Profile of Christine Quinn in today's NYT.

[Smarmie Doofus]

Personally, I'm inclined toward the following:

“The city is catching on that Quinn, an out lesbian with a progressive aura, is just a double-talking politician intoxicated by power,” said William Dobbs, a veteran gay rights activist. “Watch out!”


But it's a complicated story line. Here ya go:







Christine C. Quinn was making the rounds at a senior center in Harlem when Scott Bright, a 67-year-old retired security guard wearing a Hawaiian shirt, asked her to pose with him for a photo.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/nyregion/for-christine-quinn-shifting-career-and-an-eye-on-mayors-office.html?_r=1&hp

“She’s the man!” he blurted out. “This is the next mayor!”

Moments later, when Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, was safely out of earshot, Mr. Bright confessed that he had not much cared for her at first. But “she grew on me over time,” he said, because “a lot of the politicians read from the script. She just says what she believes, even when I don’t agree.”

Political fortune has smiled on Ms. Quinn this summer, as she lays the groundwork for a 2013 mayoral campaign: she helped prevent teacher layoffs and firehouse closings, and advocated the legalization of same-sex marriage. And a formidable potential challenger in the mayoral race, Anthony D. Weiner, saw his hopes implode as a scandal over sexually explicit electronic messages forced him to resign from Congress.

Now, many voters are reassessing Ms. Quinn, who emerged onto the public scene as a left-leaning Chelsea activist but is now courting a broader electorate. With increasing support from a once-skittish business community, Ms. Quinn has raised more money than all the other likely contenders and has the apparent blessing of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

To critics, she is the deputy mayor for the City Council — Mr. Bloomberg’s lapdog and a sellout to business. And her support for upending the city’s term-limits law to allow incumbents to serve for three terms — a move pushed by Mr. Bloomberg — haunts her everywhere.

“There’s a serious and substantial character question about her, because the question becomes, ‘Who is Christine Quinn, and what, if anything, does she believe in?’ ” said Norman Siegel, the civil liberties lawyer.

To fans, though, she has matured as a citywide official, and demonstrated pragmatic grit, as well as a detailed command of the issues. In January, she had lunch at Brasserie 8 1/2 with Richard D. Parsons, the Citigroup chairman; last month, she was former President Bill Clinton’s guest at a Rockefeller Foundation ceremony.

(more at link)

[aquart]

1. Where's my hospital, Christine????

[closeupready]

2. I'll never forgive her for supporting Bloomberg's move to overturn mayoral term limits

That law had been TWICE passed by voters here. So she gets his endorsement, but she'll never live that down, IMO.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Me too neither.

Bloomberg's been a disaster for most NYers , though he's real popular, not surprisingly, w. the $$$ news media and the economic elite.

Quinn came up as a liberal-lefty... standard issue, in a sense: West Village, Tom Duane's coattails; she and he forged the progressive/glbt coalition that dominated the political scene "downtown" for the last thirty years or so. ( I worked... w/o pay... for her on several campaigns in the 90's.)

Then, as Ed Koch said of a former rival about twenty five years ago, "ambition kissed her on the lips" , and she became a Bloomberg-dependent "pragmatist." " By "pragmatist" I mean : she abandoned pretty much everything she had championed prior to her selection as Council Speaker.

The article makes the traditional "half a loaf is better than none" case. OK. That's not completely untrue. But she'll have to do better than that to explain the Bloomberg collaboration if she wants support from people like me.

[closeupready]

4. Good points.

nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. me either