“Crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

— Eliot Spitzer to Fortune magazine, November 28, 2005

The line is Governor Spitzer’s favorite aphorism. In the past he’s dispensed it in referring to a crisis, such as the feeble state of New York’s economy, for which he wasn’t responsible but endeavored to confront. The latest crisis facing Mr. Spitzer is one of his own making, but the advice holds true. It’s possible not only for the governor to survive the most humbling month in his career but to emerge from the ruins a stronger and more mature politician.

In the short term, the governor may see his troubles mount. Senate Republicans this week are expected to review supporting records from Attorney General Cuomo’s investigation and may discover e-mails or other documents implicating additional senior administration officials in the scandal over the misuse of state police. Republicans smell blood and couldn’t care less about the governor’s mea culpa, including his latest “apology from Albany” that appeared on yesterday’s oped page of the New York Times. “It’s really irrelevant,” a Senate Republican spokesman, John McArdle, said. “What we need to get is the truth first.”

The long-term prognosis for Mr. Spitzer appears to be more positive. It may be true that New York voters don’t believe his denials. A Marist Poll released on Friday found that 50% of registered voters think Mr. Spitzer is lying when he says he wasn’t aware of what his aides were doing when they plotted to use state police to dig up damaging information about Senate leader Joseph Bruno. A Siena Research Institute poll coming out today is also expected to show high levels of suspicion. If Republicans find a smoking gun — let’s say an e-mail or testimony that demonstrates Mr. Spitzer’s knowledge of the plot — it would just confirm a growing consensus that Mr. Spitzer has been less than candid.

Republicans, however, have their own challenges in trying to bring down Mr. Spitzer with “Troopergate.” Despite their mistrust of the governor, 66% of New Yorkers still think Mr. Spitzer is a good leader for the state, a figure suggesting that whatever the governor’s sins in this matter they are unlikely to spur a wider public movement for his ouster. By staging legislative hearings, Republicans would also be opening themselves to criticism analagous to that leveled at the Spitzer administration, which was caught exploiting the state police force for the purpose of discrediting a political rival. The claim by Senate Republicans that the purpose of hearings would be to help lawmakers develop new laws, such as redefining the proper use of the state’s Freedom of Information Law, is laughable. The only purpose of hearings would be to further tarnish Mr. Spitzer, their political enemy.

Albeit severely wounded, Mr. Spitzer isn’t dead. The question for him is what lessons he learns from his brush with mortality. Sources close to the governor say he is making preparations for an overhaul of his inner circle. While a spokeswoman for the governor, Christine Anderson, said there was no effort underway to oust the governor’s chief of staff, Richard Baum, whose refusal to testify before Cuomo investigators has only fueled speculation about his knowledge of the plot against Mr. Bruno, no one is ruling out the possibility of his demotion and reassignment.

The governor is also rethinking his entire strategy for dealing with lawmakers, lobbyists, and other Albany insiders, on whom — and on the capital’s permanent system — he had so mistakenly assumed he could impose his will. “The administration is reaping what it sowed. The reason why nobody was standing up for the governor is because people, whether they were legislators, lobbyists, or other insiders, feel correctly that they weren’t treated properly,” a source close to the governor said.

So we could see a larger transformation of Mr. Spitzer. Mr. Spitzer’s greatest strength as attorney general — his ferocious desire to right what he believed were wrongs — has proven to be his greatest weakness as governor. His tenure has been marked by an effort to hang on to the image he created as the white-hatted Wall Street crusader. He has been more focused on preserving his public persona than on dealing with the less glamorous business of governing, making and implementing sensible policies that might not win him instant accolades on the editorial page of the Times but would benefit New Yorkers, who are more concerned about how much of their income is lost to taxes than about the passage of an ontime budget or about the level of campaign contribution limits.

That’s why this scandal can in the end benefit the governor. It forces him to give up his claim to absolute moral authority, which only served to irritate lawmakers and the rest of the Albany establishment that Mr. Spitzer needs to get anything done. Albany needs a governor, not a sheriff. It’s time Mr. Spitzer turned in his badge.