CARLOS IN DANGER: WEINER DROPS TO 4th IN POLLS. QUINN LEADS

HUFFINGTON POST

Anthony Weiner has dropped from the front of the pack to fourth place in the Democratic primary for New York City's mayoral race, a poll released Monday by Quinnipiac University finds, with voters increasingly viewing his personal history as a legitimate issue in the election.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn now leads the primary field with 27 percent of likely Democratic voters, with Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Comptroller Bill Thompson taking 21 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Weiner, a former congressman, has just 16 percent.
In the last Quinnipiac poll, taken just before he admitted to sending inappropriate messages and lewd photos to women as recently as last summer, Weiner had a 4-point lead over Quinn.
"With six weeks to go, anything can happen, but it looks like former Congressman Anthony Weiner may have sexted himself right out of the race for New York City mayor," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.




Consistently strong polling by Quinn, the frontrunner in most surveys, belies her potential vulnerability in a mayoral runoff, to be held if no one candidate gains 40% of the vote. Quinn's net favorability rating has lagged both De Blasio and Thompson, potential runoff opponents. A Quinnipiac poll last week of a hypothetical Democratic runoff between Quinn and Thompson found Thompson out front 51-42.
Monday's poll has Quinn losing a hypothetical runoff against Thompson by 10 points, 50-40.

Weiner Acknowledges More Transgressions. Scandal Continues to Unfold.

N.Y. TIMES

Anthony D. Weiner’s improbable campaign for mayor was engulfed on Tuesday by a new scandal involving explicit online messages, imperiling his political resurrection two years after he resigned from Congress over similar behavior.

Mr. Weiner, appearing solemn and a bit worn as he faced more than 100 journalists at a hastily arranged news conference, acknowledged that his habit of sending sexual images and text messages to female fans had continued for more than a year after he left Congress vowing to seek treatment and change his behavior.

The revelation collides with the narrative Mr. Weiner has offered throughout the campaign, in which he has repeatedly suggested that he has spent his time since leaving Congress rehabilitating himself and repairing his family relationships. After a late entry into the Democratic primary, he had rapidly risen in the polls, and performed strongly in fund-raising, as his relentless focus on ideas and his omnipresence helped ease the concerns of many voters.

On Tuesday, seeming to recognize the fragility of his public standing, he pleaded with New Yorkers to trust his assertions that he is now a changed man, despite the news that his online adventures — some conducted under the pseudonym of Carlos Danger — had persisted through last summer, after the birth of his child.

Speaking amid the cramped cubicles of a vacant Chelsea office, Mr. Weiner, alternately chastened and defiant, vowed to press ahead with his campaign. His wife, Huma Abedin, stood by his side, at times smiling at him, but at times staring at the floor or at the cabinets behind her.

 

in a surprise move, Weiner’s wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who has never spoken publicly before, took the mic to defend her husband.Publicly airing the couple’s private pain. Ms. Abedin said her decision to stay with Mr. Weiner was “not an easy choice,” and said, “Anthony’s made some horrible mistakes, both before he resigned from Congress and after.”

“We discussed all of this before Anthony decided he would run for mayor, so really what I want to say is, I love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him,” she added.

Ms. Abedin,... spoke haltingly about the ups and downs of her marriage, making it clear that reconciling with Mr. Weiner after the scandal was a long and difficult process. “It took a lot of work, and a whole lot of therapy, to get to a place where I could forgive Anthony,” she said, reading from a prepared text that she slowly unfolded at the lectern.

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....He went straight from the news conference to a forum on H.I.V. and AIDS issues, arriving late, as usual, and smiling as he was greeted with a warm round of applause. He told the audience that many voters might be turned off by the mistakes he made, but he emphasized his credentials as an outsider, saying he was the only candidate in the race who would “shake things up.”

“I admit it: there are a lot of people who probably listen to me and say, ‘You know what, you’re not a very good messenger for these things,’ ” he said. “I don’t dispute it.”

As he spoke passionately about issues like housing, gay rights and health care, distinguishing himself from his rivals by rising from his chair and gesticulating forcefully, the audience responded warmly, with shouts of “Yes, that’s right!” and “You the man!”

The turbulent day began when BuzzFeed posted an article calling attention to posts on The Dirty, a Web site which describes itself as a purveyor of gossip and satire, and which warns that its “postings may contain erroneous or inaccurate information.”
The Dirty said that it had spoken with a woman, whom it did not name, who provided copies of her communications with a man who was apparently Mr. Weiner. The man engaged in explicit discussions of sexual acts he said he fantasized about performing with her, and sent her a picture of his penis; she told him, “Your health care rants were a huge turn-on.” The woman, 22 at the time, alleged that Mr. Weiner offered her an apartment, and proposed that he visit her.

