Weiner A Winner?

Anthony Weiner, the disgraced ex-congressman from New York City who tweeted pictures of his privates to a woman not his wife, announced his candidacy for the mayoralty of New York today.

Awk-ward!

Well, maybe not. Mark Sanford got himself elected back to his old House seat in South Carolina over Stephen Colbert's sister because his constituents forgave him for cheating on his wife and trying to cover it up, and because they really, really, really didn't want to elect a Democrat. So a Weiner comeback is not out of the realm of possibility. Except that disgraced Democrats usually have more trouble than disgraced Republicans in making a comeback, largely because the press tends to make fun of them more often. Don't believe me? Chris Matthews and Eugene Robinson were as snarky as schoolboys on Matthews's MSNBC show today, suggesting there would be something wrong with Weiner as the face of New York. (You will notice that I did not take the obvious cheap shot.) Yet no one seems to have, still, any reservations about noted prostitution client David Vitter as the voice and conscience of Louisiana in the Senate. (You will notice that I did not take the obvious cheap shot on that, either.)

So why do Republicans like Sanford and Vitter get away with personal transgressions that most Democrats don't? (Note: Even though Bill Clinton got away with his big personal sin, it likely hurt Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, thus allowing the Republicans to steal Florida that much more easily.) It may be that Republicans, particularly those in the Bible Belt, can ask Jesus (and, coincidentally, their constituents) to forgive them, while Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, both Jews, have no such outlet.  Or maybe it's because of this: Republicans only talk about family values. Maybe, just maybe, Democrats actually live them. And maybe, just maybe, they don't take to kindly to a Democrat who fails to show a sense of family values.

And also, they're not to crazy about Democrats who lose Florida's electoral votes to someone like George Walker Bush or lose Florida's governorship to Rick Scott.