After all the negative publicity lately, her campaign needs to make her sympathetic.
What comes across in the story is a woman from a family of alcoholics and rageaholics who came down with the family disease and continues to struggle with it.
As someone with a similar family history, I can appreciate those struggles and her attempts to overcome them.
I am glad she stopped drinking altogether three years ago.
But this story does not make her more sympathetic to me.
Rather, what I was reminded of as I read this Times article is the stories that circulate about her infamous temper tantrums and her need to exact revenge for even the smallest of perceived slights.
She is a classic example of a dry drunk who still needs treatment for her alcoholism.
Drinking isn't the disease for an alcoholic.
It's one of the symptoms of the disease.
The disease is a soul-sickness that is ego-based and ego-driven.
If anybody is still suffering from that disease, it is Christine Quinn.
Last night at a forum, Quinn joked about her character flaws:
At Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women dinner Monday night, senior editor at large Pattie Sellers asked the mayoral hopeful about criticism of her temperament and rattled off a list of adjectives that have been used to describe her - controlling, temperamental, volatile, hothead, pushy, bitchy, tough, brassy, aggressive. "Are you comfortable with all those words?" she asked.
"Pretty much," Quinn replied to applause.
"I'm just not going to let up until I know I've done absolutely everything I can for New Yorkers," she said. "Now look, that doesn't mean you have to be a raging lunatic bitch all the time."
Quinn told dinner-goers that she has long ago stopped analyzing herself and her behavior and just accepted that she is loud, pushy and obnoxious. She says if people don't like that about her, well, too bad.
If you've ever been around a dry drunk who no longer drinks but never got to the root of the reasons why he or she drank, you know how miserable they can be.
At some point after they shriek at you for the 1000th time when going from zero to sixty five in ten seconds flat on the rage scale, you want to buy them a bottle of scotch and say "Here, since you won't go to treatment and work on yourself, just drink."
By telling us that she has no problem being a "raging lunatic bitch" some of the time, by telling us she has long ago stopped trying to analyze her behavior and emotions, by telling us she doesn't haven't time for therapy to work out her issues, by telling us she's okay with her vindictive behavior and vengeful actions, Quinn comes across as just that kind of dry drunk.
Quinn lives in Chelsea and there are plenty of 12 step meetings and places she can go to for therapy to heal.
It's clear from her behavior that she still needs both.
There's nothing worse than a dry drunk with an axe to grind and an ego to assuage who gains political power.
George W. Bush was one of those.
Christine Quinn is another one of those.
If anything, the revelations about her alcoholism and eating disorder history confirm for me why she shouldn't be in power.
Not until she gets treatment and stops acting like a dry freaking drunk.
Your comments regarding Quinn are an eye opener and offer another reason why she should not be elected mayor. In fact, your insight regarding the disease confirms many of the comments directed at Quinn in the Times article were she was proud to call herself a pushy broad. It also explains her reciprocal attraction with Bloomberg as he must like his underlings to be pushy bullying personalities.
ReplyDeleteOne commenter at the Times put this into perspective:
Delete"She no longer goes to therapy, saying that as an elected official it is too hard to make the time. But she has written a memoir . . . ."
Kind of says it all. Just as Ms Quinn, in her political career has placed her self-promotion above the best interests of her constituents, it appears that in her personal life as well, she has placed her political advancement above the interests of the kind of continued personal growth that, ironically, might have led to her becoming a genuinely better candidate. Maybe staying in therapy may have resulted in her being able to better manage her control and anger issues. But why make the time to continue therapy when you can use that time to write a memoir calculated to promote your mayoral campaign? And take more time to, uh, go on the speaker's circuit to soften your image and give an interview to the paper of record, complete with a photo showing a serene, softly smiling version of your recovered persona?
Ms. Quinn is conflicted with many unresolved emotional issues. Her lack of insight and manifest disregard of the humanity of her colleagues and subordinates is deeply troubling.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly right. She has no idea anything is wrong. But it is patently obvious from this story and other stories about her that she is a deeply flawed human being who seems to think everything is fine.
DeleteI liked flawed human beings. I am one myself. But I am aware of many of my flaws, I try and work on those flaws and when I fail at that, I get humble and make amends to people.
I don't see Chris Quinn having the ability to do that. Were she to have that ability, I might actually like her. As it is, all I see is an egotistical mess in desperate need of some step work and/or therapy.