You need to see it to believe it. Either he’s begun to crack under the pressure or, with his numbers down to 10 percent, he’s decided to have as much fun as he can before the electoral asteroid strike. Nothing left to lose.

Think of him as a new Bulworth. With a constant, raging erection.

Yet throughout his Harlem visit, Weiner demonstrated a penchant for challenging some of the people who were willing to take him seriously. When one supporter invited Weiner and more than a dozen members of the media into his apartment, the candidate noted the Israeli flag the man had displayed in his living room. “Are you Israeli?” Weiner asked. No, the man answered, explaining that he is a Christian who believes in the central role Israel would play in paving the way for the second coming of Jesus Christ. “Got it,” Weiner said. “But don’t you also believe that we have to be wiped out before the Messiah can return?”

That’s a warm-up for his exchange with the reporter below, but follow the last link and read through. Scott Conroy of RCP spared no detail in chronicling Weiner’s serial humiliations in canvassing in a NYC apartment building. Money quote: “I already said I didn’t want to meet you. Please stop knocking on my door.”

What you’re seeing here, I think, is this guy grappling with the reality that he’s not going to be viable in 2017 either. He was willing to lose this time around on the theory that it would help him long-term; even if more sexting stuff came out and sank him, it’d be old news by the time he made his “real” run for mayor in four years. But that blew up on him. The fact that he was sexting even after leaving Congress combined with the Sydney Leathers circus in the media has turned him into a fatally flawed, fatally ridiculous figure. He’d have been better off skipping a run this time, spending the next four or eight years following John Profumo’s example and working hard at charity, then trying to run for office again. Dredging up old dirty laundry about sexting at that point would seem nasty, an attempt to impugn a changed man. As it is, the fact that his ambition drove him to run before he’d made any credible try at rehabilitation just made him look sleazier, a careerist pol whose ambition wouldn’t tolerate even the pretense of remorse. I doubt he’ll ever shake that rep now, and I think he doubts it too. Why not have a lark with the media before they go away forever?