Friday, December 7, 2012

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?

4 comments:

  1. The answer is the one candidate that may loose some support from such a revelation, Quinn..
    Juan Gonzalez wrote a very interesting article last week regarding the accuracy of polling with regards to the 2013 mayoral race. In the article he reputes the polling and states facts about the 09 mayoral race and how this poll had the mayor up by more than 20 points yet after spending millions he won by less than 5 points to Bill Thompson. So, the same operatives are watching very carefully how the numbers and trends progress. Today Scott Stringer receives Quinns support and immediately is proclimed to have the comptrollers seat locked up. Nonsense, John Liu who has suffered repeated attacks by the media, no doubt at the mayors operatives request, has been the only leader to attack, and refute the mayors policies. Are we to believe that if he seeks re-election that he has no chance against Stringer. Quinn is arm twisting the Queens democrats and had offered her present chair to Wepner for the support of the queens democrats. The Vito Lopez redistricting scandal at Quinns request to gain support from Lopez and his followers. The most interesting is the UFT announcing that all of the mayoral hopefuls can use their name for election purposes. Translation, we really support Quinn at Randi's behest, but do not want to make it public due to her association with Bloomberg. Who else would be behind attacking the eventual candidate that will challenge Quinn among Working Family, and Lesbian and Gay voters?

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    1. Thanks for the Gonzalez article. That was quite informative about the Q poll.

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  2. I will not and refuse to support Quinn, the back-stabbing term-limits destroyer, sledge-fund finagling, gay-rights hypocritic floozie. And any democrat supporting her will not get my vote! Period. I will not tolerate this level of disrespect to democracy. The power is in hand come November 2013.

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    1. I totally agree - she's an orange-haired political crook.

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