At one point, Mr. Weiner called the woman “a walking fantasy.” But he also seemed aware that the conversations could be dangerous, and later asked the woman to “do me a solid. Could you hard delete all our chats.” In another exchange, he appeared to be in a reflective mood, and wrote, “I’m deeply flawed.”

Nik Richie, the blogger who posted the exchanges on The Dirty, declined to be interviewed, saying in a statement, “I’m just doing my job.” Ben Smith, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed, said a reader had called his attention to the blog posts.

Even within Mr. Weiner’s inner circle, which had been shocked by his dishonesty when the original scandal erupted in 2011, there was a wave of surprise and dismay over Tuesday’s disclosures, according to people close to the campaign. But his advisers said Mr. Weiner had not seriously considered withdrawing from the campaign, arguing that he had previously warned the public that there might be new revelations.

“I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out and today they have,” Mr. Weiner told reporters. “I want to again say that I am very sorry to anyone who was on the receiving end of these messages and the disruption this has caused.”

 

 

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The racy online conversations that have jeopardized Anthony D. Weiner’s campaign for mayor of New York began with an angry Facebook message, according to the editor of a blog who has communicated with the young woman involved.

 

Not long after Mr. Weiner resigned from Congress, the 22-year-old woman reached out to express her disappointment in him.

Mr. Weiner eventually responded and, at his urging, their exchanges veered from politics to sex within a week, as he demanded dozens of explicit photographs, said Nik Richie, the editor of The Dirty, the blog that first documented the exchanges.

“He started putting the sexual moves on her and she just went with it,” Mr. Richie said in an interview.

The account that emerged on Wednesday suggests that Mr. Weiner’s interactions with the woman, a partisan Democrat from Indiana who thought of him as a hero, fit his longstanding pattern. In rapid and reckless fashion, he sought to transform casual conversations with female fans into graphically sexual exchanges, frequently laced with lewd language and bawdy images, the women have said in interviews.

Mr. Richie’s account, based on what he said were extensive conversations with her, cannot be independently verified. The woman, who is identified in online profiles as Sydney Elaine Leathers, has declined repeated requests to discuss the matter. A spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner also declined to comment.

The new details about Mr. Weiner’s interactions with the woman surfaced on a day when he faced intensifying calls to drop out of the race for mayor, from Democratic leaders and the editorial boards of The Daily News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Mr. Weiner, who now acknowledges that his habit of sending racy messages to women had persisted long after his resignation from the House in 2011, has not disputed reports that he had an online relationship with the woman that extended into 2012. But he has said elements of the reporting about the episode are inaccurate, without elaborating.

In the interview, Mr. Richie suggested his Web site would publish new and embarrassing information about the relationship in the coming days.

 

 The relationship lasted months. According to the woman, Mr. Richie said, Mr. Weiner had told her that he loved her and discussed the possibility of securing a place for them to meet in Chicago.

In their conversations, Mr. Richie said, Mr. Weiner repeatedly sought photographs of the woman. “He would demand pictures almost every day,” Mr. Richie said. “He always wanted pictures with heels in them. He loved her heels.”

He estimated that the woman sent Mr. Weiner about 35 images. The Dirty has reported that Mr. Weiner sent an image of his penis to the woman.

Mr. Richie said he first heard from the woman in April but was unsure of her credibility. About a week ago, she told him that she had kept screenshots capturing her conversations with Mr. Weiner and asked how she could submit them to Mr. Richie’s Web site.

He said he had no desire to hurt Mr. Weiner, whom he referred to during the interview as Carlos Danger, the nickname Mr. Weiner used in exchanges with the woman.

WEINER LEADS QUINN IN LATEST MAYORAL POLL

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner captured the frontrunner's mantle in the race for the Democratic mayoral nomination, leading City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for the first time and running neck-and-neck with her in a potential runoff, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC 4 New York/Marist poll.Just two years after a sexting scandal derailed his career, Mr. Weiner garnered 25% of registered Democrats polled, compared with Ms. Quinn, who had 20%, marking her lowest level of support since polling of the race began. Trailing them were former Comptroller Bill Thompson, at 13%, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, 10%, and city Comptroller John Liu, 8%.

Mr. Weiner also has made gains in an all-but-certain runoff election expected to determine the Democratic nominee. In a potential runoff matchup, Ms. Quinn leads Mr. Weiner, 44% to 42%; a month ago, the margin was much wider, with Ms. Quinn winning 48% to 33%.

