19
At first, though, it seemed as though the past would remain there. Weiner launched his campaign
in May, immediately shaking up a moribund Democratic primary. Early polls showed him
leaping past several established candidates into second place,20 behind City Council Speaker
Christine Quinn, the longtime frontrunner.
Weiner appeared to have chosen the context for his return with some measure of savvy.
In a Democratic primary, he wouldn't have to face Republican partisans whose revulsion for his
high-octane liberal rhetoric would have added fuel to their desire to thwart his ambitions. At the
same time, the Democratic field largely lacked charisma; Weiner, by contrast, possessed a
greater ability to connect with ordinary voters and speak in language progressives (at least of the
MSNBC-watching variety) wanted to hear. It was in the crucial realm of contrition where
Weiner would fall stunningly short.
Weiner soon rode his name recognition and a frenzy of media attention to the top: By
mid-summer, Quinnipiac and Marist, the two schools that polled the race most frequently, both
found him in the lead. But in a crowded field, the contest remained close, and Weiner was never
took more than a quarter of the vote, with Quinn always close behind.
Until July 23. That day, a gossip website called "The Dirty" revealed new nude photos
Weiner had taken of himself and shared online with a 23-year-old Illinois native named Sydney
Leathers, using the pseudonym "Carlos Danger."21 (The relationship was mutual; Leathers
reciprocated with revealing pictures of her own.) Weiner had, of course, warned that more selfies
19
Breanna Edwards, “Anthony Weiner ‘Can’t Say if Other Pics Exist,” 24, April 2013.
Real Clear Politics, "New York City Mayor Polling Averages - Democratic Primary," Real Clear Politics, 29
September, 2013.
21
The Dirty Politics, “Exclusive Image: Anthony Weiner Penis Picture And Timeline,” The Dirty Politics, 25 July
2013.
20
17 and sext partners might shake loose, but his attempt to inoculate himself did not remotely
succeed, perhaps because he misapprehended the nature of his transgression.
When, in 2011, fellow Democrats called on him to resign, they did so not merely because
Weiner had sent lewd photos to women but because he failed to tell the truth about what he did.
As then-DNC chair Tim Kaine said: "Lying publicly about something like this is unforgivable
and he should resign."22 (High-minded morality was hardly the only consideration, though. Many
Democrats, including Obama's spokesman, also called Weiner a "distraction"; reeling from
massive losses at the ballot box the year before, the party was eager to avoid further unforced
errors and unwanted attention.)
Leathers, it turned out, was not a figure from Weiner's congressional days. Rather,
Weiner began corresponding with her only in 2012, after he resigned and after he had apparently
reconciled with his wife over his transgressions. The voting public, Weiner's pollster had said,
wanted to know that Weiner had "put it behind" him, and Weiner gave every impression that he
had.
Indeed, in a 2012 interview with People Magazine—Weiner and Abedin's first since his
resignation—Weiner declared, "I really do feel like a very, very different person."23 Speaking in
the past tense, Abedin said, "My husband did a really stupid thing." She continued: "Anthony
would be the first to tell you that he regrets the mistakes that he made and he has spent every
single day since then trying to be the best dad he can be, the best husband he can be and it
shows."24
22
Peter Hamby, “Kaine: Weiner Should Resign,” Politicalticker CNN, 8 June 2011.
Sandra S. Westfall, "I Feel Like a Different Person." People, 30 July, 2012
24
Sandra S. Westfall, “Anthony Weiner: How Last Summer’s Interview with People Stacks Up Now,” People, 24
July, 2013.
23
18 Weiner, however, had begun communicating with Leathers a week before his sit-down
with People appeared in print.25 Not only had Weiner violated the conditions his pollster told
him were necessary to earn the public's forgiveness, but he entered the mayoral race already
having broken them, while trying very hard to convey that his sexting had long since stopped.
Weiner had not only failed to demonstrate his contrition, he had acted in a manner that suggested
he was never serious about repentance in the first place.
This dissembling harkened back to Weiner's infamous "can't say with certitude" moment
and ushered in a lightning-fast downfall that was even quicker than his initial resurgence. A
Quinnipiac poll that went into the field immediately following The Dirty exposé saw Weiner
plummet 10 points, knocking him all the way down to fourth place, and a majority of primary
voters said they thought Weiner should drop out.26
Abedin stood by Weiner, even joining him at a press conference after "Carlos Danger"
was unmasked to reiterate her support for her husband. It was a textbook move from the
contrition playbook, but it failed to stem the damage. Weiner's campaign was soon engulfed in
turmoil, as his campaign manager quit and Leathers willingly provided additional fodder for the
New York tabloids. His poll numbers continued to spiral downwards and he never again clocked
in anywhere above fourth.
25
Andrew Kaczynski, “Weiner’s Wholesome People Magazine Spread Came One Week After Starting Online
Relationship,” BuzzFeed Politics, 23 July, 2013.
26
Quinnipiac University, “Weiner Should Drop Out, NYC Likely Dem Voters Tell Quinnipiac University Poll;
Quinn Leads, With De Blasio, Thompson Tied For Second,” Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, 29 July 2013.
19 25 20 15 10 5 0 Public polling of Anthony Weiner in the 2013 New York City Democratic primary for mayor (three-poll moving
average)27
But in a final indignity, Weiner actually finished fifth, with less than 5 percent of the
vote. That put him behind New York City Comptroller John Liu, whose own campaign had long
since imploded after his top fundraising staffers were convicted of fraud, before Weiner ever
even enter the race.28 Weiner's collapse also appeared to aid the eventual winner, Public
Advocate Bill de Blasio, who ostensibly sought to appeal to similar blocs of voters29 and whose
rise in the polls coincided with Weiner's swoon.
27
Real Clear Politics, "New York City Mayor Polling Averages - Democratic Primary," Real Clear Politics, 29
September, 2013.
28
Benjamin Weiser, “Two Former Liu Associates Are Found Guilty in Campaign-Finance Scheme,” New York
Times, 2 May, 2013.
29
Colin Campbell, “Weighing Weiner’s Impact in New York’s Mayoral Race,” Politicker, April, 2011.
20 If there was a lesson for Weiner, and for any politician facing similar circumstances, it
was that even if voters are willing to forgive lies and poor judgment once, they won't pardon a
recidivist. Weiner was like a stereotypical junkie, promising to get clean while still getting high,
and in the end, New Yorkers simply weren't willing to put up with his habit.
ELIOT SPITZER: The “Steamroller” Gets Rolled
Anthony Weiner's Times Magazine interview was published shortly after Mark Sanford
secured the Republican nomination in the South Carolina special election, and political analysts
couldn't help but wonder if Sanford offered some lessons for his one-time congressional
colleague.30 The answers were inconclusive, and if anything, the two situations were more
different than alike.
Weiner himself opined that he didn't "know if there's anything similar" between the
Palmetto State and New York City and, less convincingly, claimed of Sanford's eventual victory,
"I wasn't watching it very carefully."31 Sanford took the same approach, saying of Weiner, "I
wouldn't presume to give any other politician advice."32
Yet when former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer launched his surprise comeback attempt
in early July of 2013, the facile "rule of threes" beloved by trend-seeking reporters inevitably
reared its head.33 It was hard, though, not to see Spitzer as influenced by both Sanford and
30
Maggie Haberman, “First Mark Sanford, Next Anthony Weiner?,” Politico, 8 June, 2013; Sean Sullivan, “Why
the ‘Mark Sanford=Anthony Weiner’ Equation Doesn’t Add Up,” The Washington Post, 8 May, 2013; Sanford and
Weiner served together in the House from 1999 to 2001.
31
Hunter Walker, “Anthony Weiner ‘Wasn’t Watching’ Mark Sanford’s Comeback,” Talking Points Memo
LiveWire, 23 May, 2013.
32
Haberman 2013
33
Joe Concha, “Sex and The Pity: Weiner’s Rise, Sanford’s Success Paves Way for Spitzer Sequel,” Mediaite, 9
July, 2013.
21 Weiner. Sanford had won, after all, and at the time, one poll had already found Weiner in first
place while others showed him a close second, even though he'd been in the race less than two
months.
Did that mean there was an opening for Spitzer? He had left office in disgrace in early
2008, a little over a year after winning the governorship in a landslide. Once nationally known as
the "Sheriff of Wall Street" for his aggressive prosecution of financial misdeeds, Spitzer had
been caught on a federal wiretap engaging the services of high-priced call girls in Washington,
DC.34
But the go-it-alone style that had served Spitzer well as attorney general was very much
the opposite of what would make for a successful governor. Spitzer had dubbed himself a
"steamroller" upon assuming the state's highest office, yet little over a year later, he had been
flattened by Albany, not the other way around.35 His one-time mentor, Lloyd Constantine,
referred to Spitzer's brief, chaotic tenure as the "plague year,"36 and by the end of it, Spitzer had
no friends willing to defend him in public, particularly in the face of a prostitution scandal. He
resigned just two days after the story broke.
