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July 23, 2005

Fields Fall Guy gets West Side Dog Scraps

Joseph Mercurio, fired by the Virginia Fields campaign for his alleged involvement in doctoring a photograph in the famous Fields Photogate flier, has landed a job with Carlos Manzano, perhaps the weakest and most laughable candidate to succeed Virginia Fields as Manhattan Borough President.

Manzano has never held public office as is seen as a tool of the West Side McManus Democratic Club (which often endorses Republicans). Manzano may need Mercurio's Photoshop expertise. Here's an actual Manzano flier.

Some comments to Mercurio's new job on The Politicker include:

After all it is Friday -- Wayne Barrett (if he's on tonight) needs some new jokes for Reporter's Roundtable. Now he has two.

I think what Rangel meant was that Mercurio would never work for a serious political candidate in this town again... and so far he remains correct.

He's no fall guy. He was stupid (or desparate) enough to work for Fields and now Manzano. How many would actually admit they talked Fields into running?

It's good to know that my taxpayer dollars are paying Carlos Manzano to hire a new political consultant for his pathetic campaign effort.

Posted by Merkookio at 12:19 PM | TrackBack

July 22, 2005

Despite Virginia Fields Pledge to Create a Deputy Mayor for Full Employment, her Campaign Treasurer was Guilty of Intentionally Underpaying Workers

C. Virginia Fields campaign office is located at 123 West 126th Street in a building owned by Milton E. Wilson, who is also the campaign's treasurer.

Wilson also owns W. Property Resources Inc., a contracting firm that was found to have committed "Multiple Willfuls" in violating the New York State Labor Law for illegally underpaying employees, according to documents from the New York State Department of Labor and the NYC Comptroller's office -- and as reported July 22nd by Newsday.

As part of a guilty plea arrangement, Wilson paid a fine and is prohibited from bidding on government contracts for five years, until August 2006.

In a May 6 interview on WNBC, Fields claimed that, if elected, she would create a Deputy Mayor for Full Employment. Such a pledge seems at odds with the practices of her Campaign Treasurer.

For the Newsday article, click below or here.

For the NYS Dept. of Labor Debarred List, see excerpt below, or click here (page 30)

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR - BUREAU OF PUBLIC WORK Under Article 8 of the NYS Labor Law, when two final determinations have been rendered against a contractor, sub-contractor and/or its successor within any consecutive six-year period determining that such contractor, subcontractor and/or its successor has WILLFULLY failed to pay the prevailing wage and/or supplements, or when one final determination involves falsification of payroll records or the kickback of wages and/or supplements, said contractor, subcontractor and/or its successor shall be debarred and ineligible to submit a bid on or be awarded any public work contract/sub-contract with the state, any municipal corporation or public body for a period of five years from the date of debarment. NOTE: Where the Fiscal Officer is denoted "NYC", the information has been provided by the New York City Comptroller's Office, the agency issuing the determination. LIST OF EMPLOYERS INELIGIBLE TO BID ON OR BE AWARDED ANY PUBLIC WORK CONTRACT W Property Resources Inc 123 West 126th Street New York NY 10027 FEIN: 13-3462866 Barred Until: 08/16/2006 Fiscal Officer Notes: NYC Multiple willfuls

For the Newsday article, click below.

Company run by Fields' treasurer intentionally underpaid employees
Newsday
by Glenn Thrush
July 22, 2005

A construction company run by the treasurer of C. Virginia Fields' mayoral campaign is barred from bidding on government contracts after intentionally underpaying six employees by $286,000, Newsday has learned.

Harlem businessman Milton Wilson, owner of W. Property Resources, failed to pay prevailing wages and benefits to five laborers and a mason for work done on police station houses, schools and a homeless shelter several years ago, according to a 2001 investigation by the city comptroller's office.

Two of the workers were shorted $76,200 and $72,300, respectively, over an unspecified period, according to the document.

In a payment agreement signed on Aug. 16, 2001, Wilson admitted to "multiple willful violations" of state labor law, which resulted in an automatic five-year ban from soliciting city or state contracts. The ban expires in August 2006, according to the state labor department.