Nearly half of all registered voters would be willing to vote for [Mr. Weiner] for mayor, and more than half of Democrats view him positively, according to the poll....The survey also demonstrates the toll that months of bruising criticism on the campaign trail have taken on Ms. Quinn, who has been pummeled over issues such as overturning term limits and her alliance with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Her level of support among Democrats has fallen nearly in half.

 The poll showed all of the major Democrats defeating Messrs.Joseph Lhota or John Catsimatidis in the general election. In one scenario, Ms. Quinn has 52% of registered voters, compared with Mr. Lhota at 15%,

CBS News reported Ms Quinn fared slightly better in a new Quinnipiac University poll. In the survey, 17 percent of respondents voiced support for disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., putting him about even with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former City Comptroller William Thompson, who have 19 and 16 percent, respectively.

COULD WEINER BE THE NEXT MAYOR OF NYC?

THE NEW YORKER JOHN CASSIDY

Barely a week after he officially entered the Democratic primary for the mayoralty of New York City, Anthony Weiner has reason to be cheerful. On Tuesday, a Marist College poll showed the recovering sex-tweeter running second to Christine Quinn, the City Council Speaker. And the media is suddenly taking Weiner seriously. Politico’s Maggie Haberman, after spending some time with the former congressman on the stump, reports that he “bears an uncanny resemblance to the pugnacious, hard-charging Anthony Weiner of old.” ....

... the other candidates, including Bill Thompson, the former city comptroller who ran Mike Bloomberg a close second in the 2009 general election; the public advocate Bill de Blasio; and John Liu, the current comptroller. In the new poll, none of them got more than twelve per cent. Weiner received nineteen per cent, and Quinn, widely regarded as the favorite, got twenty-four per cent. To avoid a run-off, the leading candidate has to get at least forty per cent of the vote.
Now, getting nineteen per cent of the potential vote three months before the primary election, scheduled for September 10th, is hardly cause for booking a victory celebration. But for Weiner it represents an encouraging start. As Zeff and others have pointed out, he entered the race with a number of advantages, including name recognition, money—more than five million dollars left over from previous campaigns—a divided opposition, and an affinity with the base of the Democratic Party. The big unknown was the crotch-shot factor. Would New Yorkers be willing to overlook his scandalous fall from Congress? According to the Marist poll, at least, the answer is yes. Fifty-nine per cent of registered Democrats said he deserved another chance, and fifty-three per cent of all registered voters said the same thing.

That’s the potential upside for Weiner. The downside comes in two parts. First, there’s always the possibility that the Twitter ruckus will come back to bite him. And even if it doesn’t, there are questions about his track record, and his lack of experience in running anything nearly as complex as a major city. Of the two concerns, I think the second may be the biggest threat to Weiner’s hopes.
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As this stage, Weiner’s rivals can’t simply assume that the aura of scandal will sink his campaign. That doesn’t mean they can’t attack him and do some damage, though. But rather than ask whether he’s fit to be mayor—a question they will largely leave to the media—the other candidates are likely to focus on whether he’s qualified to run a city of more than eight million people.
On that, even a charitable reading of the record suggests that Weiner will have some persuading to do. As a young Brooklyn city councilman, from 1992 to 1998, he was a diligent constituent representative and a publicity seeker. But putting troubled local kids to work cleaning up graffiti and persuading the city to repaint the stairwells of its housing developments—two achievements he listed on his congressional Web site—hardly compares with leading the City Council (Quinn), managing the seven-hundred-member staff in the comptroller’s office (Thompson and Liu), or acting as the city’s primary public watchdog (de Blasio).
As the congressman for New York’s ninth district, which is carved out of Brooklyn and Queens, Weiner served with his trademark energy and ferocity, but he was largely removed from local debates on things like education, transport, and crime. ...

Then there is the question of whether Weiner would be an effective administrator and leader, something Bloomberg has built his mayoralty on. Congressmen don’t run much except their own offices, and, even in that modest endeavor, Weiner was hardly known as a great manager. According to a 2008 story in the Times, his office was a revolving door, as staff members came and went, many of them alienated by his abrasive manner and his temper tantrums.
To be sure, Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani were hardly known as nurturers, and neither is Bloomberg. Weiner’s harsh edges could conceivably work to his advantage. New Yorkers like having a tough guy (or gal) in City Hall. But they also want one who has shown enough to suggest that he (or she) could run the city. In the weeks and months ahead, meeting that test will be Weiner’s biggest challenge.

Anthony Weiner Announces Candidacy for New York Mayor in Video

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.