Spitzer, ever ambitious, did not remain in the shadows long, though. He began writing an
online column on financial issues less than a year after leaving office and regularly appeared on
television talk shows. In 2010, he became the host of his own show and remained on TV with his
own program until early 2013. Later that same year, Spitzer, too, decided to test whether voters
had forgiven him for his failures, five years after his departure.
34
Danny Hakim, “Spitzer is Linked to Prostitution Ring,” New York Times, 10 March, 2008.
Michael M. Grynbaum, “Spitzer Resigns, Citing Personal Failings,” New York Times, 12 March, 2008.
36
Danny Haum, “Book on Spitzer’s Downfall Sets Off Angry Replies,” New York Times, 3 March, 2010.
35
22 Like Sanford—and unlike Weiner—Spitzer aimed his sights downward in choosing the
political context where he'd make his return. The New York City comptroller's post was
considerably lower-profile than governor or state attorney general, where Spitzer had first made
his mark. And as an adversarial position dedicated to rooting out financial wrongdoing,
comptroller was also more similar to the latter job than the former, which better suited Spitzer's
lone wolf temperament.
At the same time, the city's overwhelmingly Democratic electorate meant that Spitzer
would largely have to concern himself only with the primary, rather than the general election. In
that respect, his calculus was similar to that of both Weiner and Sanford, who survived his own
unforced errors thanks to his district's strong Republican lean.
Spitzer had been out of office longer than the other two, allowing more time for the hurts
he caused to heal. That in turn diminished the importance of contrition to his comeback, as his
scandals had faded further. But thanks to Spitzer's ongoing media presence, he had been more
visible—both a positive and a negative. It allowed him to remain a public figure, but any voters
hoping his penitence would take the form of a quiet and humble exile would have been
disappointed.
However, unlike Weiner and Sanford, Spitzer had admitted to committing criminal
acts—solicitation of prostitutes, potentially a far worse offense. Whether voters found this most
ancient of sins more off-putting, though, than Weiner's lies about his lewd photos and messages,
or Sanford's disappearance and use of taxpayer money to travel abroad to see his mistress,
remains difficult to say. Spitzer's scandal, at least, lacked the same bizarre drama.
23 But the sharpest distinction between Spitzer and the men he may have hoped to emulate
was the field of opponents he was looking to take on—or in Spitzer's case, opponent, singular.
Weiner faced a well-financed, well-connected group of seasoned pols who, even had his further
indiscretions not been revealed, would have proven tough competition. Sanford, by contrast,
vanquished a gang of little-known contenders in the Republican primary and only had himself to
blame for the relative closeness of the general election.
Spitzer, though, would go up against only Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer,
who, until Spitzer's last-minute entry, had been on his way to an uncontested coronation as the
city's next comptroller. (The seat was open thanks to John Liu's mayoral bid, and no Republican
had held it since the end of World War II.)37 Stringer, in the largely ceremonial borough
president's role, was a largely colorless pol whose relative lack of charisma contrasted with
Spitzer's sharp-tongued invective and brash style.
Stringer also wasn't expecting any competition.38 And Spitzer, with his broad name
recognition and considerable personal wealth amassed in the real estate industry after leaving
office, looked like a formidable foe. Spitzer, of course, still inspired negative feelings among
many, but the generally liberal New York City Democratic primary electorate offered friendlier
confines than his last arena, the state as a whole.
Polls immediately showed Spitzer ahead after he got into the race in July, some by double
digits.39 Black voters in particular welcomed Spitzer back,40 as they had—however briefly—
37
Wikipedia Page, “Political Party Strength in New York City,” Retrieved on 30 October, 2013,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_New_York_City.
38
Celeste Katz, “Scott Stringer Surprised by Spitzer’s Last Minute Controller Run,” The Daily News, 9 July, 2013.
39
Real Clear Politics, “NYC Comptroller - Democratic Primary,” Real Clear Politics, 2013.
40
Jelani Cobb, “Why Are Black Voters More Forgiving of Scandalized Politicians,” New Republic, 15 August,
2013.
24 Weiner.41 Spitzer emphasized his combativeness and outsider status, portraying himself as a
long-time fighter against powerful interests, a strategy that worked especially well with this
demographic. For a time, it seemed that had recovered from his self-inflicted wounds and would
simply swamp Stringer by virtue of being the better-known quantity.
Yet there was an early sign that Spitzer knew he couldn't simply try to ignore his own
history. He pre-emptively tried to own up to his mistakes, kicking off his campaign with an ad in
which he admitted he had "failed—big time."42 The very fact that Spitzer sought to do so
indicated he felt he had to do so, to shore up his standing with less-forgiving voters.
And those voters were a real concern for Spitzer, as demonstrated by the fact that Stringer
eagerly reminded New Yorkers of the sordid details of Spitzer's past. In public appearances and
debates, Stringer criticized not only Spitzer's "illicit, illegal behavior" but also his brief and
ineffective tenure as governor.43 And he closed with a final TV ad that painted Spitzer not only
as a criminal, but as a hypocrite for prosecuting prostitution rings but avoiding any charges
stemming from his own patronage of prostitutes.44
Spitzer also went negative, with a spot attacking Stringer for supporting a temporary
extension of term-limits in 2008,45 which had allowed Mayor Mike Bloomberg and members of
the city council to seek a third term, undoing two voter referendums that limited office-holders to
two terms. That issue very likely led to Bloomberg's closer-than-expected re-election campaign
41
Harry Bruinius, “Why Black Voters Are Backing Anthony Weiner in N.Y. Mayor Race (+video),” The Christian
Science Monitor, 16 July, 2013.
42
Lindsey Boerma, “Eliot Spitzer’s New Ad for Comptroller: ‘I failed, big time’,” CBS News, 22 July, 2013.
43
Catalina Camia, Martha T. Moore, “Eliot Sptizer Spent $10M on Political Comeback,” USA Today, 12
September, 2013.
44
Scott Stringer Campaign, “Clear Choice,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi8HWJ88wtE
45
Colin Campbell, “Comptroller Candidates Launch Attack Ads to Close Heated Race,” Politicker, 05 September,
2013.
25 in 2009, and it also surfaced in the 2013 race to succeed him, but not with the intensity of the
number one topic that defined the mayor's race, the policing tactic of stop-and-frisk.
Spitzer ultimately spent $10 million of his own money on the race, almost double the
$5.7 million Stringer brought to bear through a combination of traditional fundraising and public
matching funds.46 It wasn't enough.
The polls, it turned out, were almost all wrong.47 Aside from Quinnipiac, every public
pollster predicted a Spitzer victory. Instead, Stringer won 52-48.48 According to Stringer's
pollster, Mark Mellman, outfits like Marist and Siena envisioned a much bigger electorate than
actually showed up at the ballot box.49 Those less-frequent voters who did not ultimately turn out
were more inclined toward Spitzer, perhaps simply because he was the better-known figure, than
stalwart primary voters were.
A poll from Public Policy Polling taken just before Election Day, despite mis-calling the
race for Spitzer, hinted at this phenomenon.50 Even though he led 45-41 in the head-to-head
matchup, the former governor's favorability rating was underwater, with 43 percent viewing him
positively and 45 negatively. Stringer, meanwhile, had a broadly positive 51-22 favorability
rating. Pollster Tom Jensen suggested that if Spitzer were to nevertheless win, "it may suggest
that bad name recognition is better than no name recognition."
In the end, that wasn't the case. And given that PPP's poll incorrectly showed Spitzer
leading, his standing with voters was probably even more negative than the survey indicated.
However, Spitzer came close enough to victory that broader conclusions about his rehabilitation
46
Camia and Moore 2013.
Real Clear Politics 2013.
48
WNYC, “Election 2013,” WNYC, 2013.
49
Mark S. Mellman, “Polling the Right People Matters,” The Hill, 17 September, 2013.
50
Public Policy Polling, “De Blasio in Command,” Public Policy Polling, 08 September, 2013.
47
26 should only be drawn cautiously: Had 22,000 voters out of the more than 550,000 who
participated switched sides, we would be writing about Spitzer's successful comeback.
