Anthony Weiner knew he faced a stiff challenge, that he’d be a lightning rod for jokes while getting the shaft from the press. But after blowing a load of money on campaign research, now he’s a big thing. Polling of the electorate shows a rapid rise in his fortunes, he’s still got a huge wad of cash in the bank and New York City voters are starting to say he’s a stand-up guy with an impressive package of ideas. Last week, he exploded in the polls, finishing first in one and a close second in another. Now that he’s officially a member of the political club again, you know he’s got a feeling deep in his loins that it’s time to whip out his true self and act like the cock of the walk on the third leg of his career. If there were anyplace you could smoke anymore, he’d be puffing a Winston and asking New York, “Did you feel the Earth move?”
Sick of such puns? Just wait until Weiner wins — you won’t be able to escape them.
Weiner is starting to look like the tallest guy in Smurfopolis, what with Christine Quinn failing to build any momentum from a huge early lead and the other Democratic mayoral candidates scrambling to offer the most extravagant promises to make the schools worse, the streets more dangerous and the balance sheet insolvent.
Meanwhile, in the Republican ghetto where one in seven voters lives, former Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota holds a lead, but he’s going to need a whole Lhota luck to stand a chance against any well-funded liberal Democrat with an approval rating higher than herpes.
Speaking of sexually transmitted diseases that just won’t go away: That leaves Anthony Weiner with a good chance of being our representative on the world stage.
Weiner would be a grandiose, overreaching mayor. Because the nation’s highest taxes are still far too low, he thinks New York City should give health insurance to 500,000 illegal immigrants — and, presumably, all the others who flow in after them when word gets around — on the pretext that this would lower costs. Taking on health care from City Hall is like trying to solve Syria or global warming.
We shouldn’t be surprised — it’s not like we weren’t warned that Weiner is a reckless and dishonest egomaniac with an absurdly inflated view of his own potency.
Between his policies, his personality and his perversions, a Mayor Weiner would return New York City to where it was before the relative sanity of the 20 years of Giuliani-Bloomberg: national laughingstock.
Image does matter in a city where tourism is one of the leading industries, a place Mayor Bloomberg dubbed (not inaccurately) a luxury good worth the high prices.
Before Rudy Giuliani stormed Godzilla-like through the city breathing fire on the various obstacles to progress, Gotham was for 30 years synonymous with pollution, disorder, crime, dysfunction and general looniness. A nightly onslaught of jokes from the likes of “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson (who moved the show to Burbank in 1972) and lesser punditry drove home the idea that New York was a place best avoided.
(Sample Carson line: “New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time . . . most unsolved.”)
Weiner thinks he can put his scandal behind him, but the details are too irresistible for anyone to forget. These jokes are from last week alone:
Jimmy Fallon: “A new poll found that former Congressman Anthony Weiner only has a 15% chance of winning the race for New York City mayor. Although in his defense, he’s a grower not a shower.”
Stephen Colbert: “Weiner would be a great New York City mayor. For one thing, we wouldn’t have to worry about a soda ban because we’ve all seen that he puts more than 16 ounces in his cup.”
Jay Leno: “The Wall Street Journal said that Mr. Weiner didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Hey, Anthony Weiner didn’t e-mail or text you back? Consider yourself lucky!”
You think any talk-show host will stop making these jibes one, two, even four years into a Weiner term?
No matter which Democrat wins, we’re probably doomed to a return of the cycle of buying off unions and other interest groups, holding back cops, raising taxes and driving out businesses.
But Weiner’s prominence would magnify his every failure and make it national news, a self-fulfilling prophecy that could reverse the 20-year trend of people and businesses being eager to move here.
We would become a 4-year-long dick joke.
It’s New Yorkers who are to blame, of course. As a city, we’re attracted to outsize personalities, from Ed Koch to Giuliani.
Perhaps Bloomberg protégée Christine Quinn will turn around her sagging poll numbers to cut off Weiner. But Quinn lacks the spotlight-hogging personality that seems to be a necessary attribute to impress easily bored citizens of what Mayor John Lindsay called Fun City.
We demand an entertaining mayor — so we may end up with one who is a clown.
kyle.smith@nypost.com