Definition: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Input: ALBANY — City politics has never been so titillating. 
  
 Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer stunned the political establishment Sunday night by announcing he is running for city controller — joining mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner as the latest disgraced politician looking for a comeback. 
  
 In an odd twist, the ex-governor — who resigned in 2008 amid a high-priced call girl scandal — will be competing against Kristin Davis, the ex-madam who says she supplied him with hookers and who is running on the Libertarian line. 
  
 “I love public service,” Spitzer told the Daily News. “I believe in it, and hope I will be given a second chance. 
  
 “After being out of office for five years, thinking deeply, reflecting on what I was able to do when I was in government ... I’m going to try and seek the controller’s office and ask the public to consider me,” Spitzer said. 
  
 Spitzer, 54, is creating a committee that will begin circulating nominating petitions Monday in the effort to collect the requisite 3,750 signatures to get on the ballot by Thursday’s deadline. The son of a wealthy real estate developer, Spitzer said he won’t opt into the city’s public campaign finance system. 
  
 “This is going to be the funnest campaign ever,” said Davis, who went to prison for three months for her role in running a high-end escort service. Spitzer, who was identified as “Client No. 9” by call girl Ashley Dupre and was known for keeping his black socks on during sexual encounters, was never charged in the scandal. 
  
 Gov. Eliot Spitzer, with his wife, Silda, at his side, announces his resignation in 2008. (Sabo/News) 
  
 Davis recently flirted with running for public advocate, but now will run for controller as originally planned. 
  
 “I’ve been waiting for my day to face him for five years,” Davis said. “I sat ... in Rikers Island, I came out penniless and nothing happened to him. The hypocrisy there is huge.” 
  
 Spitzer said he recognizes he will be asked about the prostitution scandal that brought him down in 2008, less than 15 months into a governorship that had originally held great promise. 
  
 “I have no doubt there will be questions about that,” he said. “I have no hesitance about addressing those questions. They are fair questions. Life has peaks and valleys. The peaks are more fun, but the valleys are more educational.” 
  
 The once-self-proclaimed steamroller now says: “I hope I have learned. I hope I have changed. I seek this office with humility.” 
  
 Spitzer said his family is behind his move to re-enter public life, though he refused to discuss reports that he is living apart from his wife, Silda. But a new Spitzer Twitter feed that went online Sunday describes him as a “proud father,” a city controller candidate and former governor and state attorney general. It makes no mention of his being a husband. 
  
 Ashley Dupre, seen here in 2008, is the prostitute who brought down Spitzer. (Anthony DelMundo for New York Daily News) 
  
 His entrance into the race to succeed John Liu, who is running for mayor, will be a far cry from his days as the state’s most powerful Democrat — and will shine a bright spotlight on a campaign that’s been low-profile until now. 
  
 Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has been the Democratic front-runner, racking up endorsements from the city teachers union, 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union and the influential Working Families Party. 
  
 But Spitzer remains popular among the many progressives who dominate the city’s Democratic electorate. He hasn’t spoken to Stringer, but said he plans to. 
  
 Stringer campaign manager Sascha Owen quickly went on the attack, citing Stringer’s “record of results and integrity.” 
  
 “By contrast, Eliot Spitzer is going to spurn the campaign finance program to try and buy personal redemption with his family fortune. The voters will decide.” 
  
 Perhaps leery of having the hyperaggressive Spitzer auditing their administrations, Democratic mayoral hopefuls Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker, and Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, quickly issued statements backing Stringer. “Scott Stringer has been an exceptional borough president with the highest ethical standards,” said Quinn. 
  
 Eliot Spitzer told the News he hopes 'to get a second chance.' (Cindy Ord) 
  
 State Sen. Dan Squadron, who is running for public advocate, also reiterated his support for Stringer. 
  
 Still, many political insiders say Spitzer can win. 
  
 “Spitzer is a better-known name and will spend whatever he needs,” said veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “Stringer doesn’t have that capacity.” 
  
 Spitzer denied that Weiner’s success in the polls so far in the mayor’s race persuaded him to jump in in the controller race. 
  
 “I don’t draw conclusions from anyone else’s dynamic or situation,” he said. “The more people get into politics, the healthier it is. I hope the public gives me a fair shot.” 
  
 Spitzer said he wants the job even though it is a comedown from being governor, and doesn’t view it as a springboard to a bigger post. 
  
 He spoke of the “enormous untapped potential” of the controller’s office.“It’s not just audits to see whether the paper clips got delivered on time,” he said. 
  