What is manifest, though, is that Spitzer was not a repeat offender, unlike Weiner. Had
further prostitution stories emerged, they likely would have been as deadly to Spitzer's campaign
as The Dirty's scoop was to Weiner's. But in Spitzer's case, one story—the original story—was
enough. Mellman claims that his polling "had Stringer ahead the entire time";51 if so, Spitzer
began the race with a reputation that hadn't been sufficiently rehabilitated, and Stringer's attacks
made further rehab on the campaign trail impossible.
Spitzer could have waited for another opportunity, to allow his mistakes to recede further
into the past, though the open comptroller's race likely offered the best context he could hope for
in the medium term. Rather than devote as much money as he did to television ads, he might
have played up his combativeness even further and focused more on get-out-the-voter operations
focused on black voters. Blacks supported him by a two-to-one ratio, according to exit polls, but
only made up 29 percent of the electorate.52 (Whites backed Stringer by the same spread and
constituted 47 percent of all voters.)
Or he could have worked on his contrition, something that after his initial ad he seemed
to treat as almost an afterthought. Instead, he insisted that "I've answered all those questions"
about the scandal that led to his downfall.53 Spitzer maintained, as he had to, that "The public
cares about what I did in government.... And that's what the public is going to vote based on."54
Some voters surely did. For others, the mistrust Spitzer engendered never faded. Some wounds
51
Mellman 2013.
New York Times, “Exit Polls,” New York Times, 10 September, 2013.
53
Colin Campbell, “Elliot Spitzer Finds Some Fans in Downtown Brooklyn,” Politicker, 01 August, 2013.
54
Id.
52
27 can't be healed, and in Spitzer's case, even had he done everything right, a comeback may simply
have been impossible.
MARK SANFORD: From “the Appalachian Trail” to the Halls of Congress
Governor Mark Sanford’s political career appeared to be over as he carried out a
meandering press conference in the South Carolina State Capitol in late June 2009. In it he
talked about a relationship with “what started out as a dear, dear friend from Argentina” but had
grown into an extramarital affair with his “soul mate” and also about an infamous lie that he had
told in an attempt to hide a trip to visit the woman at her Buenos Aires home—that he was on a
hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail and thus not available by normal means of communication.
This had led to a frantic search led by state law enforcement officials.55 In the days that
followed, as Sanford fended off demands that he leave office from those who were previously
political friends and foes and compared himself to King David, alluding to the “the way in which
(King David) fell mightily — he fell in very, very significant ways — but then picked up the
pieces and built from there.”56
Sanford finished out his term as governor of South Carolina (he was already officially
term limited), but the man once mentioned as a prospective Republican presidential candidate
was deeply scarred. State legislators went on to officially censure Sanford and the state Ethics
Commission fined the governor $74,000 for a variety of offenses involving travel expenses that
had been improperly charged to his office and campaign.57
55
Transcript of Mark Sanford’s Press Briefing, 6 June 2009, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/24text-sanford.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
56
Jim Rutenberg and Shaila Dewan, “Back at Work, Governor Puts Apology on Agenda,” New York Times, 26 June
2009.
57
Shaila Dewan, “Gov. Sanford Won’t Face Charges on Ethics,” New York Times, 3 May 2010.
28 Within a few months of the revelations, Sanford’s wife and key political strategist Jenny
Sanford filed from divorce from her husband and the father of their four sons. An “elegant
evisceration of a memoir” titled Staying True, released in early 2010, gave Jenny Sanford a great
deal of national attention.58 In South Carolina, she was regularly discussed as a candidate for
office herself.
After US Senator Jim DeMint announced his resignation in late 2012, her friend
Governor Nikki Haley included Sanford on the short list to replace him through gubernatorial
appointment. Instead, Haley selected US Representative Tim Scott from the state’s First
Congressional District gained the appointment. Jenny Sanford was then mentioned as a
prospective candidate for the seat that her former husband had once held but in early 2013
announced she would not seek the Republican nomination in that race.
After the end of his governorship, Mark Sanford retreated to his family farm and
continued developing his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur, despite their geographical
distance.59 He returned to the public eye with occasional media appearances as a political
commentator on Fox News.
In the summer of 2012, Sanford and Chapur became engaged and
she relocated to the US.
Tim Scott’s appointment and the setting of a special election for the First District seat
reopened the possibility of Sanford returning to electoral politics. After weeks of public
discussion of a Sanford candidacy, he announced just before the filing period opened in midJanuary for the GOP primary to be held March 19, 2013. With an astonishing 15 other
Republicans running for the nomination, Sanford was always considered a lock for a spot in a
runoff for the nomination based on his name recognition and fundraising advantage. The
58
59
Jan Hoffman, “Southern Discomfort,” New York Times, 5 February 2010.
Andrew Goldman, “Mark Sanford Is Still in Love,” New York Times, 5 February 2011.
29 assumption was that the runoff election between Sanford and the other survivor of the primary
two weeks after the primary would be the big test for the Sanford.
As it turned out, a
surprisingly vigorous Democratic candidacy created a major wrinkle in Sanford’s comeback
effort.
Sanford’s scandalous past was a central component of all media coverage of his decision
to run. While also emphasizing his history of budget hawkishness, Sanford was prepared with a
contrite and apologetic recognition of the scandal-laden parts of his past but also with a clear
attempt to incorporate those events into a broader look at his public life. As he put it, "I think
that the bigger issue is, don't judge any one person by their best day, don't judge them by their
worst day. Look at the totality, the whole of their life, and make judgments accordingly." 60
Sanford also emphasized the story of divorce in the United States in an attempt to normalize the
events that had led to his divorce that had become a national punch line: "Tragically, a lot of
people get divorced in the United States of America, and I suspect many of them have missteps
along that path. All you can do is try to make it as right as you can with the people in your life
and lift your head up and try to move forward."61 As his digital operations and technology
advisor Wes Donehue explained the Sanford strategy: “You go in very gracious, asking for
forgiveness and being kind by your turn. We knew exactly what was coming and we decided to
face it head on.”62
In mid-February, Sanford released his first advertisement in the race that also addressed
these past mistakes. “I’ve experienced how none of us go through life without mistakes,”
Sanford said in the 30 second spot. “But in their wake we can learn a lot about grace, a God of
60
Cameron Joseph, “Mark Sanford Announces He’s Running for the House,” The Hill, 15 January 2013.
Ibid.
62
Interview by Jay Barth with Joel Sawyer, 23 September 2013.
61
30 second chances and be the better for it. In that light, I humbly step forward and ask for your help
in changing Washington.”63 Here, while Sanford did not explicitly apologize for the affair, he
clearly noted it to be a “mistake” but also shifted the conversation to the future as he noted the
personal learning that can come from such errors. In addition, Sanford made a soft allusion to
religious redemption.
After the introduction of his campaign in which Sanford addressed his past, for the
remainder of the primary and runoff periods, Sanford avoided further direct comment on his
troubles. (As will be discussed, that became impossible during the general election.) Although
the issue was occasionally brought up by voters during conversations as Sanford traveled the
district, negative comments directly to Sanford were rare according to a key Sanford strategist.
(“People didn’t bring up the negative stuff at least to his face. Maybe that’s southern politeness.
“64) More common were expressions of understanding regarding Sanford’s personal failings.
As another strategist said, also emphasizing regional attitudes grounded in religious traditions:
“Everyone down here has some skeletons… and down here we’re forgiving. The basis of our
religion” focuses on “screwing up” followed by “redemption.”65
As was hinted at in the opening television advertisement, the scandal also changed
Sanford in another stylistic manner. Through most of his career, Sanford was anything but
modest in his public life. “As governor it was his way or the highway. [These events] humbled
63
Chris Cilizza and Aaron Blake, “Mark Sanford and the Politics of Forgiveness,” Washington Post, 19 February
2013.
64
Interview with Sawyer.
65
Interview by Jay Barth with Wes Donehue, 26 September 2013.
31 him.”66
The advisor argued that the new style worked well on the campaign trail and came
across as ““real and not forced.”67
This stylistic change connected to an important strategic change in Sanford’s campaign
operation as the mechanics of a Sanford campaign did change dramatically in the 2013 special
election, according to those who have worked with Sanford over the years. Traditionally
Sanford was an “all TV, all the time” candidate who personally obsessed about matters such as
ratings points. In the special election campaign, the candidate who traditionally forwent field
work “spent much more time on the ground than in the past” with the candidate himself playing
a central role in that component of the campaign. “He knew he had to look these people in the
eye, especially with opinion leaders” who had to then make the sell of Sanford to others in their
community.68 “Once he got out there and saw the reception,” Sanford’s enthusiasm for this part
of the campaign grew.69
Interestingly, those involved with the social media aspect of the campaign did not do
anything particularly unique in terms of the sell of Sanford. While there was a vibrant social
media outreach effort, as in most contemporary campaigns, the Sanford campaign did not overly
rely on that effort as a component of a more personal touch. Instead, it was the candidate himself
who did most of that work.
