Monday, December 10, 2012


Disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner might as well consider a run for mayor

He's got nothing to lose, really hasn't done anything we haven't put up with before, and would add to an already colorful cast.

Updated: Monday, December 10, 2012, 3:00 AM











  

 
  
   
    
     
      
       
        Anthony Weiner is on the outside looking in to city’s 2013 mayoral race. Despite his fall from grace, Weiner’s transgressions don’t necessarily bar him from joining the cast of colorful candidates.

Elisa Miller for New York Daily News


Anthony Weiner is on the outside looking in to city’s 2013 mayoral race. Despite his fall from grace, Weiner’s transgressions don’t necessarily bar him from joining the cast of colorful candidates.

It is pretty much official already that the city’s mayoral campaign is going to be something for which you could sell tickets; the entertainment potential is that high. You look at the field right now and think the only thing that could make it better is if Anthony Weiner got back into it.
In a race that already has more sheer color to it than a crowded subway car, why shouldn’t Weiner get back in the game? You remember Weiner. He acted like an overheated college boy, got busted, lied about it, stayed busted. It is worth mentioning that the most popular President in recent history, Bill Clinton, did essentially the same thing and got to keep his job in Washington, even if Weiner didn’t.
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Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News

City Controller John Liu is an announced candidate. His fundraising has come under investigation.
And please remember what kind of private life the sainted Rudolph Giuliani had before Sept. 11, 2001, back when you needed a scorecard to keep his affairs in order. So to speak.
It is Weiner, though, who was the first star of the 2013 campaign for mayor even if he never announced. He sent those hunky pictures of himself to young women to whom he was certainly not married, originally saying his email account was hacked. He finally came clean, resigned from the House, became a dad, only seemed to backslide into disgusting behavior by writing an occasional newspaper column.
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Craig Warga / NY Daily News

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio speaks as he (from left) and Democratic mayoral hopefuls Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, and John Liu appear in a panel discussion at the Sheraton Hotel in midtown on Nov. 28. De Blasio's wife recently made headlines for reportedly once being gay, a revelation some have suggested the campaign may have leaked.
For now, he remains a private citizen. And what was supposed to be his competition for mayor looks like this:
You’ve got Bill Thompson, who nearly beat Mike Bloomberg last time. You’ve got Christine Quinn, City Council speaker, somebody who thought she and Bloomberg were much closer until it turned out Bloomberg suggested that Hillary Clinton should try to succeed him before getting turned down flat.
Unless you’ve been out of town, you of course know that Quinn, if elected, would be the city’s first openly gay mayor. Maybe that’s why it seemed pretty fabulous last week when it was reported that the wife of another guy who wants to succeed Bloomberg, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, was once gay but isn’t anymore.
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Marcus Santos for the New York Daily News

 City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was thought to be Mayor Bloomberg's preferred successor until reports surfaced that he unsuccessfully enlisted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to run.

Her name is Chirlane McCray, and she is a fully engaged and extremely visible partner to her husband’s political ambitions. It now comes out — so to speak — that back in the 1970s, she wrote a story for Essence magazine titled “I Am a Lesbian.”

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