Newspapers Endorsements - Kiss Of Death For Quinn?

As Mario Diaz noted on WPIX, Christine Quinn dropped to third place after all three of the daily NYC newspapers endorsed her.

There are many unknowns about today's primary.

Will de Blasio hit 40% and avoid a runoff?

If Thompson hits his "magic mark" of 25%, does that keep de Blasio from hitting 40%?

Can Stringer's GOTV operation beat Spitzer's money?

Which two candidates in the public advocate's race will make the runoff?

One thing that is no longer unknown is what will happen to Christine Quinn.

Unless all the public polls are completely wrong in their polling, she will lose today's primary and not make a runoff.

Bloomberg famously said the UFT's endorsement of a candidate was the "kiss of death" to that candidate.

He cited the previous endorsements the UFT has made of candidates who lost the race for City Hall.

Bloomberg was expected to endorse Quinn this year but as the primary race went on and it became more and more apparent that a Bloomberg endorsement of Quinn would be the "kiss of death" to her, Bloomberg never did endorse her.

But all three newspapers did.

Those endorsements didn't seem to help her.

In fact, they seemed to have hurt her.

If Thompson doesn't make a runoff against de Blasio, the UFT is going to take a hit for their endorsement strategy.

They will be mocked in the press for again planting the "kiss of death" on a candidate's head by endorsing him/her.

But the truth is, Thompson is only in this game at this stage of the election because of the UFT.

The UFT's cash, the UFT's phone banks, the UFT's ads - you can make a pretty good argument that without those, Thompson would have much less of a shot to make a runoff against de Blasio.

While I am a big fan of mocking the UFT leadership, in the case of the Thompson campaign, I think their endorsement and political work on his behalf have helped him more than hurt him.

The three newspapers, in their endorsements of Quinn, all mentioned that they couldn't endorse Thompson because he had been endorsed by the UFT or was too close to the teachers unions.

So all three endorsed Quinn.

And she dropped to third in the race.

If and when the media come around to knock the UFT for the Thompson endorsement, parroting Bloomberg's "a UFT endorsement is the kiss of death," remember what happened after the three major dailies endorsed Quinn.

She will lose this race for many, many reasons.

But those newspaper endorsements certainly didn't seem to help her, did they?

To the many voters in the Democratic primary looking for a change from Bloomberg, they seemed to say ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATE - BLOOMBERG MACH IV: DO NOT VOTE!!!!