Patch Blog: The Implications Surrounding the Scandal of Rep. Weiner

Rep. Anthony Weiner has been representing New York and its 9th district since 1998 when he won the seat. He has been known for his intensity and his pursuit of perfection. The man has a firm set of policies and agendas he wants to complete and feels of doing so with the upmost importance and scrutiny. Weiner is someone who understands his role in the U.S. Congress and wants to continue his pursuit of excellence.

But perhaps Weiner didn't exactly get the memo that the American people do not really appreciate or want to deal with such issues as lewd photos, sexting, and other sexually deviant actions. In case you missed it, Weiner is just the latest American politician to be involved in a sexual scandal. After a week or two of straight denials, Weiner finally held a press conference and admitted that he had been sexting and sending explicit photos of himself over Facebook, Twitter, and cellphone. Currently, many of the pictures have been leaked to the public and some of the conversations have been published as well and they are all but pleasant. The language he uses is incredibly explicit and downright offensive. Although Weiner has claimed what he did was wrong and has said how sorry he is, he has decided not to resign and to continue his political career: probably not going to work out.

The fact of the matter is that now, no one is coming to Weiner's defense or really anything close to it. The situation is that both parties want to see Weiner gone. For Republicans, Weiner's resignation would allow for them to try to get a Republican in Weiner's seat. Although the ninth district is democratic, it is much closer to a marginal district than anything else. And Republicans might not be too far off to think that this just might have been the incident to keep a Democrat out of the seat and put a Republican in instead.

Democrats are also looking for a resignation. Although it has not been incredibly public, the fact is they are in no way coming to his defense. Reid is not looking to help Weiner, Pelosi is calling for an ethics probe and the Obama administration is in no way disagreeing. This is just not the scandal that the Democrats need. Although they could risk losing a seat, it is a risk that they are willing to take because Weiner brings too much negativity to the party and the risk really outweighs the current situation.

However, Democrats do have to be careful that this does not turn into a New York-26 lookalike, except with the parties on opposite sides. In NY-26, a resignation of the seat lead to a special election in which a Democrat won in a usually conservative district. This occured during the Obama prosperity, close to the time when Osama was killed, and when Republicans were being viewed as a little too insane, especially with the repeal of medicare seeming to be a top agenda item for Republicans. However, although this was only about a month ago, times have changed. Now the issue is how nation-building in Afghanistan has proved to be highly ineffective (claiming all the money spent as a waste) and the vast majority of Americans proving to be very dissatisfied with the current economic state of the country; a direct wack at the Obama administration. If Weiner's seat does become vacant (which seems very highly likely), it could very well go to either Republicans or Democrats.

Even if Weiner does not resign his seat, his political career will end in 2012. The Democrats will either try to get rid of the district entirely and incorporate it in other districts (due to Census figures) or they will put up another Democrat to run against him in the primary and whoever they decide will beat Weiner and go to the general election.

The Weiner scandal is just another incident of how a political career has been ruined due to the selfishness and foolishness of the politicians themselves. It is an issue reaching both parties and proving to be problematic, both for the parties and also for these politicans' families. The implications of the Weiner scandal could prove far worse for Democrats than the party would have ever been hoped.