At the outset, Governor Spitzer seemed to approach the sex scandal that has engulfed him by tearing a page from the playbook that saved President Clinton from political oblivion, but there are serious doubts about whether the New York governor has the charisma or political capital to execute a similar comeback.

During Mr. Spitzer’s brief encounter with the press Monday, he described his behavior, which led to the current imbroglio, as “a private matter,” a phrase that evoked Mr. Clinton’s arguments that queries about his sexual relationship with a White House intern were improper intrusions into his personal life.

Mr. Spitzer also stressed the work he has done as governor and attorney general “to create opportunity for all,” an argument that paralleled Mr. Clinton’s insistence on pairing every discussion of the Monica Lewinsky scandal with some talk of his successes as president.

The embattled governor did not explicitly adopt one of Mr. Clinton’s famous lines from that era: “I need to go back to work for the American people.” However, Mr. Spitzer conjured up an industrious image when he closed his public statement by with a line taken straight from a military war room. “I will report back to you in short order,” he declared.

A former member of Mr. Clinton’s rapid response team, Christopher Lehane, said Mr. Spitzer’s ability to hang on to his job will hinge on his ability to assert that he can get things done and not be paralyzed by the swirling scandal. “If somehow he is able to get back to work effectively then he has some chance,” the crisis adviser said. “At the end of the day, that is where salvation will come from.”

Some of Mr. Spitzer’s supporters are openly urging him to follow the Clinton paradigm.

“I would recommend to him that he not resign,” a Harvard Law School professor, Alan Dershowitz, told CNN yesterday. “I think he has more power and more authority if he does what Bill Clinton did after being impeached. Stay on. Fight. Do your job. Be a good governor. Deal with the criminal case. Nobody has ever been prosecuted as a john under the Mann Act.”

Mr. Dershowitz also alluded to a tactic that proved useful for Mr. Clinton, attacking the political motivations of those pursuing the case. “I worry a lot, of course, about Republican prosecutors threatening a Democratic governor with leaving office,” the law professor said.

Despite the similarities, Mr. Spitzer faces a series of obstacles that Mr. Clinton did not. One of the biggest differences is that the New York governor lacks a strong, pre-existing reservoir of support among the public and the political elite. “The president benefited through all of that by the fact that people approved of the job he was doing with exceptionally high marks,” Mr. Lehane said.

In recent months, two well-liked mayors, Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, have weathered sex scandals with little damage. However, neither indiscretion involved allegations of illegal conduct.

Another challenge for Mr. Spitzer is that his reputation as a prosecutor and merciless crime-fighter leave him open to accusations of hypocrisy, not just recklessness or infidelity. “I don’t think Bill Clinton ever held himself out to be a higher moral authority. His career was not necessarily built on the political profile of being Mr. Ethics and Mr. Morality,” Mr. Lehane said.

On the other hand, the charge of hypocrisy has not yet managed to end the careers of two Republican senators who became embroiled in sex scandals after running as staunch moral conservatives. Senator Craig of Idaho is hanging on to his seat despite his guilty plea in an airport-bathroom sex sting. Senator Vitter of Louisiana has also held on after he apologized publicly but vaguely following reports that he was a customer of a Washington-area business that prosecutors said was a prostitution ring.

Mr. Spitzer’s own immediate, if vague, admission of wrongdoing parted company with Mr. Clinton, who took eight months to make a similar admission. Mr. Clinton’s tactic gave the public time to absorb the possibility of an Oval Office tryst before it was actually confirmed. By contrast, Mr. Spitzer has effectively confirmed the rumors at his most politically vulnerable time, making it difficult to dissipate pressure for his resignation.

“Bill Clinton is a preternaturally gifted politician,” Mr. Lehane observed. “He’s one of those folks who can handle things the way mortal politicians just can’t.”

A former senator from Arkansas who defended Mr. Clinton against impeachment with the line, “When you hear somebody say, ‘This is not about sex,’ it’s about sex,” said yesterday that he was not sure the same defense would work for Mr. Spitzer. “It’s much too early to prejudge it,” Dale Bumpers said.