South Carolina’s First District runs across all or part of 5 coastal counties beginning just
the north of Myrtle Beach and running to Hilton Head to the south of Charleston with the bulk of
the population of the district coming from Charleston and its surrounding suburbs (some heavily
66
Ibid.
Ibid.
68
Ibid.
69
Sawyer interview.
67
32 African-American neighborhoods in the Charleston area are pulled into the majority black
neighboring 6th Congressional District).
The 75 percent white district has a Cook Partisan
Voter Index of Republican +11 representing how the district performs at the presidential level
compared to the nation as a whole.
Its population is the best educated in the state and the
median household income of the district is considerably higher than any other in South Carolina,
nearly twice as high as the neighboring 6th. Thus, while skewed Republican, it is a relatively
moderate one with John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 winning most of the counties
in the district over strong social conservative opponents.
Just as the district was advantageous for Sanford in terms of partisanship and ideology, it
was ready made for a comeback attempt in that Sanford had represented much—but not all—of
the area during his previous time in Congress.
In all three elections—the primary, runoff, and
general election—Sanford performed strongly compared to most Republicans. It was in those
areas that had been drawn into the district in more recent years that Sanford underperformed.
For instance, in the general election, Sanford badly underperformed in Beaufort County (Hilton
Head) because the heavily retiree population had not been part of Sanford’s old district.
As a
Sanford communications strategist noted: “Since 2009 on, they only knew the bad stuff.”70
While unquestionably a religious electorate, Sanford himself had never centered his
campaigns in the evangelical community. “He was never the type of guy to go stump at a
church,” said advisor Wes Donehue.71 As another said, “Some religious leaders forgave him,
70
71
Ibid.
Interview with Donehue.
33 some didn’t,” but those challenges did not have the devastating impact that they would have for a
candidate who catered more to religious conservatives than country club ones.72
Sanford also benefitted dramatically from the campaign’s larger dynamics. The huge
field of opponents in the first primary ensured that he would emerge with a healthy lead and a
spot in the runoff. However, he did not expect the gift that was his opponent in that runoff.
Curtis Bostic, a former Charleston County Council member with strong evangelical support, had
eked into the runoff, with just over 13 percent of the vote compared to Sanford’s nearly 37
percent, and “was surprised as anyone to be there.”73 Bostic had grassroots support but no real
campaign mechanics in place and stumbled around for the first week of the two week runoff
campaign.
As the runoff progressed, some national conservative bloggers, especially Ali Akbar,
began pushing a message of “you can’t trust Mark; you can trust Curtis Bostic.”74 Focused on a
message of a campaign of restoring fiscal sanity to Washington, Sanford avoided direct response
to the bloggers’ attacks. Instead, the Sanford campaign pushed stories to traditional media
raising questions about whether Akbar had been paid by the Bostic campaign for the stories.
That helped blur the impact of the attacks. Sanford ended up cruising to a 57 to 43 percent
victory over Bostic in the April 2 runoff that most assumed would be the key obstacle to a
Sanford victory in the decidedly Republican district.
Instead, the toughest race that Sanford would face would come in the general election.
Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a businesswoman and sister of late night celebrity Stephen Colbert, had
begun raising money early from a national Democratic base. She had then cruised to an easy
72
Interview with Sawyer.
Ibid.
74
Interview with Donehue.
73
34 victory in the low-key Democratic primary. Polling just after the GOP runoff showed Colbert
Busch with a slight lead and her chances rose when the campaign was jolted by the reemergence
of Jenny Sanford.
In mid-April, Jenny Sanford filed a court complaint arguing that her ex-husband had
violated the conditions of their divorce by visiting her home in early February to spend time with
one of their sons alone, specifically to watch the Super Bowl with him. Worried about additional
shoes to drop, the National Republican Congressional Committee cut the limited support it was
providing Sanford immediately and said it would provide no additional assistance.75 In contrast,
it led to national Democrats investing heavily in Colbert Busch’s upset effort.
The events causes the Sanford campaign, which thought it was through the toughest
period with his personal drama, to react. On that day, the campaign issued a statement on the
events, again focusing on the messiness of divorce. Sanford was also forced to explain the
events on the campaign trail. A week later, he said while campaigning,
People are saying, ‘Wait a minute. When I first read (about the allegation) I was
really, really worried. But now that I’ve seen that no, in fact it’s not as if you were
sneaking through the hedges, trying to break into some house; no, in fact, you
were dropping off your youngest son after a Super Bowl party and the question
was whether or not he was going to watch the Super Bowl alone. That’s a very
different thing.76
Despite the reemergence of the scandal, it did not dominate the final weeks of the campaign to
Sanford’s benefit.
Another challenge for the Sanford campaign came in the single debate between the
candidates on April 29.
Because Colbert Busch was a novice candidate, there were low
75
Alex Isenstadt, “Republicans Pull Plug on Mark Sanford,” Politico, 17 April 2013,
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/mark-sanford-nrcc-90217.html
76
Gina Smith, “Mark Sanford’s Explanation Changes,” The State, 23 April 2013.
35 expectations for her in the debate. Yet, she performed solidly. Moreover, Sanford, never a
strong debater, did nothing to distinguish himself. The highlight of the debate was Colbert
Busch’s attacking Sanford on his personal indiscretions. “When we talk about fiscal spending
and we talk about protecting the taxpayers, it doesn’t mean you take that money we saved and
leave the country for a personal purpose,” she said. Mr. Sanford said he had not heard the
comment because of the crowd noise. “She went there, Governor,” said a moderator in what
became a much repeated segment.
Despite these challenges for Sanford, dramatic gaps in campaign style played to
Sanford’s benefit. The inexperienced Colbert Busch was protected from the traveling press—
and from rank and file voters—in what one Republican described as a “Romneyesque”
campaign.77 While Colbert Busch stayed “in the bubble” as she was driven around the district in
a bus, Sanford was traveling in a car with a “dorky junior staffer.”78
Moreover, there was some sense that the comeback effort helped make a former
consummate insider a political outsider, especially in the closing weeks of the campaign as the
national media portrayed Sanford as an underdog. This played well with an anti-Washington
(and anti-Obama) electorate in an intensely anti-Washington time. “[Sanford] had a proven
record of being a hardcore fiscal conservative outsider. And, he did it with a humble attitude,”
Donehue summed up the race’s outcome.79 Building on the outsider theme, Joel Sawyer said,
“People like comeback stories when it’s people they like.”80
77
Interview with Sawyer.
Ibid.
79
Interview with Donehue.
80
Ibid.
78
36 Although there is some evidence that flawed turnout models led the Colbert Busch
campaign to believe that they had the votes to win, Sanford won a fairly comfortable 54 to 45
percent victory (with a small vote going to a Green Party challenger).
Thus, while he
underperformed the Republican patterns in the district, Sanford overcame much before and
during the race to win. The road to recovery for Mark Sanford shows the interlacing power of
electoral context, personal political skills (and the lack thereof in his key opponent), and a public
expression of humble contrition regarding the scandal that was steady throughout the campaign
even when tested by the late charges that came to light.
MARION BARRY: The Natural
Other than “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” former Washington,
D.C. Mayor Marion Barry contributed perhaps the most memorable quote to the political scandal
lexicon when he realized that his ex-girlfriend had videotaped him smoking crack cocaine: “I’ll
be goddamned,” he muttered. “Bitch set me up.” About that, he was correct. An FBI sting
operation caught the married Barry smoking crack with ex-girlfriend Rasheda Moore, and the
videotape of an enraged Barry excoriating Moore – who had insisted that he smoke freebase
cocaine prior to sex – went as viral as a video could go in 1990.
Though Barry, a three-term mayor at the time, decided not to seek re-election as mayor
after being arrested, he continued as mayor during his trial and even ran for an at-large City
Council seat against a 74-year-old incumbent and former ally who had helped him recuperate
from a 1977 shooting.81 During the trial Barry claimed that he was persecuted and entrapped by
government agents, a claim he continues to make two decades later (“[The Justice Department]
81
Mary Ann French, "Barry Files Petitions for Council Race; Mayor Plans to Appear on November Ballot as
Independent," The Washington Post, 30 October, 1990.
37 wanted to kill me”).82 Though he lost for the first (and only) time in his career, he comfortably
won Ward 8, his home base.83 Barry was sentenced just before the 1990 election, and would
serve six months in a Virginia prison, where he was accused of letting a woman perform oral sex
on him in a prison waiting room (Associated Press, 1992).
