Forget becoming New York’s first Asian-American mayor.
The real question that had the city’s political world buzzing Wednesday is whether city Controller John Liu can get reelected to the job he has — or even keep his hide out of prison.
“It’s not likely he’ll be elected mayor in 2012 and not likely that voters will reelect him to be controller, the city’s chief auditor,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime political consultant. “The person who’s supposed to protect the city from fraud can’t be under investigation for fraud.”
Liu’s political fortunes were skewered Wednesday when a campaign fund-raiser working on his 2013 mayoral bid was arrested for chopping up an illegal $16,000 campaign contribution to make it look like it came from 20 different people.
Documents from Manhattan federal prosecutors show that Liu personally glad-handed the deep-pocketed donor — who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent — and that top campaign aides seemed to have knowledge of what the dubious fund-raiser was up to.
Liu has not been accused of a crime, and there’s no evidence that he had personal knowledge of the alleged scheme.
If the federal investigation now zeroing in on his campaign practices ends here, and Liu is eventually cleared of wrongdoing, he can survive.
But federal charges tend to beget more federal charges as little fish turn on bigger fish. And those charges lead to trials, which could mean more damaging headlines as 2013 draws closer.
That would make Liu’s efforts to get the endorsements of labor unions and other key backers much more difficult — and candidates who normally wouldn’t consider challenging a sitting incumbent in the controller’s office might start reconsidering.
It could spell doom for a former political star who, until recently, had a pretty decent shot at being mayor.
“If [Liu\\} can stop any hemorrhaging, there won’t be any damage,” predicted political consultant George Arzt, who helped get Liu elected controller in 2009.
“But if the story has legs, it’s a different problem.”
eeinhorn@nydailynews.com