Wilson's company also was ordered to pay a $28,600 fine to then-city Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

Fields has positioned herself as an ally of labor and the working poor. The Fields' campaign is already reeling from revelations that it electronically inserted images of Asians into a campaign flyer.

Last week, Fields' former consultant, Joe Mercurio, accused Wilson and campaign manager Chung Seto of pushing him to release the flyer.

Fields, who is the only mayoral candidate not to pay most of her staff's health insurance, has struggled to keep up with the brisk fund-raising pace set by her three Democratic primary opponents.

Several calls Thursday to Wilson's business and home were not returned.

A Fields' spokeswoman, Kirsten Powers, said the borough president has known Wilson for more than 20 years and considers him a friend.

"He had a business dispute involving wages," she added. "He reached a settlement with the city and he paid the fine."

The violations stem from regulations intended to protect workers for government-paid vendors. In order to bid for city contracts, businesses must first agree to pay workers a prevailing wage that varies by job and city agency. It's not clear how much Wilson's company was supposed to pay its workers or over what time period the underpayments occurred.

The underpaid employees performed renovation work on station houses in Manhattan's 10th and 26th precincts; PS 42 in Manhattan; PS 62, I.S 227 and Thomas Edison High School in Queens; PS 279 in the Bronx; and the Greenpoint Shelter in Brooklyn.

Posted by Merkookio at 06:32 AM | TrackBack

July 21, 2005

No Health Insurance for Fields Campaign Staff

Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields supports giving more New Yorkers health benefits--except if they work for her. Fields is the only candidate for mayor who is not providing insurance to campaign staffers, records show.

For the complete article, click below.

UNHEALTHY SITUATION FOR FIELDS
NY Post
By STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN
July 21, 2005

MANHATTAN Borough President C. Virginia Fields supports giving more New Yorkers health benefits--except if they work for her. Fields is the only candidate for mayor who is not providing insurance to campaign staffers, records show.

"Perhaps Virginia's first step toward giving more New Yorkers health care should be to provide it to her own staff," sniped a source from one rival camp. All of Fields' campaign workers are considered "consultants" and therefore buy their own health coverage.

But Fields wrote an op-ed article last month saying that more must be done on health-care coverage. "Too many New Yorkers lack health-insurance coverage," Fields wrote in the piece calling on the city to use tobacco-suit settlement money for health programs.

"The tens of thousands of New Yorkers who are one health calamity away from economic devastation deserve whatever measures our city government can possibly take."

Fields spokesperson Kirsten Powers said health-care costs are factored into the consultants' fees.

Posted by Merkookio at 04:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 20, 2005

When the well runs dry

After the two week feeding frenzy over Photogate, the press is settling down somewhat and looking at Virginia Fields dire funding mess (although looking at her record as Borough President seems still far off).

It comes down to this: without money you're sinking fast.

Last week, Fields's Washington, D.C. fundraiser saw the headliner, Donna Brazile, back off with a lame excuse.

Yesterday, less than 10 contributers reportedly showed up at the Laugh Factory. We can only imagine there was more commiseration than mirth.

Perhaps Fields should just give it up and wait for Charlie Rangel to retire. Insider scuttlebut suggested that was her first option after a job with a Kerry administration evaporated. But now after suffering through Photogate, PaddyWagongate and who knows what might be in the offing, Virginia Fields is nothing more than damaged goods. What's worse than her miserable candidacy is watching it die a slow death.

Would it be that her demise came from a thorough scrutiny of her horrible record as Borough President, but politics (and the press) never seem to look very deep.

Today's reports (click on the link below for the articles):

Newsday: A funding problem for Fields?
She's running out of cash fast, spending twice as much as she has raised, with only $312,000 on hand, making it impossible to mount a credible operation. Even with expected matching funds, she pales in comparison to the other Democratic challengers.

New York Sun: Fields Campaign Needs Fund-Raising Base and Lacks a Defining Issue
Fields campaign can hardly maintain its footing despite the earlier surge. So it may be impossible for a candidate with no vision ... Even forcing a runoff seems out of the picture. Keith Wright: "I can guarantee there's a strategy..." which immediately relegates him to the 'what's he-smoking' category.

