Last night, an independent group, NYC Is Not For Sale, announced it was starting a media campaign to oppose City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's mayoral run. The ad starts with a smoke-filled room and the narrator says, "Virtually all of Christine Quinn’s decisions were made in rooms just like this, with her friends in the 1%. 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... All that’s clear when the smoke lifts is her political ambition."
The ad singles out her flip-flopping on paid sick leave and term limits and also cites her big donors and poor record animal welfare issues (yes, carriage horses). The group will be spending $1 million, including $250,000 for initial TV ads.
However, her spokesman said, "This ad is paid for by a special-interest group, with strong connections to Bill de Blasio, working to circumvent the New York City campaign-finance system." De Blasio's campaign denied it, and says, "Nothing undermined our democratic system more than when Speaker Quinn overturned term limits."
NYC Is Not For Sale is having a press conference today at 11 a.m. on the steps of City Hall. According to a press release, the group was "founded by three prominent New Yorkers and organizations, Arthur Cheliotes, NYCLASS and Wendy Kelman Neu, NYCN4S represents the real estate, business and labor communities of our great City in an effort to safeguard the best interests of all New Yorkers. NYCN4S will be making independent expenditures in a multi-media grassroots campaign in an effort to ensure that the next mayor is not Christine Quinn. The campaign will be centered around the theme Anybody but Quinn, with the mission to, uphold the values of progressive New Yorkers."
Cheliotes told the NY Times, "All of us felt a kind of betrayal, so we all decided it would be A.B.Q. — anybody but Quinn."
