Poor Silda: Yet Another Politician’s Wife Humiliated by Philandering Hubby
New Yorkers wonder if and when Silda Wall Spitzer’s political poker face will fall.
What is she thinking?
That was the thought that occurred to Ann Beirne, 35, of Sunnyside, Queens, as she watched Silda Wall Spitzer stand beside her husband, New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer, while he made his 64 second statement of apology Monday. Gov. Spitzer is the latest politician forced into the scandal spotlight after news broke on March 10th that federal wiretaps had confirmed his involvement with prostitutes. Following his resignation Wednesday, many New Yorkers wonder what Wall Spitzer’s next move will be. Will she resign as his wife?
“She should leave,” said Beirne, who works as a childcare provider in Brooklyn. “I told my husband if he ever did anything like that there would be no stand-by-your-man press conference. I’d kill him.”
Debby Nolan, 61, a New York City lawyer is also amazed that Wall Spitzer has played the stoic hand this far, “She’s a smart woman, a Harvard Law grad. I can’t believe she’s put up with this for so long.”
Nolan predicated Monday’s press conference would be the last time the public sees the Spitzers standing together, but on Wednesday, she appeared alongside her husband again as he delivered his farewell address after having submitted his resignation.
“I think it’s the last straw,” Nolan said. “I could see it in her face. A person can only put up with so much. If she doesn’t leave, she has no self-esteem.”
As Nolan noted, Wall Spitzer brought with her an impressive resume into the Governors mansion when her husband was elected in 2007. After graduating from Meredith College summa cum laude, she attended Harvard Law School according to the New York State Governor’s website, www.ny.gov. Wall Spitzer served on several non-profit boards and co-founded state organizations that focus on children’s welfare and education. She is credited as the driving force behind The Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee’s Women’s Vote Project of 2006.
As a public figure herself, there is some suspicion that she will stand by her man in an effort to solidify what appears to be an untarnished image.
“Maybe she has a different life the public doesn’t know about. Maybe she has a lover and doesn’t want to rock the boat,” said Alexa Grace, an illustrator in her 50s from Riverdale. “The Spitzers are probably so out of touch with themselves that they don’t even know what it means to be true. I don’t understand, and I don’t really care either.”
“Political wives never leave. She’ll ride it out… Besides she had to know what was going on,” said Steve Nowicki, 30, a Manhattan software programmer. “For the past six years the guy has been spending thousands of dollars on hookers. The only surprise for her was that it went public.”
Alex Levin, 49, a financial consultant who lives in Brooklyn, agrees with Nowicki’s prediction that the Spitzers will remain together through the next few months and further, regardless of the direction Gov. Spitzers career takes.
“It’s strange that a man who has so much power made such a huge miss-step, but that doesn’t matter for the wife. She won’t leave him. Wives don’t leave public figures, look at Hillary Clinton.”
Clinton is exactly the person Shelaine Green, who is in New York on vacation from the United Kingdom, has stacked Wall Spitzer against.
“Judging by Hillary you can’t really tell what Silda’s ambitions are,” said Green, 43, from London, England. “I tend to think she’s staying with him because she’s politically inclined. I’d like to think she’s working her own agenda. If that’s not the case, I feel really badly for her.”
Beyond the public’s curiosity about the Spitzers’ careers and marriage, the lives of their children, teenagers Elyssa, Sarabeth and Jenna, have also been irrevocably altered.
“The girls are stuck,” said John Bliss, a licensed clinical social worker, psychoanalyst and a faculty member of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. “She can leave at any time. Both those girls will have to deal with it daily, especially considering they’re adolescents. They’re socially vulnerable and very conscious.”
Bliss believes that the family is devastated and furious. Their trust will be much harder to win back than that of the public’s.
“This will effect them much longer than it will the rest of us. The public forgets easily. In three months we won’t even remember the details, but the family will be living with this for some time,” he said.
Regardless of what the future holds for Wall Spitzer and her family, the situation has left a sour note with the public, as Jody Churchfeild, a 26-year old graphic designer, said, “It’s all just very unsavory.”
