Ex-Gov. Spitzer, now a candidate, meets NYC voters
Ex-Gov. Spitzer, now candidate for NYC office, meets voters and shakes hands at subway station
Eliot Spitzer, center, a candidate for New York City comptroller, talks with members of the media as he campaigns in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Spitzer, who resigned as New York governor in 2008 after admitting he paid for sex with prostitutes, is now attempting a political comeback and is ahead of opponent Scott Stringer in the polls. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
NEW YORK (AP) -- Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer greeted voters for the first time Tuesday morning since getting on the ballot for New York City comptroller, chatting up commuters during a frenzied appearance outside a Queens subway station.
As the No. 7 train rattled overhead, an energetic Spitzer shook hands and handed out fliers at 7:30 a.m. He talked to sleepy straphangers walking up the steps to the station and thrust glossy pamphlets at the drivers of cars stopped at an intersection.
"Eliot Spitzer," he said over and over, including when he tried to talk to a bewildered ambulance driver. "I hope you'll vote for me September 10. Here you go."
The appearance was far less chaotic than Spitzer's only other attempt to talk directly to voters since announcing his stunning political comeback. Two weeks ago, he tried to hand out ballot petitions in Manhattan's Union Square but was unable to break free of a massive media scrum.
Spitzer left the governor's office in 2008 after admitting to paying for sex with prostitutes. In the first few Democratic comptroller polls, he has topped his opponent, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, ahead of their Sept. 10 primary.
A far smaller pack of reporters trailed him in Queens than in Manhattan, and the high-profile candidate also used nearly two dozen campaign aides to hold signs and steer him to commuters.
"It didn't work so well having contact with regular folks; there was a little barrier between me and the citizenry," Spitzer said. "But we're going to be out there every day and it's going to be fun."
He was warmly received by passers-by, with no audible heckles and few mentions of the scandal that ended his time as governor after just 15 months.
"I wish you all the best," said Joan Page, 48, a home health aide from Brooklyn. "And you're going to be very successful. You are a winner! A true winner is a fighter. God bless you."
But Page, the most enthusiastic supporter Spitzer encountered in Queens, later said she thought he was running for mayor.
Brandon Cherry, 19, a college student, said he had not yet decided whom to support but thought Spitzer deserved a fair hearing.
"Instead of people seeing the good that he has done, they let the bad overshadow everything that he's trying to contribute to New York," Cherry said.
In the early days of his fledgling campaign, Spitzer has had little interaction with his would-be constituents. Instead, he made the tactical decision to reach voters from inside television studios, giving several nationally broadcast interviews.
He vowed that would change, pledging Tuesday to visit every borough in the city this week. His campaign stop in Queens lasted 25 minutes before he was whisked away in a waiting town car.
