Weiner Is Running for Mayor Now So We Won't Ask Him About Sexting Later

The point of Anthony Weiner's campaign for New York mayor — which has featured repeated humiliation of the candidate — is political bloodletting. As we've speculated, Weiner's friends think he's staying in the race and enduring all the insults and tabloid covers and sex puns now so that he can run for something else later and avoid the same embarrassment.

The point of Anthony Weiner's campaign for New York mayor — which has featured repeated humiliation of the candidate — is political bloodletting. As we've speculated, Weiner's friends think he's staying in the race and enduring all the insults and tabloid covers and sex puns now so that he can run for something else later and avoid the same embarrassment. "The truth of the matter is he’s been beaten up now for two months nonstop," Bill Brandt, a Clinton donor and close friend of Huma Abedin, tells The Hill's Alexander Bolton. "When he does something for the future, it will be fair of him to say 'asked and answered.'"

A future Weiner narrative is evident in a new 10-minute documentary on his candidacy from Stateless Media. It is titled Chutzpah. Though the film does not gloss over the embarrassing sexts Weiner sent, it's largely flattering. One of his sexting partners marvels that "people are so judgmental" and treated him "like a murderer." A voter shows her rundown apartment building to Weiner, shaking her head that people care more about sex than the real issues. Weiner is shown standing strong under the flash of reporters' cameras and calmly responding to angry voters. ("Coal mining is tough; this is not that tough," Weiner says.)

Of course, that is not what happened earlier this week, when a voter called Weiner a scumbag and said he was "married to an Arab." Weiner got into a long shouting match, yelling at one point, "You know nothing! You know nothing! Your ignorance is being shown to the entire world!" But maybe Weiner was happy to help get that out of the voter's system, so he and others will be less likely to yell next time. The Hill reports:

"I do believe he'll stay in public service," said Jim Sideris, a retired cop from Flushing, Queens, and one of Weiner’s most loyal volunteers. "I don't believe he'll ever back down."