New York Times: Fields Camp, Trailing in Cash, Says Workers Have Been Paid

Appears the Fields campaign is dederring payments to ease cash-flow problems and create a false appearance of funding stability. According to the campaign, the workers just all happened to ask for their payments late ... all at the same time.

Daily News: Ex-aide: Fields' funds drying up
Mercurio says "Fields' campaign delayed paying employees to pump up her war chest on public filings ... The fund-raising was incompetent, toxic." So says Joe.

A funding problem for Fields?
Newsday
by Glenn Thrush
July 18, 2005

Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields is running out of cash fast, burning through more than twice as much money as her mayoral campaign collected since May.

With less than 60 days before the Democratic primary, Fields has only about $312,000 on hand -- which could effectively prevent her from running TV ads or mounting a big direct mail operation, political watchers said.

"She will not be a presence on television until she raises much more money very quickly," said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant who isn't allied with any mayoral campaign this year. "She can still mount a reasonable field operation but she can't really do direct mail."

Fields' campaign manager Chung Seto said the borough president expects to get $1.4 million in matching funds from the board before the Sept. 13 primary, cash she'll use to hit the airwaves.

"We will continue to raise money," Seto added. "Virginia has always won races where she's been told she has little resources."

The Fields campaign raised only about $184,000 in the last two months, while spending more than $400,000 on staff salaries, polling, fund-raising and other expenses.

About $99,000 of her spending went to San Francisco-based Winning Directions, the firm that produced a now-infamous flier featuring a pair of Asian-Americans who were digitally inserted into a photo of the candidate.

The campaign's top consultant, Joseph Mercurio, was fired over the mailing, but maintains Fields signed off on its release.

All three of Fields' rivals in the Democratic mayoral race out-raised her during the same period and all have far more cash on hand, according to board records. City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (D-Manhattan) has about $2.8 million and Queens Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn-Queens) has about $1.7 million.

As of May, former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer had around $2.5 million.

FIELDS CAMPAIGN NEEDS FUND-RAISING BASE AND LACKS A DEFINING ISSUE
The New York Sun
by Hadi Fa Rahani
July 19, 2005

Just three months ago, the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields, was surging in the public opinion polls and had won an endorsement from one of the city's most influential black leaders, Rep. Charles Rangel.

Now, however, her campaign is struggling to regain its footing after an embarrassing doctored photograph scandal, the firing of its top campaign adviser, a string of bad press, and a fund-raising operation lagging behind all of its rivals.

With $1.6 million in contributions and more than $1.3 million spent, Ms. Fields has raised less money and burned through her cash at a faster clip than the three other candidates running in the Democratic primary.

Political analysts have said it could be difficult for Ms. Fields, the only black candidate and woman in the race, to make up for lost fund-raising ground and to overcome her campaign's internal troubles. Her campaign spokeswoman, Kirsten Powers, said the campaign will have "enough money to do what we need to do."

Yet if Ms. Fields doesn't increase her existing pool of "matchable money," she could be short of the cash she needs to launch an aggressive television advertising campaign and to send out direct mail in the weeks leading up to the primary. Though campaign officials were tight-lipped about their strategy, there is no doubt the Fields camp will have to come up with new, innovative techniques for reaching voters if the funds don't materialize.

Political analysts said the fund-raising woes could be compounded by the fact the borough president has not articulated a discernable vision of how she would change things in the city if she won.

"The Fields campaign right now, and this is less true of the other major campaigns, does not have a defining issue," a political science professor at Baruch College, David Birdsell, said.

"As a result, what's left is the candidate,"he said."To a certain extent,this is a classic New York identity political campaign. Whether that will be enough to force a runoff, we don't know right now. If the electorate votes down racially and ethnically divided lines, she has a shot."

Ms. Fields, who was raised in Birmingham, Ala., during segregation and made her first push into advocacy during the civil rights movement, where she marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has made plenty of appearances with black leaders and used her upbringing as a selling point in her campaign material.

Most political consultants agree that she will need a high turnout from black voters to hold the Democratic front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, below 40% of the vote in the primary and force a runoff.

"I think her strategy has been to hope and trust that she'll have an affinity with African-American voters and to make a pitch to Latino voters in Manhattan,particularly to wean Dominican voters in Washington Heights from Freddy Ferrer," the director of the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York, John Mollenkopf, said.

