Anthony Weiner doesn’t care what Eliot Spitzer has to say about him, but he really wants to clear the air with the Clintons.
After being asked if the Clintons could persuade him to leave the mayor’s race, Weiner on Monday had said that he wasn’t “terribly interested in what people who are not voters in the City of New York have to say.”
A day later he took a more contrite tone.
“There was no intent to disrespect,” he insisted, saying he had “enormous respect” for the couple.
“They’ve been enormous friends to my wife and my family,” said Weiner at a Bronx small business forum for mayoral candidates.
“But what I’ve been trying to make clear is that what is important to me in this race is the ideas that animated me to run.”
The former president and Secretary of State have so far been mum on the sexting scandal that’s engulfed Weiner’s campaign, largely out of love for his wife Huma Abedin, who is extremely close with the family.
Former Clinton White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers on Sunday said the scandal was “painful” for the couple.
“If they could choose they would certainly have Weiner get out of the race and Huma to get on with their life,” she said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Weiner said he wasn’t bothered by Eliot Spitzer’s comments on Monday that he’s not fit to be mayor of New York City.
“Every New Yorker has to make the decision on who they are going to vote for, including Spitzer,” he said.
Underscoring his commitment to the race — which virtually everyone from the White House on down agrees he can’t win — Weiner later in the day released a campaign video on his website.
In it, a somewhat hoarse-sounding Weiner — a wedding picture tucked in the background — doubles down on his bid for City Hall.
“Quit isn’t the way we roll in New York City,” he said.
With the camera panned close to his face, Weiner — no tie, nodding sheepishly, and flashing little grins throughout — addresses the scandal.
“If someone wants to come out with someone embarrassing about you in your private life, you gotta talk about that for a while,” he said.
The embattled Weiner — whose place in the latest Quinnipiac poll plummeted from first to fourth — does have one backer.
New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan — who said he’s been watching the mayor’s race closely — and believes we should be more compassionate to the serial sexter.
“I don’t want to judge anybody,” Dolan said on CBS “This Morning.” “I think redemption is always possible, and always God’s preference.”
But even as Weiner tried to project an air of normalcy, it appears the stress of being a national punchline — for the second time in two years — is getting to him.
He was fidgety throughout the Bronx forum, rubbing his eyes, and obsessively checking his Blackberry throughout.
And after the forum, he testily responded to a reporter who asked if he would come to the mike when they started rolling.
“Obviously,” he said.
