Eric, We Hardly Knew Ya

New York City Mayor Eric Adams withdrew from the New York mayoral campaign.

Adams, only the city's second black mayor, started out with great promise when he took over as mayor of the nation's largest city in January 2022.  A former police officer, he ran on making the city safer and seemed to have more of a purpose than the well-meaning but rudderless Bill DeBlasio.  But Adams got bogged down in personal and public scandals that led him to make many a devil's bargain with Trump in order to evade prosecution for federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.  The deal between Trump and Adams essentially allowed Trump to have more leeway over New York in his plan to detain undocumented immigrants.   

Somehow, everyone had forgotten that cops can be crooked too.

Adams, who hoped to be elected to a second term as mayor, saw the writing on the wall and realized that Zohran Mamdani is clearly on the path to becoming the city's 111th mayor (unless Andrew Cuomo can find a way to short-circuit him, which seems unlikely at the moment).  He bowed out  but his name will still be on the ballot, a circumstance of embarrassment not just for Adams but or anyone who votes for him.  Even if he never goes to prison for his alleged crimes (and he will remain presumed innocent, because once the charges were dropped, he no longer had to worry about being proven guilty), he's already paid his debt to society by surrendering his credibility and his political career.