The coveted teachers-union endorsement might be in jeopardy for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the perceived mayoral front-runner.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew warned that Quinn could look like Mayor Bloomberg Lite on public-education issues, in part because her longtime political consulting firm is also representing NYStudentsFirst, a new organization close to Bloomberg and at odds with the union.
“If I’m Chris, I’d be asking myself: Maybe I don’t want to be working with these people who are also working with the mayor to control something that he should have no business controlling anymore,” Mulgrew told The Post.
He called the formation of the group — which was announced this week and will promote charter schools and the end of teacher tenure — “a clear attempt by the mayor to somehow set up a fourth term” when he leaves office at the end of 2013.
Mulgrew was speaking about the fact that Quinn’s long-standing consulting firm, SKDKnickerbocker, is also representing StudentsFirst.
The group will be headed by Executive Director Micah Lasher, who stepped down from his post as Bloomberg’s chief Albany lobbyist to take the assignment.
Like the rest of the Democrats in the crowded field eyeing the mayoralty next year, Quinn is seeking Mulgrew’s endorsement.
Christine Quinn is political expediency and ambition personified. She thought nothing of pulling strings to get Bloomberg his third term, she will think nothing about giving a Bloomberg-funded education reform group much power in school governance if she becomes mayor.
She has no core principles.
For Quinn, it's always about the money.
Pay her and she will deliver for you.
She is the queen whore among a parliament of whores.
Why would they even consider endorsing her?
Frankly if I were the UFT I would be telling ALL of the mayoral hopefuls that the autocratic running of schools without student, parent or teacher support and input is over post-Bloomberg.
Period.
But you can be sure that no matter what deal you do with Quinn before the election, post-election she will hand the reins of the NYCDOE over to the same Gates Foundation and Broad Foundation functionaries currently running things.
It is true that de Blasio and Stringer are politicians with the same instincts for expediency that all pols have.
It is true too that Liu, the one candidate who might have made for a good education and labor mayor, has been destroyed by Bloomberg and the corporate media for "campaign funding fraud" (and yet, Bloomberg, who laundered over $1 million through the Independence Party in 2009 got off scot free for his own fraud.)
And Thompson shouldn't be elected dog catcher - not after the abysmal 2009 campaign he ran, not after his Bloomberg-sucking as comptroller.
So the UFT doesn't exactly have great choices here.
But Quinn beyond a doubt would be the worst choice for a UFT endorsement.
Better to endorse Satan or Joel Klein for mayor.
You'll be getting the same policies.