Assemblyman Keith Wright, a Democrat who represents northern Manhattan - and is running to replace Ms. Fields as borough president, said he was confident she would surge ahead and pointed out that she has consistently placed second in the polls.

"I've known this woman for over 20 years," Mr. Wright said. "We have walked the streets together, we have campaigned together.You don't underestimate this woman. She gets it done."

Ms. Fields has also donated money from her campaign to local and national women's groups and tapped them as another natural constituency.

So far, that has paid off to some degree. While her opponents are getting more support from men than women, Ms. Fields's numbers are reversed. The keynote speaker at her first major fundraiser was Jeanne Shaheen, the former governor of New Hampshire and national chairwoman pf Senator Kerry's presidential campaign.

"Virginia is herself a trained strategist," Mr. Wright said. "I can guarantee there's a strategy, whether they are sharing it or not is another thing. It's like being in a football huddle. You don't want to tell the other side what your plan is."

Fields Camp, Trailing in Cash, Says Workers Have Been Paid
New York Times
by Randal C. Archibold and Jim Rutenberg
July 20, 2005

For months, the mayoral campaign of C. Virginia Fields has typically paid many of its consultants at the beginning of the month, dutifully registering the payments in its campaign finance filings every two months.

But in the latest filing, the campaign, wrestling with money problems, showed no entries for several consultants, who normally would have been paid a total of at least $24,000. That set off speculation in political circles that the campaign was deferring the payments to ease its short-term financial health.

Not so, insist Fields campaign officials. Everybody who was owed money - including Chung Seto, the campaign manager ($13,350) and William McCaffrey, an adviser ($3,000) - has been paid within the past week, said Kirsten Powers, Ms. Fields's press secretary.

"I have my check sitting right at home," said Ms. Powers, who added she was paid $10,000 on Friday but has not yet cashed it because of a technical problem with her bank.

Ms. Powers said the consultants were paid when they submitted their invoices; the payments did not show up on the campaign finance report, she said, because the consultants happened to have requested payment later in the month than they had in previous months.

Ms. Fields's campaign has been suffering financially.

While she is in second place in the polls among the four Democrats running for the chance to face Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, she recently reported the lowest amount of money raised among them during the latest two-month period, $184,000. The leader, Anthony D. Weiner, a congressman from Brooklyn and Queens who has been third or fourth in most polls, raised $305,000 in the period.

The other Democratic candidates are Gifford Miller, the City Council president, and Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president who has been leading the Democratic field in polls.

Ms. Fields has raised a total of $1.7 million, qualifying for $361,000 in matching funds, but has been spending money as fast as she has raised it, leaving only $311,000 on hand as the campaign goes into the final weeks before the Sept. 13 primary.

As problems continued to plague many of his Democratic opponents, Mr. Bloomberg's campaign received another dose of good news yesterday, in the form of a Quinnipiac University poll showing his approval rating at 60 percent, and at 58 percent even among Democrats. The approval figure was the highest it has been in more than three years, according to Maurice Carroll, director of the university's Polling Institute.

The poll, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points, showed Mr. Bloomberg beating Mr. Ferrer by 16 points in a two-way race. The poll also shows him defeating each of the other three - Ms. Fields, Mr. Weiner and Mr. Miller - by 25 or 26 percentage points.

There was some good news for Mr. Miller. The poll showed him closing the gap with Ms. Fields among Democratic voters, with 15 percent support to her 16 percent. Mr. Ferrer remains comfortably in the lead among Democrats, with 33 percent.

Mike McIntire contributed reporting for this article.

Ex-aide: Fields' funds drying up
New York Daily News
by Michael Saul
July 20, 2005

Virginia Fields' money-strapped mayoral campaign has delayed paying employees to pump up her war chest on public filings, her former consultant charged yesterday.

Joseph Mercurio, who has been feuding with Fields since she fired him over a doctored photo used in her campaign flyers, said her fund-raising has lagged from the start.

He told the Daily News that he advised Fields in April to fire fund-raising consultant Leonore Blitz, but Fields refused.

