JACK KEMP: ANTHONY WEINER WANTS TO RUN FOR MAYOR IN NEW YORK….

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/weiner_wants_to_run_for_mayor_with_the_new_york_times_help.html

Anthony Weiner is attempting to run for Mayor of New York this year.  The Huffington Post TODAY reported that:

According to an interview in The New York Times Magazine, published online Wednesday morning and in print next Sunday, Weiner’s political committee has already spent more than $100,000 on polling and research.

The polling showed that New Yorkers were willing to forgive his 2011 misdeeds, but voters also wanted to know what the disgraced congressman has done to get over his scandalous past.

The in-depth interview by Jonathan Van Meter, which focuses on Weiner and his publicity-averse wife Huma Abedin, appears to be the beginning of a mea culpa campaign back to a seat of power.

“I don’t have this burning, overriding desire to go out and run for office,” Weiner said. “It’s not the single animating force in my life as it was for quite some time. But I do recognize, to some degree, it’s now or maybe never for me, in terms of running for something. I’m trying to gauge not only what’s right and what feels comfortable right this second, but I’m also thinking, How will I feel in a year or two years or five years? Is this the time that I should be doing it? And then there’s the other side of the coin, which is . . . am I still the same person who I thought would make a good mayor?”

 

These polls are a prime example of people not wanting to be confrontational to a pollster either in person or on the telephone. And one would want to see how the questions were constructed. I recently took my own unscientific poll when I happened to mention Weiner in a conversation with my dentist, a Democrat, who said, “Who’s Anthony Weiner?” –and his assistant started laughing.

 

Well, this wouldn’t be the first time Weiner did something based largely on his feelings. If you go to the article, you will see a photo of Weiner with his wife Huma. Judge for yourself whether he looks mayoral — or about as sane as one of those troubled young men who massacred people in a school or movie theater in recent times.

 

The New York Times Magazine article itself is linked to by the Huffington Post, and at first glance it appears like something out of the “Style Over Substance” section, centering on his relationship with his wife who, the article states, forgives him.

 

In the second sentence, Times writer Jonathan Van Meter talks about Weiner’s new son and uses the term “kvelling with baby-pride,” a Yiddish phrase. Well, at least Van Meter didn’t talk about anyone singing “My Yiddisher Mama” in the Weiner home. This is pap and even in the age of the Low Information Voter, I doubt if this is going to convince people, be they Jew or Gentile, to vote for Weiner in the Democratic Mayoral Primary in sufficient numbers to make any difference.

 

The second paragraph of this puff piece begins with “Because of their careers, Weiner and Abedin are pros when it comes to small talk…” Weiner has a career? That is debatable. He HAD a career and there is much doubt if he will get his former career back. This is followed by another interesting statement:

 

Before he resigned from Congress, Weiner was leading in early polls as a candidate for mayor of New York, and almost immediately after the scandal, there was speculation about whether he could make a comeback.

 

Speculation of a comeback? Perhaps the New York Times research library does not include this information well known to New York politicians and journalists. From Business Insider, in a 2011 piece:

 

Michael Bloomberg forced Anthony Weiner out of the 2009 mayoral race-before he’d even decided to run-by convincing the Queens congressman the mayor’s re-election campaign had more dirt on him than it actually did, Harry Siegel of the Village Voice reports.

While the Bloomberg campaign did not have the same sexts and tweets that leaked onto the Internet in recent days — and which occurred in the past year — the mayor’s team poured resources into gathering dirt. Whatever Bloomberg actually found, Weiner was nervous enough about what the mayor potentially knew that he opted not to run.

A New York Post story from March 2009, which exposed the illegal campaign contributions Weiner had received from sexy foreign models, probably gave the congressman even more reason to worry.

 

Yes, just what the Democratic Party wants to see in either a Democratic primary or a general election: the undetailed parts of what Bloomberg found out about the former Congressman or advertisements linking Weiner to sexy models and some kind of illegal activity.

 

The Times article goes on to detail the Weiner sex texting (or “sexting”) scandal and then states this example of Weiner’s judgment, namely “At the time, Weiner couldn’t believe the size of the media maelstrom…”

 

He couldn’t believe it would outrage people?

 

And then there is this fine example of Anthony Weiner’s judgment, namely while he was claiming to be outraged by U.N. parking scofflaws in New York, he was documented to be the biggest Congressional parking scofflaw in Washington with “a whopping $2,180 in violations himself,” including – not surprisingly – a $400 fine “for blocking rush-hour traffic and for failing to display current license plates.”

 

There’s more in this New York Times article, but you get the point. You can go read it for yourself, but I suspect many will find other uses for their time. Weiner, an egotist who has not been directly involved in New York City politics for years thinks he can now just enter a mayoral primary race, rise from the political dead like Lazarus – or another famous Jew born in a manger in Bethlehem. That last sentence doesn’t require a question mark at its end because it is a statement about what Anthony Weiner truly believes.

 

To paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bensten, I’ve been to and know The Holy Land and I’ve been to and know New York City.  Anthony, you’re no Messiah, political or otherwise.

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