A six-bus caravan of parishioners from D.C.’s Union Temple Baptist Church traveled
200 miles to greet Barry the day he emerged from prison in western Pennsylvania, and held a
huge rally and luncheon in his honor outside a nearby Days Inn. Amid boisterous cheering, Barry
“strode straight into the capital's politics” by nonchalantly rattling off the City Council seats for
which he was considering a bid.84 He presented himself as a newly disciplined and devout man:
"I gained the realization that I came to experience a spiritual power outage," Mr. Barry said in
the cadence of a preacher. "I come out of prison better, not bitter," he shouted to a chorus of "Yes
sir" and "Amen" from the crowd.85
Just two months later upon his triumphant return to D.C., Barry announced a comeback
bid for City Council in his home base of Ward 8 against four-term incumbent Wilhelmina
Rolark. He exchanged the expensive suits and power ties of his mayoral tenure for kente cloth,
and relied heavily on religious and African themes, frequent quoting the Bible.86 The campaign,
whose memorable slogan was "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C.,” generated
82
Tristin Hopper, “Former Washington D.C. Mayor Denies Any Parallels Between Himself and Scandal-Plagued
Rob Ford,” National Post, 17 May, 2013.
83
Renee Sanchez, "D.C. Council; Wilson Elevated to Chairman; Cropp, Mason Beat Barry," The Washington Post,
7 November, 1990.
84
New York Times, Former Mayor's Victory Worries Many in Capital,” 17 September, 1992. 85
New York Times, “Former Mayor Of Washington Tries Comeback,” 15 September 15, 1992.
86
Interview with Larry Auerbach, October 27, 2013 38 such intense interest that turnout in Southeast DC’s Ward 8 hit a record high.87 Barry easily
defeated four-term incumbent and former ally Wilhemina Rolark, taking 70% of the vote.
Brazen as it may have seemed to some, the campaign signified a retreat of sorts; the exmayor must have grasped that his baggage might complicate a city-wide race in the increasingly
white city, and instead ran in his overwhelmingly black home district where he had polled well
even immediately following his conviction, suggesting self-awareness and a nuanced
understanding of political context. More important, Barry adroitly mixed contrition and
redemption with a defiance designed to appeal to the Ward 8 voters. He claimed, as he had
during his trial, that he was persecuted and entrapped by government agents and sentenced by a
“racist judge,” a line he repeats to this day.88
Barry took the oath of office wearing formal African attire.89 Soon thereafter, Barry
pledged that he would not seek the mayoralty again. Barry reversed himself late in the election
cycle, announcing in May 1994 that he would challenge incumbent Sharon Pratt Kelly.90 Despite
opposition – including an abortive effort to recall his 1992 council election91 – Barry won a
three-way primary for mayor with 48% of the vote, prompting the Washington Post’s editorial
board to disavow its decision to endorse him in his 1986 bid for a third team. “In an editorial we
wish we could have back…”, began the unusual lament, before endorsing Republican City
Council Member Carol Schwartz, who they had rejected in 1986, in the general election.
87
Ibid.
88
Hopper 2013; Melissa Harris-Perry, “The Melissa Harris Perry Show,” MSNBC, 15 June, 2013. Rene Sanchez, "Barry Takes Office As Supporters Cheer; Others on Council, School Board Sworn In," The
Washington Post, 03 January, 1993.
90
“Barry to Kick Off D.C Comeback Campaign,” Chicago Sun-Times, 22 May, 1994.
91
Alvin Peabody, (1994-07-20)"Recall Effort Launched Against Marion Barry," Washington Informer, 20 July,
1994.
89
39 Given Barry's videotaped crack use, subsequent conviction, and prison time – along with
Schwartz’s credible challenge – many longtime observers thought that the undefeated Barry
could finally be beaten.92 However, he won the general election comfortably, 56%-42%, and in
the wake of his win, counseled the white voters who had opposed his mayoral campaign to "get
over it.”93
After a tumultuous fourth term, Barry declined to seek a fifth term in 1998. But like many
retired politicians, he couldn’t cure the bug. In March 2002, he announced a primary challenge to
at-large Council member Phil Mendelson,94 though he stood down weeks later after federal park
rangers found marijuana and cocaine in his car.95 Two years later, in June 2004, Barry
announced a campaign for the Ward 8 council seat he had held decades earlier, again displaying
a keen understanding of context by running in his home base instead of running for an at-large
seat. He defeated incumbent Sandy Allen handily, with 58% of the vote, and has been re-elected
since then with comfortable margins.
His Council service has been eventful. In 2005, Barry pleaded guilty to misdemeanor
charges stemming from an IRS investigation, and tested positive for cocaine and marijuana
before his hearing, where he was sentenced to three years probation.96 In 2007, federal
prosecutors sought to have his probation revoked for continuing failure to file tax returns, but
failed.97 In February 2009, prosecutors filed more charges, alleging that Barry hadn’t filed his
92
Interview with Larry Auerbach, October 27, 2013.
Yolanda Woodlee, "`I'm the Best ... for Washington'; On Day After, Barry Advises White Voters to Deal With
Him," The Washington Post, 15 September, 1994.
94
Craig Timberg, "Without Barry, the Plot Gets Thinner; Council Member Mendelson Loses a Key Foe, and
Supporters Lose a Key Voice," The Washington Post, 04 May, 2002.
95
Ibid.
96
Debbie Wilgoren, Yolanda Woodlee, "Barry Sentenced to Three Years of Probation," The Washington Post, 10
March, 2006.
97
“Barry avoids prison in tax case," The Washington Times, 21 June, 2007.
93
40 taxes eight of the last nine years; Barry claimed that health problems had distracted him.98 The
IRS would ultimately file a tax lien against Barry.99
Later in 2009, Barry was arrested and charged after his ex-girlfriend, political consultant
Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, claimed he was stalking her;100 charges were later dropped.101 An
investigative report found that Barry had profited from a consulting contract he had awarded to
Watts-Brighthaupt, who admitted plagiarizing her study from a U.S. Department of Education
study and who then repaid money she owed Barry with the proceeds of the contract.102103 Barry
impeded the investigation, directing witnesses to stonewall and withhold subpoenaed
documents.104 Barry apologized for his "very, very poor judgment."[105], but the Council voted
unanimously to strip him of all committee assignments, including his chairmanship. As this
paper was being written in September 2013, Barry was again censured by the Council and
stripped of the chairmanship he had recently regained, this time for accepting $6,800 in cash
from two contractors who had business pending with the city.105 Asked to sum up his career as
the recent scandals mounted, Barry obliged a reporter. “I am a brilliant elected official,” he
concluded.106
How did a politician with a well-publicized past of womanizing and crack addiction
successfully reemerge? The answer may lie further back in the past. Barry, who rose from rural
98
Brian Westley, "Prosecutors: Jail ex-D.C. mayor Barry over taxes," The Associated Press, 9 February, 2009.
Tom Howell Jr, "Barry: New tax lien a result of poor communication," The Washington Times, 15 December,
2011.
100
Tim Johnson; Jenna Johnson, "The Charge Against Barry: Stalking His Ex-Girlfriend," The Washington Post, 6
July, 2009.
101
Stalking charges against Barry dropped," WTOP, 9 July, 2009.
102
Tim Craig, "Bennett report: Barry Benefited From City Contract Obtained for Ex-girlfriend," The Washington
Post, 16 February, 2010.
103
Tom Sherwood, "Report May Put Barry in Hot Water – Again," WRC-TV (NBC), Associated Press, 16 February,
2010.
104
Joseph Weber, "Report: Barry violated city contract law," The Washington Times, 16 February, 2010.
105
Aaron C. Davis, Mike DeBonis, “D.C. Council Censures Marion Barry for Taking Cash Payments from City
Contractors,” Washington Post, 17 September, 2013.
106
Caitlin Dickson, “Twagger Like Us: Marion Barry’s Last Hurrah,” The Daily Beast, 5 April, 2012.
