Great News: Eliot Spitzer Contemplating Return to Politics

Even more surreal, he's considering a run for office this year. Good thing the Democrat primary for dog catcher is still a couple months away.

For the first time, Eliot Spitzer is acknowledging what The Post first reported last year -- that he is itching for a way back into politics and, even at this late date, hasn't totally closed the door on a race this year.

And for the first time, he is acknowledging what he did to his wife, Silda, who stood by him amid a scandal involving a high-priced call girl that ended his term as governor less than 18 months after it began on a wave of hope and promise.

He goes further than he has in the past two years since the scandal broke in taking personal responsibility not just for what he did to the state, but for what he did to his family, in a excerpts of an interview posted just now by Fortune magazine on its website.

"I made an egregiously horrendous judgment at every level," he tells Peter Elkind, who has an upcoming book "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer." "Not just in terms of the risk/reward calculus, which seems like a very antiseptic way of thinking about it, but also in terms of what it meant to my family. I talk all the time about fiduciary duty. What more fundamental duty is there than to a spouse?"

The disgraced ex-governor also acknowledges in the interview, which will run in full next week in Fortune magazine, that he has toyed with the idea of a comeback.

"I love politics," Spitzer told Elkind, according to excerpts of their March 31 interview. "The substance, the debate about the issues ..."

Asked specifically about some kind of statewide race in 2010 -- which The Post reported exclusively last year that Spitzer was talking to people about -- Spitzer said it's "just hard to see."

But he added, "I've never said I would never consider running for office again."

He told Elkind that his column for the online magazine Slate, among other recent endeavors, are part of an easier life that he loves.

But, according to the excerpts, he said he's "in unceasing agony" and is "incredibly frustrated" over no longer being "where I would like to be" -- finishing his first term as governor of New York. "Anybody who says disengaging from it in any way is easy is not being straightforward," he says. "Obviously, removing myself the way I did is that much more painful."

The excerpt adds, "Spitzer muses with friends and advisers about political targets. He views New York's U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as a lightweight. In the office of New York state comptroller, he sees a chance to become a national force, wielding the billions held in public pension funds to force corporate reform in a way that even lawsuits and regulation cannot. ('It is the great underutilized position in government right now,' says Spitzer.)"

Oh sure, let's give this sleazebag control of the state cash register. What could possibly go wrong?