Who Is Behind The De Blasio Leak?

The NY Post reports the following:

The little-known lesbian past of Bill de Blasio’s wife was dropped on his mayoral campaign like a hot potato this week to try to stop him from gaining traction in the mayoral race, according to a top political operative.

“He was starting to get a little buzz,” said the operative, who has been involved in Democratic politics for three decades. “This is designed to prevent any growth beyond his rock-solid base.”

Many people in the political world were dumbfounded Wednesday when Chirlane McCray, who married de Blasio in 1994, issued a statement saying she “identified” as a lesbian before meeting de Blasio.

McCray felt compelled to discuss her sexual preferences publicly after the Politicker Web site reported she had written an article for Essence magazine in 1979, titled “I am a Lesbian.”

De Blasio has positioned himself as the most progressive of the four Democratic mayoral contenders and, by the operative’s reckoning, needs to grab “every vote he can” outside that base to be competitive.

“This has to hurt him,” said the operative.

Hard to see how this hurts him, since most New Yorkers aren't really going to care much about an article the wife of a mayoral contender wrote 33 years ago about her sexual identity and frankly, the whole thing should be off bounds.

But I do find the leak itself interesting.

How did Politicker come by the story?

Did the writer, "Hunter Walker," find this on his own?

Or did somebody else leak the story to him?

And if that's the case, was Christine Quinn's opposition research behind it?

The Politicker article itself is really sleazy.

As one commenter of the article put it:

As a woman who identifies as gay, I find this article deeply offensive. As an intelligent person I find this article deeply offensive. As a New Yorker I find this article deeply offensive. As a political junky I find this article deeply offensive.

If a person at one point in their life identifies as gay and then feels another way the next day that is their right and their business. You have no right to put something so intimate and personal and has nothing to do with character, values, or policy out into public. Unless you think sexual identity is a reflection of character, values, and beliefs?

You still haven't explained what the relevance of this article is? Both have been ardent supporters of gay marriage so I'm not sure where the twist is? Why did you publish this? Because on their website they didn't identify that a group Ms. McCray worked with was a gay group too? Was that that important to you? You really think the public cares about that? If they where trying to hide so much, why mention the group at all for some creep like you to go digging around trying to expose personal business?

It seems to me that you wrote this article because you have something against de Blasio and thought this would hurt him. Somehow expose a huge fraud? Luckily, New Yorkers as a whole tend to be very savvy, educated, and cultured so who a politicians spouse dated or the sexual orientation the identified with 30 years ago doesn't effect how they vote, making this article is all the more irrelevant.

Sadly, you've hurt noone except yourself and your reputation.. All you've succeeded in doing is showing the world how ignorant you are. How uneducated you are in regards to this topic. How crappy of a journalist you are. And how little taste you have. 

Totally agree -  a sleazy article written to damage de Blasio.

Again I ask, how did it find its way into Politicker?

If Quinn's people are behind something as lame as this, then she's more desperate than we think.

Maybe there's somebody else besides Quinn who thinks they stand to gain by getting this story out?

Another commenter at Politicker wrote the following:

They live in Park Slope. You can be a lesbian on Tuesday and then something else on Thursday, then back again next week and your friends and neighbors will still smile and support your choices. Because they're not hung up on such issues, unlike oddball writers and editors at the Observer trying to curry favor with realtor advertisers by running hit pieces on political figures who one presumes to have been determined to be unwilling to "play ball."

An interesting point as well, but one that I find difficult to believe.

It's hard to see how the real estate moguls and corporate criminal elite in the city could feel so threatened by de Blasio's candidacy that they are starting a smear campaign against him, especially since de Blasio has shown a willingness to "play ball" in the past.

Still, the article is out there and it's clear somebody other than the writer, "Hunter Walker," wanted it out there.

Who is behind it?

And why would they think that something as sleazy and off bounds as this would hurt him?