Shudda. Coulda. Wudda. As the hustle and bustle of the mayoral race winds down, would've-been candidate Rep. Anthony Weiner is taking time to reflect on the run he could've had. He coulda been a contender.
The congressman now thinks he would've beaten Bloomberg. Not intimidated by the booming bankroll the mayor unleashed onto his opponent, Comptroller Bill Thompson, Weiner says Bloomberg would've needed $150 million to beat him, according to The New York Times.
"They were afraid of me," he told the paper, referring to Bloomberg and his campaign cronies. "I saw a way to beat Mike Bloomberg, but it was a narrow path."
Well, Congressman, it's kinda easy for you to say that now, isn't it?
It may also be strangely true, if taken in the context of a Times analysis published last week about how the Bloomberg campaign sought to muscle Weiner out of the race early (and then enjoyed a Peter Luger's steak when they succeeded). Concerned about his heavy influence on middle-class voters, they unleashed a torrent of negative publicity and eventually Weiner backed off.
But Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Queens and Brooklyn, says he didn't bow out because of the bad press Team Bloomberg was trying to give him. He opted not to run because of what would've happened if he'd kicked his campaign into full gear, especially at a time when the crucial health care debate was unfolding in Washington.
Had Weiner taken time out from the Capitol to run for mayor, Bloomberg would've slammed him at every turn for abandoning his responsibilities as an elected official to pursue his own political advancement, he told the Times.
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“I would have to absent myself from my Washington responsibilities, which were really big and would have been really noticeable if I had not done them,” Weiner told the paper.
Since it's not Weiner's style to go into anything half-hearted, he said he made a choice and plunged head first into promoting the public insurance option, the passage of which helped elevate him on Capitol Hill.
That sounds like a happy, heart-warming, feel-good story about a would-be mayoral candidate who put the public he's sworn to serve above his personal ambitions.
Or, of course, maybe he just put his personal ambitions on hold.He wouldn't comment on the Times' questions about the 2013 mayoral race, for which he'd already be a leading candidate.
Whatever his rationale for not running this year, it appears the decision has worked for him.
"I don't see any value in going back and Monday-morning quarterbacking this thing," Weiner told the Times.
Then he proceeded to make fun of how much money Bloomberg spent on the campaign and how little he had to show for it.
Touché.