99
41 poverty to become a key Nashville civil rights activist, whose leadership during the Freedom
Rides was chronicled in David Halberstam's The Children and John Lewis’ Walking With the
Wind, quickly became a community leader upon relocating to run D.C.’s local chapter of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In his early years in DC, he coordinated a boycott
to protest bus fare increases, led the Free D.C. Movement for district home rule, and co-founded
Pride, Inc., a Department of Labor-funded program to provide job training and entry-level work
to unemployed black men.107 In the wake of the 1968 riots, Barry started a program of free food
distribution for those living in devastated neighborhoods, convincing a supermarket chain to
donate food and personally delivering food throughout the city's housing projects.108
His subsequent efforts as a D.C. school board member, city council member, and then
mayor – during which Congress set him up for martyrdom by stripping the D.C. mayor's office
of executive powers and cutting federal funding – gave him street credibility that sustained him
throughout his struggles. While D.C. whites (and most people nationally) viewed Barry as a
charlatan, most D.C. blacks saw him as a prodigal son, thanks to his history of activism in the
racially polarized city. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the federal government – which which had a
long history of uneasy, colonial-style relations with the District’s government – conducted the
sting operation that, in the eyes of Barry and many D.C. residents, entrapped him.
It appears, then, that despite the severity of Barry’s initial scandal – and the fact that it
was caught on tape – three important factors help explain his ability to overcome it. First, the
context: he picked the right contest. In both of his comeback bids, the former mayor took a step
back and ran for lower office; he chose a Council seat in Anacostia, his overwhelmingly black
home base, rather than contest an at-large seat in which the percentage of black and white voters
107
108
Milton Coleman, "Marion Barry: The Activist Denies He's Changed," Washington Post, 2 January, 1979.
Arthur Brisbane, "Marion Barry Just Wants to Be Loved," The Washington Post, 26 April, 1987.
42 might be close. Second, his response to the scandal – pure combativeness, no discernible
contrition, with a healthy dose of racial resentment – seemed pitch-perfect given the
downtrodden, disempowered electorate he faced. Finally, his uncanny charisma and personal
appeal, rooted in decades of informal and formal service to the city’s disenfranchised, easily
trumped the relative obscurity of his opponents in both the 1992 and 2004 Council comeback
bids.
ALCEE HASTINGS: A Firebrand Joins the Chamber that Impeached Him
Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL) has the distinction of being the sole member of
Congress – and only the eighth federal official in history – to have been impeached and removed
from office.
President Jimmy Carter appointed Hastings, then a circuit court judge, to a federal
judgeship in 1979. In 1981, prosecutors charged Hastings with seeking a $150,000 bribe in
exchange for a lenient sentence and return of $845,000 in forfeited property to defendants Frank
and Tommy Romano, who were found guilty of 21 counts of racketeering. Prosecutors also
alleged Hastings perjured himself when asked about the case. A jury acquitted Hastings after his
friend and alleged co-conspirator, prominent Washington attorney William Borders, refused to
testify and was sent to prison.109 Hastings was home free, it appeared.
But despite the acquittal, the Eleventh Circuit conducted a separate investigation, hiring
former chief Watergate counsel John Doar to lead a team of federal judges investigating the
matter. After a four-year investigation, the judges found that Hastings had both solicited a bribe
and lied repeatedly during his trial.110 After a lengthy investigation led by noted civil rights
109
110
Edward Cody, "Jury Acquits Judge Hastings In Bribery Case," Washington Post, 4 February, 1983.
“Judge's Impeachment Urged," Washington Post, 19 June, 1983.
43 advocate Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the Democratic U.S. House voted 413-3 to impeach
Hastings for bribery and perjury. Soon thereafter, a 12-senator panel was convened to hear
evidence related to the case. The panel found circumstantial evidence that Hastings was part of the scheme. First, in
response to an undercover agent’s request for a sign that Hastings was “on board,” Borders
successfully promised to have Hastings dine at the Fontainebleau Hotel at a specified time.
Second, there existed a pattern of phone calls between Hastings and Borders at key junctures in
the Romano case, as well as suggestions of Hastings’ sense of urgency; according to testimony,
Hastings told his courtroom clerk upon revoking $800,000 of the $845,000 judgment: “I want the
order today...Sorry for the rush, but the order has to go out today.” Third and most critically,
during one wiretapped phone call between Hastings and Borders, Hastings said, "I've drafted all
those ah, ah, letters, ah, for him, and everything's okay. The only thing I was concerned with
was, did you hear if, ah, hear from him after we talked?" Finally, upon hearing the news of
Borders’ arrest, Hastings avoided the FBI by leaving Washington without checking out of his
hotel, abandoning a suit he had sent to the hotel’s valet service.111 He called his mother and
girlfriend from an airport pay phone, called his girlfriend collect from a second pay phone, and
told her to call him back at a third pay phone, which she did, before having her call back from a
pay phone. When she did, he called her back from a fourth pay phone.112
Hastings claimed these actions had innocuous explanations, and said he was the innocent
victim of his friend’s scam. Since the FBI immediately arrested Borders after he accepted the
cash from an undercover agent, no money was traced to Hastings.113 Borders, convicted of
111
Baron 1995.
Ibid.
113
Ruth Marcus, "Senate Removes Hastings," Washington Post, 21 October, 1989.
112
44 bribery conspiracy charges seven years earlier, again refused to testify -- despite a grant of
immunity -- before congressional panels, and was again was jailed on contempt charges, before
receiving a rare full pardon from President Clinton. Ultimately, the Senate voted by a two-thirds
majority to convict Hastings of eight of 11 articles of impeachment, thereby removing him from
office, though the Senate did not forbid him from seeking federal office in the future.114
But Hastings did not go quietly. He immediately filed suit in federal court, seeking to
invalidate his impeachment trial because he was tried by a Senate committee as opposed to the
full Senate. As the appeal wound through the courts in 1990, Hastings mounted a campaign for
Florida Secretary of State. Rather than shy away from controversy, he campaigned on a platform
of legalizing casinos. In a three-way Democratic primary, he placed second with 33%, behind
newspaper columnist Jim Minter's 38% and just ahead of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon
John Paul Rogers' 29%. Hastings lost to Minter 67%-33% in the runoff, suggesting a clear
ceiling on his statewide vote-getting ability.
Unbowed, Hastings returned in 1992 and wisely selected a different race – one with a
electorate that might be more receptive both to his theory that his impeachment was racially
motivated, and also to a campaign rooted in themes of redemption. The U.S. Supreme Court’s
Thornburg v. Gingles decision had led most Southern states to draw as many majority-minority
districts as possible – it benefited ascendant Republicans, so the Bush-era Justice Department
championed this strategy to promote black electoral success. One such newly-created majority
black district stretched from northern Dade County through much of Broward County to the
north. With high name recognition from the impeachment episode and two decades on the bench
and in private practice, Hastings decided to challenge leading white liberal Democrat, State Rep.
114
Ibid. 45 Lois Frankel. Though other lesser-known candidates entered the primary, Frankel and Hastings
dominated media coverage of the race.
After finishing second in the primary, Hastings had the race he wanted: a head-to-head
race against a white candidates in a 52% black district with a primary electorate estimated to be
57-59% black (Clayton 2000). Though Hastings rhetoric was often divisive, he deployed his
ample charisma with a keen understanding of the new district and its primary electorate. As
Miami Herald political editor Tom Fiedler said, "[H]e is charming, inspirational, brilliant, gutsy,
and charismatic. He is also profane, audacious, proud, brazen, and…slick." (Morin 1998) During
the more genteel moments of the bitter runoff campaign against Frankel, Hastings called her a
wealthy white opportunist with no business contesting a majority-minority district, likening her
candidacy to an effort to “convince B'nai B'rith that some sympathetic Arab millionaire ought to
be prime minister of Israel (Morin 1998). During one less genteel moment, he called Frankel a
“racist bitch” (Man 2012). In the end, voters didn’t appear to mind the inflammatory rhetoric:
Hastings beat Frankel by fifteen points in the runoff.
Just two weeks after the runoff as the general election kicked off, U.S. District Judge
Stanley Sporkin finally ruled on Hastings’ appeal of his impeachment. Noting that Hastings was
not found guilty by two-thirds of the twelve-member Senate panel who actually heard the case,
Sporkin held that the Senate improperly convicted Hastings, and that Hastings had a right to trial
by the full Senate.115 Six weeks later, Hastings defeated his Republican opponent, real estate
developer, Ed Fielding by a 35-point margin in the heavily Democratic district.
When Hastings entered the House in January 1993, he was the first elected official in
American history to be seated in a body that had impeached him, which nearly two-thirds of his
115
The Supreme Court later ruled that the judiciary lacked jurisdiction over impeachment, vacating Sporkin’s ruling
and thereby upholding Hastings's conviction (York 1992).
46 new colleagues had voted to do just four years earlier (Morin 1998). Even after the election,
many questioned whether Hastings was legally able to serve. Though the Constitution suggests
that impeachment automatically disqualifies those convicted from office, a U.S. District Court
ruled on January 4, 1993 that Hastings was indeed eligible to be sworn in (Morin 1988).
