Weiner's Freak Show

Azi Paybarah on what Spitzer's entrance into the comptroller's race has done to Anthony Weiner's race for mayor:

A "White House insider" told the Post that New York "has officially entered the Twilight Zone," thanks to the concurrent post-scandal candidacies of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer.

The Times Union said the Democratic Party would be damaged if voters see a ballot with Weiner at the top, Spitzer in the middle and Vito Lopez, the former assemblyman who resigned from office after several women accused him of sexual harassment, down below.

Chris Smith of New York magazine attempted to put Weiner and Spitzer's behavior in relative context, and comes up with a comparison that doesn't really flatter either man: "Spitzer’s acts were (very slightly) more sane, Weiner’s more twisted; Spitzer’s transgressions more offensive, Weiner’s sillier."

All this must be particularly galling to Weiner (notwithstanding his stated indifference to the Spitzer candidacy), whose greatest accomplishment to this point has been the achievement of something like normalcy in his candidacy.

The addition of a second high-profile, extraordinarily self-assured former official seeking redemption from a sensational scandal in this election makes it a freak show again.

A Bronx Democrat contacted me yesterday to report having received a survey call from Quinnipiac University that included a question about whose behavior was more "objectionable," Weiner's or Spitzer's.

That's a losing proposition, no matter who comes out ahead.

Indeed it is.

You know, when news first broke Sunday night that Spitzer was jumping into the comptroller race, I thought to myself "How many more of these disgraced politicians do we have to deal with here?"

But since then, I have revised my opinion of the matter.

I think Spitzer's jumping into the comptroller's race has been a blessing.

First, any time a candidate can scare Michael Mulgrew, Kathryn Wilde, and the contingent of editorial staff/neo-liberal columnists at the Daily News, Post and Times, he must be doing something right.

Spitzer's jumping back into politics has sent waves of fear through the corridors of power in NYC and so, from that angle, I think his entering the race is a good thing.

But more importantly, it has wrecked Anthony Weiner's campaign momentum and returned it to "freak show" status once again.

No one's paying any attention to his policy pronouncements.

They're asking him whether he thinks showing his junk on the Twitter and lying about it is worse than going to hookers but telling the truth about it when caught.

Weiner's candidacy has been all about show anyway.

His policy pronouncements are coming from a booklet he wrote up in 2009 and even his most signature policy, single payer health care for NYC, is a half-baked idea that Weiner's says would have to be fleshed out by a health care reform commission.

So it's nice to see that Weiner's been thrown off message here by Spitzer's entrance into the race and his campaign overtaken by the "freak show" once again.

Because in the end, that's exactly where Anthony Weiner's campaign belongs.

And we have Eliot Spitzer to thank for bringing Weiner back there.