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Shelly: He doesn’t have a chance in El

Eliot Spitzer ought to shelve any thoughts about running for political office again any time soon because he can’t outrun the Ashley Dupre scandal, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said yesterday.

“I don’t think the time is right,” said Silver, speaking on Albany’s Talk1300-AM, when asked whether he would encourage the disgraced ex-governor to make another statewide play.

Silver was responding to The Post’s report earlier this week that the formerly hooker-frequenting governor has been weighing the possibility of making a statewide comeback next year.

He’s focused mostly on possibly running for comptroller or trying to unseat appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, sources said, and has been noting that his own poll numbers are better than Gov. Paterson’s.

He declined to comment to The Post for the initial story, saying he wasn’t speaking on politics.

Silver said: “I don’t think that’s reality. It may be some of the people close to him testing the waters as to what kind of negatives still prevail on that. I don’t believe [he’s] is thinking of that, and I don’t think he wants to put his family through this.”

fredric.dicker@nypost.com