Outside Liberal Groups Attack Christine Quinn

ABQ - Anybody But Quinn:

The imagery conjures up “The Wizard of Oz”: as smoke fills the screen, the head of a frowning Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, materializes. 

“She wants you to think that she’s a progressive, but on the issues New Yorkers care most about, she is always on the wrong side,” a male narrator intones. “All that’s clear when the smoke lifts is her political ambition.” 

As a succession of blurbs from newspaper articles suggest that she has waffled on key issues, the narrator concludes, “When Christine Quinn doesn’t support our values, how can you support her for mayor?” 

So goes a commercial attacking Ms. Quinn that, starting on Monday, is scheduled to appear on cable television stations like MSNBC and Bravo for three weeks. The 30-second commercial, the first of the mayoral race, comes quite early in the primary season, underscoring the competitive nature of the contest to succeed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. 

The commercial is not the work of one of Ms. Quinn’s opponents for the Democratic nomination, but of a coalition of left-leaning labor unions and Democratic activists who say they are not backing anyone in particular. 

The organizers have pledged more than $1 million to the campaign and are spending $250,000 for the initial television advertising, said Scott Levenson, president of the Advance Group, which produced the spot. Another commercial is to be released this week, followed by several mailers and radio ads. 

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The coalition opposing Ms. Quinn is called NYC Is Not for Sale 2013 and appears to be a successor to a group that actively opposed Mr. Bloomberg’s 2009 re-election bid. It also includes an animal-rights group, NYClass, that has long fought with Ms. Quinn over horse-drawn carriages and other issues. But the coalition also includes Democrats who had previously been major donors to Ms. Quinn. 

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In interviews, members of the group behind the ad said they were profoundly disappointed that Ms. Quinn had evolved from progressive activist to business-friendly centrist. 

And though their preferences differ for now — one is leaning toward John C. Liu, the city comptroller, and others are likely to back either Mr. de Blasio or William C. Thompson Jr., a former comptroller — they all agreed on the need to highlight what they regard as Ms. Quinn’s faults.

These include her role in helping Mr. Bloomberg upend term limits; her stances on causes dear to progressives, like the so-called living wage and paid sick leave legislation; and her volatile temperament. 

“All of us felt a kind of betrayal, so we all decided it would be A.B.Q. — anybody but Quinn,” said Arthur Cheliotes, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1180, which represents city workers. 

Wendy K. Neu, whose family owns a recycling, shipping and real estate firm, and has donated more than $45,000 to Ms. Quinn since 2007, said: “She’s someone who doesn’t act on principle. She does whatever is politically expedient.” 

Ms. Quinn has been on the defensive in recent weeks. She has been the target of attacks at mayoral forums, and her methods in distributing money to Council members — which some say has been vindictive at times — has come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of last week’s corruption arrests. 

Quinn has a lot of enemies and some of those enemies used to be friends and supporters.

I know she wants everybody to think she's a done deal as the nominee, but she isn't.

Not with the kind of enmity that is out there against her.

Let's see if her poll numbers soften up after a few weeks of these commercials.