Hey, why not? Chuck Rangel is still a congressman.
"Seeking second chance, Weiner enters mayoral race
NEW YORK — Anthony D. Weiner, once a star of New York politics whose career cratered over revelations of his sexually explicit life online, announced an improbable bid Wednesday for the job he has long coveted: mayor.
After a rocky reemergence into public life over the past few weeks, Weiner opted to declare his candidacy from the safe remove of a video.
The two-minute video was posted online overnight, apparently prematurely, and then announced by Weiner in a 5 a.m. e-mail. It makes an oblique and glancing reference to the scandal that prompted him to resign from Congress; Weiner asks voters for “a second chance” but does not apologize for his conduct.
“Look, I made some big mistakes, and I know I let a lot of people down,” he says. “But I’ve also learned some tough lessons.”
Opening with soft piano music and footage of Weiner and his wife at home feeding their newborn son, the video suggests Weiner is a changed man, now busy raising a family. It quickly pivots to show Weiner expressing concern about affordable housing, education, and public safety.
His candidacy, fueled by a $5 million war chest and a determination to resurrect his public standing, promises to disrupt a wide-open Democratic primary race populated by several lesser-known candidates.
But it comes with heavy baggage, starting with the deep ambivalence of voters to whom Weiner lied two years ago, when he indignantly, and falsely, denied that he had sent an Internet image of himself in his underwear to a college student in Seattle.
Weiner, 48, eventually admitted to a secret practice of befriending young female admirers over the Internet and then engaging in intimate sexual banter with them, sometimes sending them lewd self-portraits taken with his BlackBerry.
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Related: Globe's Weiner Watch
Also see:
One Day Wonder: New York Democrat Running as Republican
Bloomberg's Buckshot
She is also a Democrat -- whatever that means.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"He began at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, dipped underground onto the subway, then returned to the streets of lower Manhattan, trailed at all times by a few dozen reporters and a handful of police officers called in to keep the peace."
Looks like the Globe has made it's endorsement.
