It looks like the latest way to recover from a knock-down drag-out scandal, once your wounds have been properly licked, is to run for mayor of New York. (If you want to merely solidify your image as a megalomaniacal wacko instead, run for president, like Donald Trump.) Thursday night, disgraced former New York Stock Exchange chair Dick Grasso pretty explicitly said he'll run for mayor just to stick it to disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, as long as his nemesis is running too.

Grasso told an audience at Wagner College that, "if the man who really should be the mayor, the next mayor of the city of New York, the great police commissioner Ray Kelly, chooses not to run, and if my former adversary does run as an independent in 2013, I will run for mayor of the City of New York," The New York Times' Michael Barbaro reports. The crowd cheered.

Last month, Spitzer, high from his cable news success, teased the possibility of a mayoral run. This clearly rubbed Grasso the wrong way. The executive spent years fighting Spitzer over his $140 million in compensation from the NYSE. When news of Grasso's pay broke, he "became a symbol of corporate greed," the Times' Jenny Anderson explains. Traders were angry Grasso was paid so much, even as trading profits went down and fees soared. Spitzer hauled in major Wall Street executives. He urged Grasso to settle, who refused, saying the fight was about honor. In the summer of 2008, a court finally ruled Grasso could keep his money. That was five years after Grasso's fight with Spitzer began--and four months after Spitzer resigned following revelations that he had spent a great deal of money purchasing the services of hookers.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ereeve at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Elspeth Reeve