Opinion

Weiner comes up short

(
)

Schadenfreude partly explains why so many members of New York’s political class, who have long regarded Anthony Weiner as a self-promoting empty suit, are privately delighted by the Twitter mess in which the Brooklyn and Queens congressman now finds himself.

But there’s also a much more practical reason for their glee: Not only is the story a potential blow to Weiner’s standing at the top of the 2013 mayoral pack, there is suddenly real doubt over whether he’ll even try to succeed Michael Bloomberg.

Weiner, of course, has been running for mayor since the moment the 2009 campaign ended. And before this past week, he had maneuvered his way into an enviable position, appealing simultaneously to two very different — and very important — constituencies. There was his old base, lunch pail outerborough Democrats, who had been with him since 2005, when Weiner sold himself as an Ed Koch type during his first mayoral campaign. And there was his new fan club, liberals from Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn, who came to see Weiner in a new light when he began playing a wise-cracking ideologue on national cable news shows.

This added up to a potentially formidable coalition for ’13, one that was good enough to put Weiner at the top of most early polls. Factor in the niche appeal and low political wattage of most of his likely rivals and his prospects improved further. Weiner’s big moment, it seemed, was about to arrive.

But now it’s much more complicated.

True, the details of the Twitter story remain murky. It’s still far from clear how the infamous crotch shot was sent from Weiner’s account, how the story came to light, and whether Weiner really has retained a law firm to look into the matter. Some people are convinced he’s the victim of political mischief, others are sure he’s hiding something, and most don’t know what to make of it all.

And you get the sense that Weiner wants it to stay that way. It was jarring to watch the congressman, usually one of the smoothest public performers in the game, melt down when he first faced reporters early last week. Even when he finally got his talking points down a day later, he was still puzzlingly vague, insisting that he couldn’t say “with certitude” that the picture wasn’t his.

Weiner has refused to say anything more since then, even canceling a long-planned weekend speech in Wisconsin. Clearly, he hopes that this will blow over and that the media will move on to something else. And if there are no other revelations in the near future, he will probably get this wish.

But even if that happens and even if the polls don’t look too bad, Weiner will still be facing a predicament: All of the unanswered questions figure to return if he decides to enter the mayor’s race. Reporters will demand to know what happened with the investigation that Weiner said he was launching. What were the results? Who conducted it? Was he hacked? By whom? What will he do about it? And can he now say with confidence that the picture wasn’t of him?

As one of the top candidates for the top job in the media capital of the world, he won’t be able to disappear for a few days and wait for the story to pass. The press will dig relentlessly — and so will his opponents.

The question is whether Weiner will really want to deal with all of this — and we already have some evidence that the answer is no. Think back to 2009 and his decision to pass on that year’s mayoral race. When Weiner made his announcement at the end of May, he blamed his duties as a congressman — a flimsy excuse since he’d also been a member of Congress during his 2005 campaign.

The real reason, it seemed, could be found in a series of embarrassing news stories he’d been hit with that spring — one about his decision to skip several House votes to play in a hockey game at Chelsea Piers, another about the money he’d raised from international fashion models. They amounted to a warning shot from Bloomberg’s high-priced political shop. The message: There’s more where that came from.

Weiner claimed that this all made him even more adamant about running, but not long after the stories hit — and after the Bloomberg campaign amplified them with telephone calls to voters — he backed out. The prospect of being the subject of a months-long attack from a political campaign with limitless funding was too much for him. Better to sit it out and wait for a better shot in the future, he concluded.

It’s not hard to see that same logic prevailing now. Given all of the questions raised by his evasiveness this past week, Weiner can probably consider himself lucky if, in the days and weeks ahead, public interest in the episode passes and he’s able to return to his familiar role as a cable news star who happens to be in Congress.

It’s not a bad lot in life, all things considered, so why tempt fate — and the media and his political enemies — by pushing ahead with a mayoral campaign now? Weiner is still only 46. He may still have another chance.

For the rest of the mayoral field, Weiner’s predicament represents a win-win. If he goes ahead with a campaign anyway, he could be vulnerable in ways that he wasn’t before. And, obviously, if he opts not to run, his base will be up for grabs. A Weiner-less campaign would also leave much more oxygen for the rest of the candidates, giving all of them a better chance of getting noticed.

It’s far too early to say who would benefit most from a Weiner exit. Any number of prospects — including Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, former Comptroller Bill Thompson and even Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer — could make a play for his liberal backers. And the prospect of picking up his outerborough supporters could serve as an enticement for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to enter the fray. Everyone would have something to gain if Weiner were to stay away.

Of course, it’s also possible that this whole episode won’t end up hurting him at all among voters in New York City. Either way, though, the mayoral race changed in an important way this past week. Before, there was absolutely no doubt that Anthony Weiner would be a candidate. Now there is.

Steve Kornacki is news editor of Salon.com