 With Jennifer Fermino 
  
 klovett@nydailynews.com 
  
 Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| Eliot Spitzer , who resigned as governor of New York five years ago amid a prostitution scandal, is re-entering political life, with a run for the citywide office of comptroller and a wager that voters are ready to look past his previous misconduct. 
  
 In a telephone interview on Sunday night, Mr. Spitzer, 54, sounding restless after an unwelcome hiatus from government, said he had re-envisioned the often-overlooked office and yearned to resurrect the kind of aggressive role he played as New York State’s attorney general. He said that after consulting with his family and taking the temperature of the city’s electorate, he believed New Yorkers would be open to his candidacy. “I’m hopeful there will be forgiveness, I am asking for it,” he said. 
  
 His re-emergence comes in an era when politicians — like Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina and the New York mayoral contender Anthony D. Weiner — have shown that public disapproval, especially over sexual misconduct, can be fleeting, and that voters seem receptive to those who seek forgiveness and redemption. 
  
 His decision startled the city’s political establishment, which is already unsettled by the rapid rise of Mr. Weiner, who also plunged into a campaign without party elders’ blessing. 
  
 Mr. Spitzer batted away a question about whether the reception enjoyed by Mr. Weiner, who is running neck and neck with the front-runner Christine C. Quinn, factored into his decision, but said he was approached regularly by New Yorkers who say they would support him if he ran for office again. 
  
 “It happens all the time,” he said. “People who walk with me on the street say, ‘People really do want you to get back in.’ ” 
  
 Mr. Spitzer, who built a national reputation as a zealous watchdog of Wall Street while attorney general, imagines transforming the comptroller’s office into a robust agency that would not merely monitor and account for city spending, as it does now, but also conduct regular inquiries into the effectiveness of government policies in areas like high school graduation rates. 
  
 Such a reading of the office, which would significantly expand its scope, could put Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, into conflict with the city’s next mayor, much as his tenure as attorney general put him at odds with federal regulators of Wall Street. 
  
 “The metaphor is what I did with the attorney general’s office,” he said. “It is ripe for greater and more exciting use of the office’s jurisdiction.” 
  
 Since Mr. Spitzer’s resignation as governor, public surveys have shown little appetite for his run to elective office. So instead, he has worked as a television commentator on CNN, Current TV and NY1. None of them seemed to satisfy his thirst for political combat. Asked if he missed the frenetic pace and power that comes with a public platform, Mr. Spitzer responded readily, “Yes.” 
  
 The son of a wealthy real estate developer, Mr. Spitzer said he would pay for the campaign himself, forgoing the city’s public financing system. The race is expected to cost several million dollars. 
  
 Mr. Spitzer has little time to waste: To make the primary ballot in September, candidates for citywide office — mayor, comptroller and public advocate — must collect at least 3,750 signatures from registered voters from their political party by Thursday. 
  
 With Mr. Spitzer’s name recognition and three million Democrats in the city, this should not be a difficult task, but he plans to flood the streets and supermarkets with some 100 signature gatherers starting on Monday. 
  
 “I am going to be on the street corners,” he said. “We will be out across the city.” 
  
 Mr. Spitzer’s entry promises to shake up a comptroller’s contest that had been viewed as an all-but-certain victory for Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president who has been embraced by the city’s unions and Democratic establishment. The office of Mr. Stringer, an amiable former lawmaker who was previously squeezed out of the mayor’s race, released a statement on Sunday night after being caught unaware by Mr. Spitzer’s news. |||||
Output:
Five years after a prostitution scandal forced him out of office, Eliot Spitzer is ready to face voters again—and, just like Anthony Weiner, he's chosen New York City for his political comeback. The former governor is running for city comptroller and says, "I'm hopeful there will be forgiveness, I am asking for it," the New York Times reports. Asked whether he was encouraged by the mayoral run of Weiner, who is tied with Christine Quinn in the polls, Spitzer said only that he had been approached by many New Yorkers who encouraged him to seek office again. The current frontrunner in the comptroller race is Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer—whose campaign manager blasted Spitzer for opting out of the public finance program to "try and buy personal redemption with his family fortune"—but Spitzer will also be competing against the madam who once knew him as Client 9. Kristin Davis, who is running as a Libertarian, says she has been waiting for years for the chance to face off against the "hypocritical" Spitzer. "This is going to be the funnest campaign ever," she tells the New York Daily News. Davis also vowed to oppose Spitzer when he was mulling a run for statewide comptroller in 2009.