Perceptions are interesting. Clearheaded, likeminded people can look at a single act and see it very differently. Anthony Weiner’s round two withdrawal from the Democratic race for Mayor is such a controversial act. While Democratic Party insiders praise him, good government groups are somewhere between disappointed and outraged.

Party loyalists ascribe to the theory: “If it’s good for the party, it’s the right thing to do.” They often put party over people. It is an old system and a tested method of taking care of your own, occasionally at the expense of government, the process and the people. But party power comes from success without which political parties are less effective or ineffective. So party bosses play by one set of rules -- winning at all costs.

Elected officials, on the other hand, have a primary moral or ethical obligation to the people over the party. They are honor-bound first to the people and the government before they do the bidding – or what’s best for their political party.

In recent years, we have seen a separation of “boss” and “elected official.” It is not absolute. It is not legislated. It is not mandated. However, elected officials who make decisions for the party must consider the people and the government first. At least I think so.

We’ve seen in our borough, a wise Tom Manton step down as Congressman to effectively build the city’s most powerful political organization. We’ll never know if Manton’s path would have been cluttered with obstacles of Federal regulation and ethical, moral and time conflicts if he had remained an elected representative while being party boss.

If we look to Brooklyn, Dem party chief Clarence Norman seems to have seriously stumbled over such obstacles.
The concept of Democracy means elected officials are responsible first to the people, not the party.

Democracy de·moc·ra·cy (dí-mõk’ra-se ) n. pl.: Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives with the common people considered as the primary source of political power.

The rules were changed a number of years back – I apologize for not having citation readily available — to place the party nomination in the hands of the people – and take the decision making process away from the bosses. No single politico, nor a small group of bosses or voters, was going to designate who would be the party’s candidate for Mayor. The old process invited cronyism, poor representation and bad government.

So a new set of rules – perhaps not the best in the world, but they worked -- was enacted by the NYS Legislature back in the 70’s. The primary system with runoff coupled in the 90’s with a campaign finance system in order to provide an open and fair process.

We believe those who enter the electoral system are ethically bound to play by those rules. We believe those who take public matching funds are financially bound to play by the rules.

We are saddened that Anthony Weiner, the Congressman from Queens who this paper endorsed for Mayor, saw fit to take $1.7 million dollars in campaign matching funds, capture the imagination of the city’s outer borough working class and emerge on Primary Day as the big winner and the campaign’s single beacon of ideas, and then betray the system and rules which he was tied to ethically, financially and morally.

We don’t know if he would have won a runoff. We don’t really care. We do care that he has taken the people’s process away from them and demonstrated that in politics, party and personal agenda come before the people. He has made himself no better than the political boss who makes his own rules.

We believe when Weiner asked for their votes and 130,000-plus people pulled his lever, he obligated himself to play by the rules. We believe when he applied for, accepted and spent $1,700,000 in matching funds from the city treasury, he signed on to a system and a procedure he was prepared and obligated to follow. We thought he was willing to abide by the decision of the people.

Last week, Anthony Weiner filed a Certificate of Declination with the NYC Board of Elections which said in essence: if nominated at a run off election I would decline to be the mayoral nominee of the Democratic Party for the general election.

Such a certificate is without precedence and has no legal standing. It does, however, clearly indicate that Weiner misled the Campaign Finance Board when he accepted $1.7 million which he should now be obligated to repay to the city. He accepted the money to compete under the rules. He has now broken the rules.

When will the politicians who make the rules learn that the people expect them to follow the rules, too?
Nothing contained in this column should reflect negatively on the beneficiary of Weiner’s actions – the Democratic candidate for mayor, Freddy Ferrer.

We have a long-standing relationship with Freddy and have supported him in the past. This paper in all likelihood would have endorsed Ferrer if Weiner had not been in the race. We were deprived of that opportunity and endorsed someone who didn’t play by the rules. We endorsed Anthony Weiner because we thought he had performed best during the mayoral campaign.

But then, on the path to his political future, politics got in the way.

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.