Weiner, Spitzer out: Thank you New York

Twelve years ago, New York City taught the nation about resilience in the face of a massive attack.

On Tuesday, New York again taught the nation that character counts.

This year, city politics seemed determined to hit a new low rather than aspire to new heights. A series of scandal-scarred candidates sucked up the oxygen amid an otherwise forgettable field. And for a while, Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer seemed likely to win their respective races on the strength of name ID and notoriety.

If successful, their candidacies could have compounded the cynicism that surrounds politics in an era where too few leaders feel the obligation to hold themselves to a higher standard.

But when it was discovered that Weiner had been a recidivist sexter — under the quintessentially creepy nom de guerre “Carlos Danger” — something heartening happened: Common sense kicked in.

Weiner plummeted from first to fourth in the Democratic primary polls, with much of his support shifting to the aggressively progressive Public Advocate Bill De Blasio, who rose to pole position aided by powerful ads featuring his biracial son, Dante de Blasio, and a campaign theme focusing on inequality.

On the Republican side of the aisle — in a far less prominent race — a self-made billionaire grocery magnate named John Catsimatidis essentially tried to buy the GOP nomination, encouraged by a cadre of consultants and a handful of high-profile endorsees, many of whom were persuaded to support the man at least in part because of his financial largess.

A barrage of negative ads directed at his opponent Joe Lhota — a Giuliani administration deputy — failed. In a political world where big money often drives outcomes, this was one campaign where wealth didn’t determine the winner. That’s a win for representative democracy.

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