Two New York City voters grilled Anthony Weiner Wednesday night over the 2011 sexting scandal that led to his resignation from Congress.
“How dare you?” said Chris Owens, according to Buzzfeed, during a New Kings Democrat forum for mayoral candidates in Williamsburg. “I’m a parent. I’ve got two sons. I represent the Democratic Party. I am outraged and disgusted by you, both by what you did and by the fact that you have the arrogance to run for mayor now.”
“I want to understand how you explain to us how you used public facility to tweet offensive material to individuals who may have included minors,” Owens, who's active in Brooklyn politics, continued. “Now you come back–not even four, eight years later–you come back after two years and you expect us to embrace you because you have good ideas?”
Weiner, who announced his candidacy for mayor last month, accused Owens of grandstanding.
“Well listen, Chris, you have a right to grandstand, and I have a a right to answer the question," Weiner said, before accusing Owens of holding a grudge against him for endorsing Owens' opponent in a 2006 congressional race.
"If my mistakes, and the way I compounded them by being dishonest about them, disqualifies me, then so be it,” Weiner continued, addressing the Twitter scandal. “But I am still gonna be out there leaning forward and talking about these ideas.”
Another voter also attacked Weiner over his past indiscretions.
"Don’t you think that there’s something about public office that means that you have to have the trust of people, that we can’t have our politicians going around apologizing all the time?” Politicker reports New Kings member Jesse Strauss asked, pointing out that teachers aren't allowed to tweet photos to their students.
“How are we going to have the stature as a city to tell that teacher that they can’t work for the City of New York when our mayor has done the same thing?”
Strauss and Weiner went back and forth until Weiner declared that he would be the one to replace Michael Bloomberg as mayor.
"I’m going to win this election, OK, and I’m gonna govern this city really well,” he said. “If you don’t think I should even be standing here today, I certainly would respect that. I mean, you’re supporting another candidate who’s not gonna win.”
In the latest poll, Weiner was in second behind frontrunner Christine Quinn. According to the Marist poll, Weiner had the support of 19 percent of Democratic voters. Quinn had 25.
For more on Wednesday's heated exchange, head over to Politicker.
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