Will New Yorkers vote in dotty mayoral prospect Anthony Weiner? With his overly frank and forward ways, is he the right man for the city? We said yes to Boris. Ah, being mayor is a wondrous thing.
You say Carlos, we say Boris. Carlos, Boris, Carlos, Boris. That’s his sexting name of course – Carlos. Carlos Danger. The decreasingly popular mayoral candidate from New York City who just can’t help showing off his boy bit. Though Weiner, his real name, is even better, being so near to the famous Wiener sausage. In the town of the hot dog, the man with the baddest sausage is king.
Yet, for managerial allure, Mr Weiner can hardly slip a brown paper shopping bag. How he surfs through the chaos and hurt he causes in his personal life to stay in the mayoral race is a political marvel. He’s up there with the best. Berlusconi’s bunga-bunga ain’t got nothing. What you looking at? You looking at me? Don’t look at me, look at my Wiener.
At least it’s honest. Distasteful and anti-social perhaps, but honest. As naturists would say, if God had wanted us to be naked He’d have made us that way. Perhaps Mayor Weiner will sign in the first architectural design for a building that is actually built in the shape of a penis. Not the soaring, bulging, neo-phallic towers we are surrounded by, jostling their way for saucy beauty and function, but an actual penis-shaped mixed-use tower block. If he could arrange to have his mayoral office located within it, all the better.
Nonetheless, for pure impropriety and classiness, Weiner has nothing on his fellow politician the Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner, who likes to grab women working in his office, put them in a headlock and talk dirty to them. He doesn’t mind if other people are around, and once he carried on in front of a police officer, joking how he wanted to borrow his handcuffs.
Several colleagues have since dobbed him in, including seven women who claim he harassed them, and formerly close allies calling for his resignation. He has responded with a series of eloquent and passionate television speeches. “I’ve reached into my heart and soul,” he declared on 15 July, “and realise I must change.” His voice shook with contrition, his face was Hollywood fantastic. He said how glad he is of the new generation that respects women. This week, in another speech, he told us he is going into therapy. Even so, his town has turned against him, his political reputation is rubbished, and the courts are forcing him to foot the bill for the trouble he’s caused. He’s still the Mayor, though, for now.
It may be we need a mayor who reflects the city we live in, who understands its ways. And yet we want them to be better too, to rise above, to lead. It’s a fine line, and tricky to maintain especially when the law grants them such great power. Toronto mayor Rob Ford made news in May when he promised he no longer did crack cocaine. The smile, the assurance – often it’s all people need. And so he was forgiven. As Weiner was forgiven once, and maybe shall be forgiven again, but not for ever. He’d better not blow it. As for Boris, ooh he’s a canny one. He dances the dance like a true political master, a samurai among mere kung fu black belts. Will he endorse Weiner as the New York race nears the finish? Or will he hedge his bets and merely pronounce that the town will get the mayor it deserves.
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