A screenshot from a video on anthonyweiner.com announcing his campaign for mayor, shortly before it was taken down. Credit: YouTube.
Anthony Weiner has finally stopped beating around the bush and launched his bid for mayor. [videoembed id=”155126″]
A video posted late Tuesday night on a revamped anthonyweiner.com—emblazoned with a large blue and orange logo reading “WEINER FOR MAYOR”—features the once-disgraced politician in various picturesque Brooklyn settings, talking about his mother being a teacher and his father hanging “a shingle outside our house” after going to law school on the G.I. bill.
“That’s how this city was built,” he says in the video.
He goes on to rue the high rents—up 20 percent in the last two years alone, he says—and impossible real estate prices that will “cost you a million bucks.”
As Weiner is seen shmoozing with shopowners, a voiceover describes the struggle small business owners face, “drowning in regulations that nickel and dime you to death.”
He boasts of gaining billions of dollars while in Congress to put more cops on the streets of New York, his work with the 9/11 responders bill, and having “lead the campaign for real health reform.”
“Look, I made some big mistakes and I know I let a lot of people down,” Weiner says in the video. “But I also learned some tough lessons.”
“I hope I get a second chance to work for you,” he adds.
Weiner also plugs his recently released “64 ideas” to improve the city he aims to make “the middle class capital of the world.”
Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, appears at the end of the video to vouch for their love of the city and attest that “no one will work harder to make it better than Anthony.”
The video may have been posted prematurely. As Twitter exploded with the discovery of the video shortly after midnight, the website reverted back to its previous ambiguous design, sans video, and the tweet by Weiner that originally released the video disappeared.
Some wondered whether the release-and-retract was intentional, or if it was a sign that Weiner’s campaign team is subpar.
Sources told The New York Post that the video was supposed to released later on Wednesday.
Weiner first announced that he was considering a run for mayor in a lengthy New York Times Magazine interview in April. Since then, he has done a round of media interviews and returned to Twitter as he prepared to formally launch his campaign.
A NBC/Marist poll released last month showed that Weiner would come in second place among the Democratic candidates for mayor. Quinn led with support from 26 percent of voters, and Weiner came in second with 15 percent, according to the poll.
The former congressman resigned in 2011 after he tweeted a lewd photo of himself and lied about it, saying that his account had been hacked. He later admitted to having inappropriate online relationships with several women.
He spent more than a year and a half away from the public light. He moved from his Queens home to an apartment on Park Avenue South. He said in his Times Magazine interview that he has spent the time as a stay-at-home father to his toddler son, who also appears in the video.
Weiner also opened a lucrative consulting firm during his time away from office, the Times reports.
Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat
