Give Anthony Weiner credit for understanding that the current field of Democratic mayoral candidates offers a big opening to anyone who shows even a modest break with the standard pandering to the standard constituencies.
So he’s now announced he’s entered the race. And why not? With $4.3 million in his campaign chest and polls showing him second only to front-runner Christine Quinn, even a pol who had to leave Congress after sending various women sexually explicit photos of himself will get a look from New Yorkers desperate for a hint of common sense.
What a loss that Republican candidates have not recognized the opportunity themselves. On the big issues that will define this city’s future — crime, the public schools, the economy — the Democratic candidates for mayor all back policies that threaten to take the city to the bad old days of stagnation and decline. Not to mention the way the recent bombing of innocent Bostonians by home-grown terrorists (planning their next wave of attacks in New York, mind you) should have put the politicized attacks on the NYPD in proper focus.
So why aren’t Republicans boldly forcing the big issues onto the public stage? We’ve got John Catsimatidis making headlines for talking about his wife giving mouth-to-mouth to a cat. We have Joe Lhota coming out against horse carriages, pandering on the East Side garbage-transfer station and apologizing for having opposed the Brooklyn Museum over a dung-covered painting of the Virgin Mary 15 years ago. The other candidates are all but invisible.
In a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-1, the only way for a Republican to win is to force the political debate onto his terrain by changing the questions candidates have to answer.
We’re still waiting.