Anthony Weiner, the former New York congressman whose career imploded after his Twitter scandal, is going to try for a political comeback. He announced that he will run for the New York mayor’s office.
Weiner re-emerged last month when he told the New York Times that he was considering a run for the office. The Times reported that Weiner posted a two-minute video that went public on Wednesday, announcing his decision. In it, he acknowledges the biggest mistake of his career - sending explicit photos to women on Twitter. Weiner had initially denied that the photos were sent to a college student in Seattle, but he had to come clean and resigned from his office.
“Look, I made some big mistakes, and I know I let a lot of people down,” he said. “But I’ve also learned some tough lessons.”
Reuters reports that a Quinnipiac poll was also released on Wednesday, putting Weiner 10 points behind City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Former Comptroller Bill Thompson and current city Comptroller John Liu had 10 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Weiner features his family several times throughout the video and he tries to paint himself as a crusader of the middle class. “The very people that put everything they had into this city are getting priced right out of it,” he comments. “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The 48-year-old has a $5 million war chest for the campaign and has already updated his website.