“I don’t back down,” Anthony Weiner said defiantly earlier this week… after going completely berserk on a solitary heckler.

“Quit isn’t the way we roll in New York City,” he insisted in an ad… as his name dropped sharply in the polls and his campaign began to crumble.

Not backing down and refusing to quit, when indicative of assertive righteousness, are all well and good — but “graceful exits” are clearly an unknown quantity to the one-man circus. Otherwise, he would have slipped obliquely out of sight a good long while ago — and apparently, he still might not intend to do so, even after the bloodbath the Democratic primary for NYC mayor next week is going to be for him. Via The Hill:

Bill Brandt, a close friend of Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, said Weiner’s campaign will clear the way for a future run for office.

“The truth of the matter is he’s been beaten up now for two months nonstop. When he does something for the future, it will be fair of him to say ‘asked and answered’” when reporters ask him about his personal life, said Brandt, who is also a long-time supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

“I’m pretty certain he’ll find his equilibrium and move forward from there. He is a quintessential New Yorker. When you talk about the politics of the city and the state, there are a lot of offices where he can offer phenomenal service,” he added. …

“I do believe he’ll stay in public service,” said Jim Sideris, a retired cop from Flushing, Queens, and one of Weiner’s most loyal volunteers. “I don’t believe he’ll ever back down. …

Weiner remains coy on whether he’ll run for office again, refusing to acknowledge his race for mayor has become a lost cause.

“I don’t imagine I’ll serve more than two terms so eventually I’ll have to return to something else,” he said. “Once you’ve been mayor, there’s no other job in politics that really adds up.”

Honestly, as absurd as it sounds, I almost wouldn’t even be surprised if he pressed on, maybe in some smaller race in the near-ish future. From whence he’d summon any amount of money and support after the degree to which he’s been so humiliatingly diminished, beats me — but given the level of egotistical delusion it’s currently taking for him to continue to convince himself that he’s fit for public office clearly knows no bounds.