When F. Scott Fitzgerald observed that there are no second acts in American life, he obviously couldn't have had before him the example of Eliot Spitzer and his adoring media. Once dubbed the Crusader of the Year and the Sherriff of Wall Street, Spitzer was to the mainstream media the embodiment of an exciting new kind of Democrat, a tough-as-nails moderate who might revive the party nationally under the banner of what Fred Siegel and Michael Goodwin have dubbed "Spitzerism." Although Spitzer's escapades with high-priced call girls brought his career crashing down in 2008, the financial crisis that began to...