Weiner Can't Even Hire A Campaign Staff

This Times article shows just how long shot Anthony Weiner's run for mayor is:

As Mr. Weiner, the former congressman, prepares to roll out a long-shot bid for mayor, possibly as soon as next week, he is finding it difficult to attract prominent operatives, interviews suggest.

The Washington consulting firm that has advised him throughout much of his career, GMMB, has decided not to work with him in a mayoral race, according to people briefed on the matter. 

Several former Congressional aides, as well as outsiders whom Mr. Weiner has sought to recruit, have also turned him down. 

To oversee his campaign, Mr. Weiner is turning to a relatively untested 30-year-old strategist who has never before managed a race for citywide office in New York, according to a person familiar with his plans. 

...

 

Recruiting top talent is a perennial challenge in politics, but Mr. Weiner faces daunting obstacles.

He is considering an unusually late entry into a race that is already filled with Democrats who long ago snapped up big-name campaign directors. 

He is known as an excessively demanding, at times confrontational boss. And he is still recovering from an embarrassing scandal, during which he misled the public and his own staff about whether he had sent sexually explicit messages and graphic images to women he had met online. 

Before those e-mails surfaced in the summer of 2011, Mr. Weiner was considered a mayoral front-runner. His tearful confession and resignation from Congress seemed to spell the end of his political career until a few weeks ago, when he began to publicly muse about a comeback. 

A lean campaign team, deliberate or not, may ultimately suit Mr. Weiner. 

A consummate micromanager, he has long taken a hands-on approach to politics, personally jousting with members of the news media and sweating over the stagecraft of his public appearances, right down to the placement of a lectern.

Couple of things to say here:

First with all that "sweating over the stagecraft of his public appearances, right down to the placement of a lectern," Weiner didn't have much time to, you know, handle policy matters.

Second, since he can't hire any professional talent to help him run his campaign, and since the Clintons have shut down his fund raising spigot, it's hard to see how he thinks he can actually win the race.

Maybe he thinks he can hit the runoff on name recognition alone.

Or maybe he doesn't care whether he wins, he simply is running to try and redeem himself from TwitterGate.

Either way, it seems all he is going to be is a spoiler in the race.