Manhattan: It should surprise no one that Christine Quinn has rewarded groups that donated generously to her campaign with large amounts of taxpayer money (“City Council Speaker Christine Quinn awards hundreds of thousands of dollars to nonprofit groups that have helped her mayoral campaign,” NYDailyNews.com, July 3). This is how Quinn has done business for years, consistently making deals favoring the wealthiest New Yorkers (i.e real estate developers) at the expense of the low- and middle-class New Yorkers she claims to fight for. Mickey Kramer
In the last week, it was announced that Speaker Quinn's campaign has been losing public support for her bid to replace Michael Bloomberg as mayor in this year's election. Now, comes word that Speaker Quinn's campaign operatives are beginning to openly disparage LGBTQS members of Queers Against Christine Quinn as "crazies." Queers Against Christine Quinn is a Facebook page of autonomous LGBTQS New Yorkers, who, among other issues, have been critical about how the NYPD unfairly target and falsely arrest LGBT New Yorkers in both the police department's unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program and as part of its effort to criminalise the possession of condoms. * Christine Quinn pressed on stop-and-frisk (NYPost)
Why would campaign operatives defend Speaker Quinn's inaction in the face of the NYPD's discrimination of our own LGBT community ? This must be one measure of how desperate Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign must find itself, after weeks and weeks of stining criticism over first opposing paid sick leave only to water it down, over the slush fund-related federal corruption arrest of Councilmember Dan Halloran, and over her controversial attack on the First Amendment following the critical New York City Is Not For Sale TV commercial.
If Speaker Quinn is able to find operatives to defend her failure to stand up to the NYPD's record of discrimination, then it means that her supporters are willing to go to any length, including publicly throwing the LGBTQS community under the bus, in order for her to become mayor. Now we know how much the issue of LGBT equality factors into her mayoral platform : in her campaign's mind, we are expendable.
For more information, please read Chapter 1 of the unauthorised political biography of Christine Quinn.
New York City will be better off without Speaker Quinn as Mayor. Her record on living wage, paid sick leave, term limits, lack of support for animal rights and animal welfare, combined with her reputation for siding with the rich and powerful to advance her own political aspirations, makes it clear that as mayor, Quinn would only continue to appease special interests that do not have the well-being of all New Yorkers in mind.
Many activists openly question the viability of Speaker Christine Quinn's mayoral campaign, because she has been attracting ever more criticism from unions, LGBT activists, animal rights groups, Progressive Democrats, and even some of her former major donors, such as Wendy K. Neu, who has abandoned Speaker Quinn's campaign.
If Speaker Quinn's campaign is now doomed, based on all of the opponents, who are now lining up against her, then maybe the right action by New York Democrats would be to encourage Anthony Weiner to enter the race.
It's like "Upstairs, Downstairs" amongst the anti-Quinn movement, some activists say. A handful of activists have been working for over four years to fight for integrity in New York City government on no budget, but here comes along NYC Is Not For Sale 2013, pledging to spend $1 million to defeat Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign. Activists welcome the help, but what message does another million dollar electioneering effort say in this Citizens United era ? Look at the humour and satire in the art of Suzannah B. Troy's political commentary :
