New York governor's political fortunes, poll numbers collapse after first-term blunders

He was once untouchable.

Eliot Spitzer barreled into the New York governor's office barely 11 months ago riding a record-setting wave of popularity. Time magazine had named him "Crusader of the Year" when he was attorney general and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness," after the FBI agent who put mobster Al Capone in prison for tax evasion.

The "Sheriff of Wall Street" who had made corporate titans cower, then pay up for their misdeeds, was going to take the same no-nonsense approach to fixing one of America's worst state governments.

But then he got to work, and has had but a handful of good days since. At the …