"The fund-raising was incompetent, toxic," said Mercurio.

The Manhattan borough president has raised $1.7 million and spent nearly $1.4 million, leaving her with $311,901 in her campaign war chest.

By contrast, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller leads the Democratic pack with more than $2.9 million cash on hand; former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer has $2.3 million, and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens) has $1.9 million.

Blitz called Mercurio's barbs outrageous, and Fields' spokeswoman Kirsten Powers denied paychecks were being held up.

"People submit their invoices, and they get paid when they submit their invoices," Powers said, adding the campaign will ultimately have "the money to do what we need to do."

Posted by Merkookio at 04:20 PM | TrackBack

Famous Broadway Flops

Frankenstein - 1981
Moose Murders - 1983
Teaneck Tanzi - 1983
Carrie - 1988
Virginia Fields - 2005

According to Newsday, Virginia Fields' Tuesday night fundraiser at the Times Square Laugh Factory, infamous scene of Fields rendition of the Jefferson's theme song, "Movin' on up," was on course to attract less than 10 people. That's 10 people in a house that seats 300.

With the price of fundraiser's admission being $100, if lucky, the Fields campaign might have raised close to $1,000 and maybe even covered the cost of renting the room.

Almost makes one nostalgic for Moose Murders (here and here), which is perhaps, the perfect metaphor for the Virginia Fields candidacy.

For the Newsday report -- and a review of Moose Murders -- click below.

Fields fund-raiser flounders
Newsday
Glenn Thrush
July 20, 2005

Money-challenged mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields just can't seem to catch a break. Last night's fund-raiser at Manhattan's Laugh Factory, which was expected to draw about 50 people, was on pace to garner fewer than 10, according to a person close to Fields. Campaign officials had no comment on the event's outcome.

Fields' supporters were still working the phones all afternoon to fill the vacant seats for the 6:30 p.m. event, according to the source who witnessed several of the calls.

A Fields spokeswoman had no comment on the fund-raiser. But the campaign fiercely denied an allegation that some workers delayed their salaries so a recent filing with the city Campaign Finance Board would show an artificially inflated $312,000 cash on hand.

"There's just no truth to that," said Fields spokeswoman Kirsten Powers, who said consultants were paid based on when they submitted invoices. "I got paid, we all got paid, when we submitted invoices," she said.

Unlike all other candidates, Fields employs consultants, not salaried staff, saving on health insurance and other fringe benefits.

Moose Talk
By: Peter Filichia

You know what today is, don't you? It's Washington's Birthday, of course...but I'm talking theatrically. And every theatrical savant worth his salt can tell you that, 19 years ago today, Moose Murders opened at the Eugene O'Neill. (Today is also, of course, the 19th anniversary of Moose Murders' closing at the Eugene O'Neill).

Moose Murders, by Arthur Bicknell. Directed by John Roach (though somehow I remember Norman René's name originally attached.). Starring Eve Arden--for one preview, anyway, before Holland Taylor took over. Kent Shelton was credited not with providing "stage combat" but "stage violence." The musical supervisor was Ken Lundie, who must have wished that he were Mr. Lundie in Brigadoon so that he wouldn't have to show his face for the next 100 years.

I attended an early preview of the show, weeks before the opening-slash-closing. I opened the program to discover that the characters I'd meet included Snooks and Howie Keene, Joe Buffalo Dance, Nurse Dagmar, Hedda and Stinky Holloway. Who could ask for anything more? Well, I could, as soon as the curtain went up on a rustic lodge in which several moose heads were mounted. "Though the heads may be hunting trophies," Frank Rich of the New York Times would later write, "one cannot rule out the possibility that these particular moose committed suicide shortly after being shown the script that trades on their good name."

The show began with Howie, a blind man, playing an electric piano as his wife Snooks shook her tush at us while she sang "Jeepers, Creepers"--a song which, incidentally, my Catholic school nuns urged us not to sing because it mocked Jesus Christ. (Who knew? Well, my nuns always believed they knew everything.) The next character in was someone who, perhaps, agreed with the nuns, for he pulled the plug on the piano...but not the show. It wasn't long before I pulled the plug--soon after Joe Buffalo Dance, a Native American dressed to look the part, spoke in an Irish brogue, and immediately following a totally bandaged quadriplegic's being rolled on stage in a wheelchair.