Hastings has not avoided controversy as a congressman. In 2011, one of Hastings’ staff
members on the Helsinki Commission he chaired alleged that Hastings made repeated unwanted
sexual advances and threatened her job when she refused him. She stated that he pressured her to
allow him to stay with her during his visits to Vienna, where she was based, and that in one
instance, he asked her "what kind of underwear are you wearing" in front of others.116 She also
alleged Mr. Hastings pressured her to give him gifts and donate to his re-election campaign. In
2012, Hastings was released from the lawsuit, which continued against the Commission.117
Today, as a Senior Whip, Hastings is a member of the Democratic leadership team.
Despite the severity of Hastings’ initial scandal – and the fact that crucial evidence
against him was caught on tape – the factors explaining his ability to surmount it are quite
similar to those in Barry’s case. The divergent results of his two comeback bids demonstrate the
importance of political context. In his 1990 race, Hastings chose the Secretary of State race, and
though he finished a strong second in the primary on the strength of the black vote, lost the
runoff badly (67%-33%) as white voters in the mostly white state united around his white
opponent. In his 1992 effort, Hastings picked the right contest: a congressional race in a newlydrawn black-majority district with a primary electorate that was estimated to be nearly 60%
116
117
Gary Fields and Brody Mullins, “Florida Lawmaker Faces Ethics Review,” Wall Street Journal, 22 June, 2011.
Nedra Pickler, “Alcee Hastings Released From Personal Liability In Sexual Harassment Lawsuit,” Huffington
Post, 14 February, 2012.
47 black.118 Although exit polls for the race are unavailable, the county in the district where
Hastings performed best (Miami-Dade, where he received 74.4%), had the lowest percentage of
non-Hispanic whites in the district; conversely, the county where he performed worst
Okeechhobee, where he received just 23.1%) had the highest percentage of non-Hispanic whites.
Second, Hastings’ response to the scandal – Barry-like combativeness, accusations of
government entrapment, and a total denial of misconduct despite his fishy audiotaped comments
– was pitched well towards the predominantly black congressional primary electorate (though
not to the statewide primary electorate he faced in his 1990 bid). Finally, Hastings outspoken
nature and deep ties in the area after decades practicing law, serving on community boards, and
sitting on the bench gave him standing and genuine credibility among black voters. Despite the
fact that 1992 opponent state Rep. Lois Frankel was also respected – indeed, she is seen as a toptier congressional recruit in the current election cycle – she was overwhelmed by the 23rd
district’s demographics in a South that, nearly 30 years after the Voting Rights Act and 130 years
after the Civil War, remained nearly as racially as polarized as Key (1949) had observed (Epstein
and O’Halloran 1996, Black and Black 2002).
MEL REYNOLDS: A Rhodes Scholar Can’t Shake the Curse of Illinois’ 2nd District
But blackness, calculated truculence in the face of skeptics in the media and political
establishment, and selection of a majority-black district is not always enough for a successful
comeback bid. This is particularly true in cases when the comeback candidate has limited
credibility in the community, lacks longstanding neighborhood and civic ties on which he can
rely, and faces strong competition for the black vote from well-regarded opponents.
118
Since approximately 90% of black south Floridians vote Democratic while whites were much more evenly split, the primary
electorate was more heavily tilted towards minority voters than the 52% black general electorate (Clayton 2000). 48 When attorney Mel Reynolds declared his intention to challenge U.S. Rep. Gus Savage in
a 1988 Democratic primary, the longtime Chicago congressman sneered at his youthful
opponent, a 36 year-old political science professor with a dream resume: he was a Rhodes
Scholar with graduate degrees from both Harvard’s prestigious JFK School of Government and
Oxford University’s Lincoln College. Savage handily disposed of Reynolds, but Reynolds was
unbowed. Months later, the House Ethics Committee found that during an official visit to Africa,
Savage repeatedly grabbed a female Peace Corps volunteer in the backseat of an embassy car,
forced her to kiss him, then asked her for sex as a “reward (given) to people who give their all to
the Movement.”119
In the wake of the Ethics Committee report, Reynolds sought a rematch, calling Savage
an embarrassment to the district. Savage prevailed 51%-44% in a nasty contest. Standing with
Louis Farrakhan at his victory party, Savage said that he defeated not just Reynolds but “white
racists” who controlled the media and initiated the ethics charges, while Reynolds concluded that
“hatred” was the real winner.120
Population loss on Chicago’s South Side led to the district’s expansion into the southern
suburbs after the 1990 redistricting, making the majority-black district somewhat whiter and
more friendly to candidates with crossover appeal. For Reynolds, the third time was a charm. In
a campaign that made the 1990 race look cordial, Savage claimed that Reynolds was a tool of
"racist Jews", while Reynolds claimed that Savage was involved in a drive-by shooting that
injured him (Savage claimed Reynolds staged the shooting to elicit sympathy).121 Late in the
1990 campaign, Savage appeared at a South Side church and read aloud the names of Reynolds’
119
Steven A. Holmes, “Panel is Critical of Representative,” New York Times, Feb. 3, 1990.
William E. Schmidt, “Rep. Savage Claims Victory in Illinois,” New York Times, 21 March, 1990.
121
Isabel Wilkerson, “Gunshots Fired at Congressional Candidate in Bitter Chicago Race,” New York Times, 14
March, 1992.
120
49 Jewish contributors, referring at least six times to “Jewish money” and the “Jewish lobby;”
Savage aides appeared at a Reynolds event and shouted “Jew lover” after Reynolds identified
them to the audience.122 Facing an electorate with tens of thousands of new white voters,
Savage’s shenanigans finally caught up to him, and Reynolds won comfortably with 63% of the
vote.
Reynolds’ congressional service lasted less than half as long as the five years he spent
campaigning nearly nonstop for the seat. In August 1994, prosecutors indicted him for sexual
assault and criminal sexual abuse after discovering an ongoing sexual relationship with a 16year-old campaign volunteer that began during the 1992 campaign.123 Like Barry four years
earlier, Reynolds was caught on tape in a sting operation. While sitting in a prosecutor’s office,
the girl with whom he was involved called Reynolds and told him she couldn’t make their
previously agreed-upon tryst because she had to babysit. Instead, Reynolds directed her to
describe sex with a lesbian lover so that he could masturbate. When Reynolds asked if a
threesome might be possible, the girl suggested a 15-year-old Catholic schoolgirl who might be
willing. “Did I win the Lotto?” exclaimed Reynolds.124
Reynolds denied the charges, which – in an ironic nod to his predecessor Savage – he
claimed were racially motivated. And just as Savage had prospered politically for over a decade
by blaming Reynolds continued his campaign and was re-elected that November without
opposition.125 There is ample evidence for the efficacy of such tactics by incumbents
representing predominantly poor, black constituencies; one black congressman once said, “You
don’t have to have any vigilance; you can get away with raping babies” and still get re-elected
122
123
Rob Karwath, “Remap Alters The Boundaries And The Rules In 2nd District,” Chicago Tribune,” 1992.
Ken Rudin, "The Equal-Opportunity Culture of Corruption," NPR.org, 06 June, 2007.
124
Edward McClelland, “Mel Reynolds's Horniness Opened Door For Obama,” NBC Chicago, 28 November, 2012.
125
Ibid.
50 (Swain 1993). But Reynolds’ defense – that he merely had phone sex with the girl – did not
persuade jurors, and on August 22, 1995, he was convicted on 12 counts of sexual assault,
obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography, and sentenced to five years in prison.
He resigned several weeks later, though he continued to maintain his innocence. Reynolds’ 1998
release date was delayed by six years when, in April 1997, he was convicted on fifteen unrelated
federal charges of bank fraud and lying to investigators. After serving his state sentence, and
over half of his federal sentence, President Clinton commuted the bank sentence, leading to
Reynolds’ early release.126 At this point – his wife having testified against him in his second trial
and divorced him, Reynolds was broke, alone, and jobless. But the Reverend Jesse Jackson –
who had lobbied Clinton along with his son for a commutation of Reynolds’ sentence – hired
Reynolds, without any apparent irony, to work with troubled youth. But prison had not extinguished Reynolds’ political ambition. In 2004, three years out of
prison, he mounted a comeback bid for his old seat, now occupied by Reverend Jackson’s son,
Jesse Jackson, Jr. It was an odd show of gratitude for the Jacksons’ help in securing his
emancipation and post-release employment. Reynolds attacked journalists who credited Jesse
Jackson Sr. for his commutation, and claimed that Jackson Jr. overstated his own role in the
process. "The person that got me out of prison was Bill Clinton," he asserted, though Jackson
produced letters Reynolds wrote from prison thanking Jackson for his efforts.127 Reynolds
admitted to accepting a consultancy with Rev. Jackson’s organization upon his release, but
claimed he only accepted because Jackson needed his services so badly.128 126
Mike Dorning, “Clinton Grants Clemency, Frees Reynolds,” Chicago Tribune, 21 January, 2001.
