NY’s Weiner back on Twitter 2 years after disgrace
Apr 22, 2013, 10:22 PM
NEW YORK (AP) – Former congressman Anthony Weiner is back on Twitter.
The Democrat, who resigned in disgrace two years ago after tweeting a lewd picture of himself, has launched a new Twitter account: (at)anthonyweiner.
Weiner’s first post Monday was decidedly tame: a link to a 20-page policy statement outlining “64 Ideas to keep New York City the Capital of the Middle Class.” By late afternoon, he had a few thousand followers.
Weiner, 48, confirmed by email Monday that the new Twitter account is his.
“It seemed like a fresh start was in order especially in light of all the new ideas around which I am hoping to drive conversation and debate,” he wrote.
Weiner, who is married and has a baby son, ran for mayor in 2005 and considered it in 2009. He said this month in a New York Times Magazine story that he is considering joining the race to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
An NBC New York-Marist Poll last week showed about half the Democrats surveyed wouldn’t even consider voting for him because of the sexting scandal. But it also showed he’d get 15 percent of the vote in a potential Democratic primary, topped only by the current front-runner, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. There were similar results in a Quinnipiac University poll released last week.
In the 2011 sexting scandal, Weiner initially claimed he had been hacked after a photo of a man’s underwear-clad crotch appeared on his Twitter account. As more pictures surfaced, including one of Weiner posing shirtless in his congressional office, he was forced to come clean and acknowledged exchanging inappropriate messages with several women.
Weiner’s old Twitter account, (at)repweiner, still has about 68,000 followers.
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