N.Y. TIMES
Anthony D. Weiner, once a rising star of New York politics whose career cratered over revelations of his sexually explicit life online, announced an improbable bid on Wednesday for the job he has long coveted: mayor.
After a rocky re-emergence into public life over the past few weeks, marked by circuslike scenes of tabloid photographers chasing him onto the subway, Mr. Weiner opted to declare his candidacy from the safe remove of a video.
The two-minute video, which was posted without comment to a YouTube site affiliated with Mr. Weiner’s campaign, is a slickly produced argument for the former congressman’s candidacy. In the video, he briefly, and obliquely, acknowledges wrongdoing, but focuses his time on asserting that he has the experience and determination to help New York deal with issues of unaffordability, education and public safety.
“Look, I made some big mistakes, and I know I let a lot of people down,'’ he says. “But I’ve also learned a lot of lessons.”
His candidacy, fueled by a $5 million war chest and a determination to resurrect his public standing, promises to immediately disrupt a wide open Democratic primary race populated by several lesser-known candidates.
But it is beset by heavy baggage, starting with the deep ambivalence of voters to whom Mr. 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.
Mr. Weiner, 48, eventually admitted to a secret practice of befriending young female admirers over the Internet and engaging in intimate sexual banter with them, sometimes sending them lewd self portraits taken with his BlackBerry.
In the video, Mr. Weiner describes himself as a champion of the city’s middle class, and decries rising rents, a paucity of “good jobs with benefits,'’ inadequate schools and overregulated businesses
Since he resigned from Congress under intense pressure from Democratic Party leaders in the summer of 2011, Mr. Weiner has opened a strategic consulting firm that allowed him to cash in on his Washington connections.
But he has remained on the sidelines as the city grappled with contentious debates over a living wage requirement, mandatory paid stick leave for workers and a ban on large sugary drinks, inviting inevitable questions about why he is returning to politics now.
His nascent campaign has struggled to attract marquee political strategists, as it has faced the rejection of many potential recruits and been forced to turn to a 30-year-old with little experience in New York as a campaign manager.
But Mr. Weiner’s raw talents, as a tireless political tactician and verbal jouster, are hard to discount, making him a formidable opponent even in light of his troubles.
His political philosophy has always been something of an anomaly in the city’s more liberal Democratic world. He has called for a single-payer health care system and pushed for hybrid taxis even as he has called for tax cuts and voted for the war in Iraq.
This time around, he will be missing a longtime calling card: his reputation as an in-the-trenches champion of the boroughs outside of Manhattan. It was an identity that propelled him to a six-term Congressional career representing Brooklyn and Queens.
Last year, though, Mr. Weiner moved from Forest Hills, Queens, to Gramercy Park in Manhattan, where he lives in a four-bedroom luxury apartment with Ms. Abedin and Jordan.