Curtis Lawrence, “Reynolds' Motto: 'Never Give Up,'” Chicago Sun-Times, 8 March, 2004.
128
Ibid.
127
51 Mainstream press coverage of Reynolds’ campaign initially took his campaign seriously,
as Reynolds claimed to have 26,000 petition signatures prepared for the day of filing.129 “All
over this district people are saying, what has he done?” hectored Reynolds, referring to “Junior,”
as he was known in Chicago. “He's done nothing. His entire life, is a reflection of someone who's
gotten things that they haven't earned.”130 Reynolds contrasted Jackson’s entitlement (“he was
born with a platinum picket sign in his hand") with his own grit and pluck, signified by his
ubiquitous campaign slogan “Never Give Up.”131 However, editorial opinion lined up strongly
against Reynolds. One influential local columnist opined that Reynolds was either running
because a) he needed the money, b) he was urged to run by then-Mayor Daley in order to sully
possible 2007 mayoral candidate Jackson, Jr; c) he was goaded into the race by the agents of
some conniving white candidate who sought to split the black vote and squeak out a win; or d)
because he has an “ego the size of Pennsylvania,”132 “Whatever his motivation, he is absolutely
not welcome,” concluded the op-ed. The voters agreed; Jackson took 88% of the vote to 6% for
Reynolds, the karmic gods having apparently sealed his fate. Shortly after his defeat, Chicago
police ordered Reynolds to move from his South Side home because he was living within 500
feet of Salem Christian Academy, a parochial school.133
Nearly a decade later – in yet another twist – Rep. Jackson Jr.’s career imploded as he
resigned before being convicted of illegally converting campaign funds to personal use.
Reynolds, having now flown straight for a decade, quickly announced his interest in the seat –
along with 18 other people. “A two, three, four, five-year sentence shouldn’t be a life sentence,”
129
He did not ultimately produce the signatures.
Andy Shaw, “Mel Reynolds Plans to Reclaim his Seat in Congress (vs. Jesse Jackson, Jr),”ABC 7 Chicago, 11
December, 2003.
131
Curtis Lawrence, “Reynolds' Motto: 'Never Give Up,'” Chicago Sun-Times, 8 March, 2004.
132
Dennis Wheeler, “A most unwelcome announcement,” Star Newspapers, 9 October, 2003.
133
Annie Sweeney, “Cops tell Mel Reynolds He Lives Too Close to School,” Chicago Sun Times, 5 February, 2005.
130
52 said Reynolds in his announcement speech, framed by campaign signs reading
“REDEMPTION” and "SO HE CAN FINISH THE JOB" that asked voters to “re-elect” him.134
Reynolds made yet another 180-degree shift in his sentiment on the Jackson family, defending
them as he argued that the federal investigation into Jackson Jr.’s finances diverted attention
from the real problems plaguing the city. “At a time when we are living in the killing fields of
Chicago, our federal government seems obsessed with the Jackson,” said Reynolds.135 In an
attempt to ground his own experience in that of Chicago’s black community, “Think of the
hundreds of thousands of people in the African-American community who have made
mistakes…are we gonna write off all those people forever?”136
Unfortunately for Reynolds, Second District voters did seem ready to write Reynolds off
forever. With several serious candidates in the race, including four well-regarded AfricanAmerican state legislators and other elected officials, the press mostly treated him as a sideshow
this time around.137 Former state Representative Robin Kelly won the endorsements of key area
politicians and newspapers, as well as the support of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
who purchased $2 million in television ads supporting her.. On February 26, 2013 she won the
Democratic primary – tantamount to election in the black-majority district – with 52% of the
vote.138 Reynolds’ second comeback finished even more disastrously than his first had. He
finished a distant eighth, winning less than 1% of the vote.
134
Mary Ann Ahern, “Mel Reynolds Jumps Into 2nd District Race,” NBC Chicago, 28 November, 2012.
John Cody, “Reynolds Defends Jesse Jackson Jr.,” CBS Chicago, 2013.
136
Ahern 2012.
137
Carol Felsenthal, “Mel Reynolds Got Out of Jail In 2001, Compliments of Bill Clinton. Why?” Chicago
Magazine, 30 November, 2012.
135
138
Politico, 2013 Illinois 2nd District Primaries Results, 27 February, 2013.
53 Why did Reynolds lose so badly while Barry and Hastings emerged victorious? First, he
probably shot too high, picking the same high office from which he had been ousted. Second,
Reynolds’ initial scandal, involving an underage girl – and the tape recording of his very
embarrassing pickup lines – was more severe than those of the other two; pedophilia is far more
stigmatized and difficult to explain away than drug use or alleged bribery. Third, Reynolds
lacked both the charisma and street credibility of Barry and Hastings. While Barry’s formative
political experience had been personally driving food trucks to deliver to devastated
neighborhoods and Hastings had a long record of civic service, Reynolds was a Rhodes scholar
and professor without deep community ties or a grounding in activism. Moreover, Reynolds
faced an array of well-known officeholders, including a former congresswoman, three state
senators including, and a former state representative who earned the endorsements of the city’s
two black U.S. House members and the Chicago Tribune. This stood in stark contrast to the
relatively low-profile and unaccomplished opponents Barry had faced. (Hastings had faced
quality opposition, but the context – a majority-minority district – favored him in a runoff against
a white woman, whereas Reynolds’ race was neutralized by the presence of other betterrespected black candidates.)
CONCLUSION
Given the intense media glare sure to follow when scandalized candidates re-emerge, is it
worthwhile to risk becoming a laughingstock by seeking a return to public office? Our research
suggests that it is, provided comeback candidates fulfill a specific set of requirements. First, they
must choose a favorable political context – that means picking the right electorate and the right
office at the right time. Second, they must tailor their message in a way that resonates with the
54 electorate, which may require an emphasis on contrition, combativeness, or some combination
thereof, depending on the nature of their scandal and the qualities of the electorate. Finally, they
must be able to forge a genuine connection with voters. While non-scandalized politicians often
have the option of focusing on a ground game or mass communications via earned or paid media,
scandalized candidates do not. They must rebuild the trust they once had with voters, which
necessitates sustained and effective in-person campaigning. This appears easier for those
politicians can draw on deep reserves of community goodwill accumulated in the pre-scandal
days – and it becomes more difficult when facing high-quality opponents in the comeback bid.
One fact reappears across all of the races examined: the comeback candidate will draw
inordinate amounts of media attention, and the overall race will be defined by the way the
scandalized candidate handles his re-emergence. Our early findings suggest that the majority
race of the electorate is a key determinant of the most effective comeback messaging. Given the
increasing diversity of a country that will be majority-minority in approximately 25 years, future
research in the area can analyze this phenomenon in more depth and nuance, with particular
attention to fast-growing Latino and Asian communities. Further, more research can help explain
whether, in a rapidly-evolving culture that some believe has fostered a “decline of disgrace,” the
comeback candidate’s mix of contrition, combativeness, and other tones may be shifting. Political scandal is not new. In 1828, the partisan media had its own motives for
spreading dirt on the John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and nearly a century later,
sensational publishers highlighted scandal to sell papers. But the speed and scope at which
scandal is amplified and transmitted across the world via 24/7 cable television and social media
is indeed new, and presents significant challenges for those former elected officials seeking to
come back from embarrassing – and sometimes criminal – episodes. The main challenge is that
55 scandal/comeback coverage appeals to prurient interest during an age when media executives
worship at the altar of clicks that are tallied instantly. Even venerable publications that long
resisted this trend, such as TIME magazine, have acquiesced, breaking down the church-state
wall that once separated editorial and sales divisions.139 Unless American (and global) tastes
quickly change, this suggests that coverage of political scandal will only become more
ubiquitous in the future. And given the way screenshots can preserve in perpetuity embarrassing
moments once they are recorded, candidates with problematic visuals as key components in their
scandal (i.e., Weiner) may find it increasingly difficult to mount successful comeback bids.
That said, there may be a formula for success for certain types of candidates who are able
to exploit political opportunities. And in an age that some observers argue is characterized by the
“decline of disgrace” – one in which some of our most recognized celebrities became famous
due in large part to clandestine sex tapes,140 scandal may prove less disqualifying than ever.
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62