So when people ask me if I saw Moose Murders, I have to answer: "Yes and no." For I lasted--I mean this--11 minutes, still the shortest time I've ever spent at a show. Had I known the play would become infamous and not just another quick closer, I might have stayed on. But I'd been on a business trip, had schlepped my luggage to the theater, was sweaty and hungry and not in the mood to have my intelligence insulted any more than it had to be. So I missed the second-act scene that I heard about later, where the quadriplegic magically bolted from his wheelchair and kicked a moose-suited man below the belt.

Moose Murders has now and forever become an idiom for atrociousness. When Chess opened on Broadway, critic Joel Siegel of ABC called it "the Moose Murders of musicals." Michael Musto of The Village Voice compared the dull opening night party of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle to the show; he was probably reminded of it because Bullwinkle is, after all, a moose. Glenn Loney of the New York Theatre Wire wrote three seasons ago, "The wonderful, admirable Judith Ivey has made a return to Broadway in Moose Murders. Actually, her rickety vehicle is titled Voices in the Dark." Robert Hofler in Variety, who didn't like Ivo Van Hove's revisionist look at A Streetcar Named Desire, said it was "for those who missed Moose Murders and Carrie." And speaking of Carrie: When that legendary disaster opened, Frank Rich said, "Only the absence of antlers separates the pig murders of Carrie from the Moose Murders of Broadway lore."

Frankly, Frank Rich's best observation about the show came in June of 1983, when he did a season wrap-up. It was the same semester that Noises Off triumphantly opened on Broadway, and Rich smartly noted that Nothing On--the very silly play-within-the-play in Noises Off--was pretty much analogous to Moose Murders in its ineptness. Of course, Noises Off was winking at incompetence while Moose Murders was playing it for real.

Still, those who were involved with Moose Murders have a sense of pride in having survived it. Casting agents Stuart Howard and Amy Schecter still list it in their bios. Lisa McMillan, who played Nurse Dagmar, and Mara Hobel, who had a minor role, do the same--adding for extra cachet that they appeared with Eve Arden. Production stage manager Clifford Schwartz refers to the show as "the blockbuster Moose Murders" in his credits.

Recently, I interviewed June Gable, who brought up out of the blue that she'd been Snooks in the show. "Eve Arden was a lovely woman," Gable remembered, "but it was very hard for her at the time to memorize lines. You'd be on stage, you'd wait for her to deliver her line, you'd see her eyes widen, and you'd go, 'Oh-oh.' But the whole thing was such a disaster, I've dined out on it for years--especially at Joe Allen's, where the poster has a central place on the Wall of Flops."

I mentioned the quadriplegic who came on totally bandaged. Gable did not remember him. "You know, thank God, I have very little memory of the show," she confessed. "It was an outrageous experience and it was one reason why I left the business shortly afterwards. I actually went to India and spent a year there searching for the meaning of life." (She's done better since; she has made several appearances on Friends as Estelle Leonard, Joey's tough agent. At the moment, Gable is at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick where she's portraying Dr. Gorgeous in The Sisters Rosensweig and is tearing down the house.)

I asked Gable if she knew that Moose Murders stunk by the time she got to page four. "I knew it was very weird," she conceded. "I didn't want to take the job, but my agent at the time said to take the money and run. They offered me so much--a real Broadway salary! Those were the days when I made decisions on a more superficial basis. Money?!" she growled, not unlike the way Lonny Price growled the word in "Franklin Shepard, Inc." "Awright! Okay! I took the job. As I was going through the [rehearsal] process, I did wind up thinking, 'What is this? What can this be?' I even wrote an article on Moose Murders for Esquire magazine." Gable promised to send me a copy but she hasn't yet; if she does, I'll let you know what it says.

Moose Murders may not have had as many lives as a cat, but there have been other productions. Whippany (NJ) Park High School did the show in 1990 and proudly advertised it as "'Broadway's ultimate disaster'--Frank Rich, The New York Times." Youngstown State University revived it, too, as did the Canyon Theatre Guild in Newhall, CA; the Kent Trumbull Theatre at Kent State University; the Ardmore (OK) Little Theatre; and my personal favorite, the Blue Slipper Dinner Theatre in Livingston, Montana.

