Just two days ago, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party - not only a ball-buster (a steamroller, even), but one with a squeaky-clean image as a consumer advocate and corruption buster.

Moreover, as one Donkey Dish contributor (a Columbia business school student) puts it, Spitzer was the moral compass of the financial world.

What a difference 48 hours makes.

Linked to a top-dollar prostitution ring in a federal investigation, the married, 48-year-old father of three daughters faces a tenuous future. At best.

Putting aside how depressing this is on moral grounds, or how stupid he is to think he wouldn’t get caught, it’s a brutal hit to the Democratic party to lose one of its toughest, smartest members - one with an incredibly bright future.

Even if he hangs onto his current post, Eliot Spitzer - pictured with wife Silda Spitzer at a news conference yesterday - will be forever tainted by this scandal.

“There’s no way he can survive it,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant and adviser to ‘08 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

“All the facts aren’t out there, but as they’re being reported, there’s no way you can survive. Not only is he a hypocrite, he may also end up a charged felon.”

Eliot Spitzer publicly apologized for an undisclosed personal matter. He did not specifically mention the prostitution sting, and he did not resign.

Four days earlier, prosecutors announced the arrests of four people in an international prostitution ring that charged clients up to $5,500/hour.

Wiretaps in the case identified Eliot Spitzer as an unnamed client (No. 9, to be specific) who met a prostitute on February 13 at a Washington hotel.

Political professionals were stunned, in large part because Spitzer, as a former Attorney General of New York State (1998-2006), had made a name for himself going after organized crime and Wall Street corruption.

Does Eliot Spitzer stand a prayer of remaining Governor of New York?

Robert Zimmerman, a political adviser and Democratic National Committee member, said the information in the case is still murky, but “if the facts are as we suspect, it’s very hard to imagine him staying in office.”

James Carville, former adviser to Bill Clinton, said Spitzer could hold on to his job if the scandal remains strictly about sex - or if it is learned that his political enemies are responsible for leaking the story.

Carville mentioned other high-profile politicians who have weathered sex scandals, including Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after his arrest in a men’s room sex sting.

Or, you know, Carville’s own former client, President Bill Clinton.

“All of us remember the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the immediate rush to judgment … A lot of people said, ‘How could Bill Clinton survive a scandal like that?’ Yet, he managed to survive,” James Carville said.

“If it’s not a financial or monetary thing involved, I don’t know.”

On a more personal level, Dina Matos, estranged wife of former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey - who resigned after an alleged affair with a male political aide - said Spitzer should step down regardless.

Matos also offered sympathy to Silda Spitzer, who she defended because no one understands what it’s like to be in that situation until they are.