Running (Late) for Mayor

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

(Picture Slideshow)

The clock neared 6 p.m. and an aide to Representative Anthony D. Weiner swung open his Washington office door to deliver the bad news.

"There's a 7:15 p.m. to Newark getting in at 8:30 p.m.," said Michael Marcy, Mr. Weiner's executive assistant.

Mr. Weiner glanced at the clock above his desk and his face sunk. The buzzer alerting him to voting time on the House floor blared intermittently. A video monitor of the House chamber showed less than 10 minutes before a period for voting was to begin, which on this night would last to 7:30.

Two hundred miles away, in New York City, the Chelsea Democratic Club and Working Families Party of Staten Island, two groups holding forums for mayoral candidates, would have to proceed without him. Once again, the House, airline schedules and the vagaries of Washington and New York traffic would show Mr. Weiner's campaign no mercy - he was stuck in Washington again, unable to play the roles of both congressman and mayoral candidate in the same day.

"I feel really bad," Mr. Weiner said, reaching for his jacket and heading out the door.

For Mr. Weiner, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, running for mayor while keeping his day job in Congress means a balancing act that on occasions like this night has cost him crucial exposure.

Often, he makes a mad dash to the airport, getting on a flight with just enough minutes to spare to make it to the forums, which he alone might be thankful for sometimes grinding on into the late evening. If he arrives late, he does so with apologies - and a ready excuse about fighting "the Republicans in Washington."

One of his deepest regrets was missing more than half of one of the first televised candidates forums, which was last month on education, an issue all the candidates are promoting as a top concern. Still catching his breath and wet with sweat, he filled his empty chair and hoped for a break but instead was immediately called on to state some of his positions.

"I think Dominic thought he was doing me a favor, but what I really needed was to catch my breath," Mr. Weiner said, referring to one of the moderators, Dominic Carter of NY1, which broadcast the forum.

This will go on at least until mid-July, when the House is expected to begin a summer recess that will last until early September. Then it will reconvene just before the Sept. 13 primary.

But even as he does his work, the campaign never seems far away, as campaign and Congressional business sometimes blurred.

The day included the workaday stuff of any Congress member, dashing through the halls to keep tabs on legislation passing through committees, greeting visiting school children from New York on the Capitol steps, meetings in his office with people seeking legislative help.

But in between he took several calls from his campaign advisers, did interviews with reporters on campaign matters and discussed the results of New York State tests of fourth and eighth graders with his Congressional assistants, one of whom handed him a synopsis of the results and offered an explanation of the scoring.

Mr. Weiner, who has many Jewish constituents and is heavily courting Jewish voters, has also played up advocacy for Israel and Jewish causes in the House. In fact, he began this day with a brief speech on the House floor objecting to what he called resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe.

Mr. Weiner is careful not to complain too much about his predicament, self-imposed because, in the middle of his fourth term, he has decided not to give up his seat for his campaign.

"I am good at these forums, and they are a way to reach people," said Mr. Weiner, who places third or fourth in polls among the four major Democrats in the field. "These forums are like the Iowa caucuses. But I think they understand when they hear Weiner can't make it because he is in Washington voting against" the Republican agenda.

This past week he missed three forums on Thursday as well, though he was expected to be back on the campaign trail on Friday night and on Monday, for a speech on domestic security, before returning to Washington for House business.

Dare Mr. Weiner miss a vote on security, then, with the issue so prominent in New York and on the eve of his speech on the subject? No, so he stayed to vote on the bill, which passed 424 to 4 (he voted for it), but killed his chances of making it to the evening forums on Wednesday.

He is also missing out on the daytime campaigning that the other candidates are increasingly doing. The other candidates, he said, have it much easier not only because they are based in New York but also because they have jobs that in his view are simply not as demanding.

Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx Borough president, resigned as president of the Drum Major Institute, a nonprofit group promoting social justice; C. Virginia Fields is the Manhattan borough president; and Gifford Miller is the speaker of the City Council. Mr. Weiner singled out Mr. Miller for unfavorable comparison.

"Most of what Gifford does is sign off on the mayor's proposals anyway,"

Mr. Weiner said. "That's something of value but not as much as what I'm doing here."

Mr. Miller's campaign, in turn, has used Mr. Weiner's record in Washington against him, criticizing the congressman for supporting legislation pushed by the Bush administration, including Congressional support for the Iraq war, the USA Patriot Act and the No Child Left Behind education law.

"The congressman owes New Yorkers an explanation of why he has repeatedly rolled over" to the Bush agenda, Reggie Johnson, a spokesman, said in a statement.

Such sparring over records is typical for members of Congress seeking other offices. It is, after all, a time-honored strategy of candidates to keep track of a Congressional opponent's attendance rate (Mr.

Weiner's hovers around 95 percent), missed votes on key legislation and overall record.

"Invariably they miss some votes, and if they don't miss votes it is harder to campaign," said Stuart Rothenberg, a veteran analyst who edits a nonpartisan newsletter on Congressional politics. "You've got to raise money, meet new people, and it's harder as they have these candidate forums. It's not quite your past or present versus your future, but there is an element of that."

There is some speculation in Democratic circles - hotly disputed by Mr.

Weiner and his advisers - that his mayoral campaign is a dress rehearsal for a future run. But he has insisted he is in the race to win this year and casts his Congressional work as an extension of his broader concerns about not just his district but the entire city.

Mr. Weiner's legislative goals include allowing the Homeland Security Department to help offset more of the costs of New York police officers assigned to terrorism prevention; achieving a ban on online publishing of certain personal information on police officers; making it unlawful for the Palestine Liberation Organization to establish or maintain an office in the United States; and securing the reopening of the crown of the Statue of Liberty, closed since Sept. 11, 2001.

As a member of the minority party, he said he is not overly hopeful of success but vows to press on and not "lay down arms" to the Republicans.

"This allows me to think about issues here," he said, "with an eye toward New York City."