Spitzer Knocks Negative Ads In Final Days Before Comptroller Vote

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer took his campaign for city comptroller to a Brooklyn senior center Friday, four days before the Democratic primary.

Spitzer, who resigned as governor in 2008 amid a prostitution scandal, tried to distance himself from negative TV ads.

"You know what people are going to do?" Spitzer told WCBS 880's Paul Murnane. " They're going to hit the mute button, go get something to drink from their refrigerator, come back to watch football, tennis, whatever they're watching. The public is too smart to be swayed by the sort of negativism that now is out there."

Spitzer said during the final days before the primary, he is trying to campaign in every part of the city. If you don't vote, he told residents, you can't complain.

On a Bensonhurst street Friday, Spitzer had an encounter with a passing driver's 140-pound Sicilian mastiff named Premo, who stuck his head out the window of an SUV and left some drool on Spitzer's suit lapels.

"Is he registered to vote?" the former governor joked.

A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday showed Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer with support from 47 percent of likely Democratic voters, compared to Spitzer's 45 percent. Spitzer held a lead of 19 percentage points in the same poll in mid-August."

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