When a public official becomes damaged goods, there’s no upside for other politicians to do him any favors — or even be caught dealing with him. If your approval ratings fall into the 20s, that’s a signal to everyone else to move in the opposite direction.
Eight months after a sex scandal turned him into an international laughingstock, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is still in power — but only nominally. The state Legislature routinely ignores him.
“Everybody has more or less decided they’re going to tread water until he’s gone,” says James Guth, a political scientist at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. “Most of the legislative action is going on pretty much with the governor way off on one side.”
Blues In Albany
In this regard, New York may be worse off than South Carolina. Paterson ended his candidacy for re-election on Friday amid allegations that he used his office to interfere with a criminal investigation.
Paterson acceded to the governorship after Eliot Spitzer’s 2008 resignation in a prostitution scandal.

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