Pictured are Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer (in blue suit)
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Reach us by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman is a former biology teacher and a 20-year investigative Black journalist who trained for some 15 years at the Call and Post Newspaper.
NEW YORK, New York- Sexting and extramarital sex both lost out Tuesday night as Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, both married and both hit by highly public and rightfully embarrassing sex scandals, lost elections for mayor and comptroller respectively in Tuesday's Democratic primary in New York City.
Wiener, 49, admitted to sexting hundreds of women and resigned his congressional seat in 2011, and Spitzer, 54, got caught with a prostitute and resigned as governor in 2008. Both ran for the posts with full support from their respective spouses.
Seventy percent of New York City voters are Democrats.
But while Spitzer, also a former CNN news host, lost with 48 percent of the vote to Democratic primary winner Scott Stringer, Weiner came in dead last in the race for mayor, and with only 4.9 percent of the vote. Bill de Blasio led the pack in that five-way race and set the stage in his efforts to lead the nation's largest city. He got 260, 473 votes , or 40 percent of the vote.
Stringer will face a Republican, Independent or other in November's general election
and de Blasio, a former metropolitan transit authority chief, will take on Republican Joe Lhota.
Wiener gave hecklers his middle finger after entering a limousine Tuesday night following a concession speech were he said the loss was in part because he is "imperfect."
The former congressman had refused to step out of the race early on and even after more news broke that he had sent cell phone photographs of himself and his penis to an array of women after his public apology and resignation from Congress.
Weiner's wife Huma Abedin is a former aide to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is at the end of a third consecutive term, did not seek reelection, though his message of family values resonated with some voters and likely hurt Weiner and Spitzer.
Bloomberg was once a Democrat who won election to New York mayor as a Republican in 2001.
In 2007 he became an Independent.
The losses, say political pundits, show that personal shortfalls often do matter in political elections, at least for the married Spitzer and Weiner.
The Huffington Post did an editorial after Weiner's loss calling him a disgrace and dubbing his political fall from grace a "good riddance."