And every year, in his suburban New Jersey home, Simon Saltzman--drama critic of a newspaper called US-1 that serves people who live near that highway--invites a bunch of friends to his house to read the script of Moose Murders to a number of head-shaking attendees.

STAGE: 'MOOSE MURDERS,' A BRAND OF WHODUNIT
By FRANK RICH
New York Times
February 23, 1983

FROM now on, there will always be two groups of theatergoers in this world: those who have seen ''Moose Murders,'' and those who have not. Those of us who have witnessed the play that opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater last night will undoubtedly hold periodic reunions, in the noble tradition of survivors of the Titanic. Tears and booze will flow in equal measure, and there will be a prize awarded to the bearer of the most outstanding antlers. As for those theatergoers who miss ''Moose Murders'' - well, they just don't rate. A visit to ''Moose Murders'' is what will separate the connoisseurs of Broadway disaster from mere dilettantes for many moons to come.

The play begins in the exact manner of ''Whodunnit'' - itself one of the season's drearier offerings, though at the time of its opening we didn't realize how relatively civilized it was. There's a loud thunderclap, and the curtain rises to reveal an elaborate, twolevel, dark wood set. Amusingly designed by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg, the set represents a lodge in the Adirondacks and is profusely decorated with the requisite stuffed moose heads. Though the heads may be hunting trophies, one cannot rule out the possibility that these particular moose committed suicide shortly after being shown the script that trades on their good name.

The first human characters we meet - if ''human'' is the right word - are ''the singing Keenes.'' The scantily clad Snooks Keene bumps her backside in the audience's face and sings ''Jeepers Creepers'' in an aggresively off-key screech while her blind husband, Howie, pounds away on an electric hand organ. Howie's plug is soon mercifully pulled by the lodge's beefy middle-aged caretaker, Joe Buffalo Dance, who wears Indian war paint and braids but who speaks in an Irish brogue.

This loathsome trio is quickly joined by a whole crowd of unappetizing clowns. The wealthy Hedda Holloway, the lodge's new owner, arrives with her husband, Sidney, a heavily bandaged quadriplegic who is confined to a wheelchair and who is accurately described as ''that fetid roll of gauze.'' Sidney's attendant, Nurse Dagmar, wears revealing black satin, barks in Nazi-ese and likes to leave her patient out in the rain. The Holloway children include Stinky, a drug-crazed hippie who wants to sleep with his mother, and Gay, a little girl in a party dress. Told that her father will always be ''a vegetable,'' Gay turns up her nose and replies, ''Like a lima bean? Gross me out!'' She then breaks into a tap dance.

For much of Act I, this ensemble stumbles about mumbling dialogue that, as far as one can tell, is only improved by its inaudibility. Just before intermission, Stinky breaks out a deck of cards to give the actors, if not the audience, something to do. The lights go out in mid-game, and when they come up again, one of the characters has been murdered. Such is the comatose nature of the production that we're too busy trying to guess which stiff on stage is the victim to worry about guessing the culprit.

Even Act I of ''Moose Murders'' is inadequate preparation for the ludicrous depths of Act II. I won't soon forget the spectacle of watching the mummified Sidney rise from his wheelchair to kick an intruder, unaccountably dressed in a moose costume, in the groin. This peculiar fracas is topped by the play's final twist, in which Hedda serves her daughter Gay a poison-laced vodka martini. As the young girl collapses to the floor and dies in the midst of another Shirley Temple-esque buck and wing, her mother breaks into laughter and applause.

The 10 actors trapped in this enterprise, a minority of them of professional caliber, will not be singled out here. I'm tempted to upbraid the author, director and producers of ''Moose Murders,'' but surely the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be after them soon enough.

Paging the A.S.P.C.A.

MOOSE MURDERS, by Arthur Bicknell; directed by John Roach; scenery by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg; lighting by Pat Collins; costumes by John Carver Sullivan; sound design by Chuck London Media/Stewart Werner; dance coordinator, Mary Jane Houdina; stage violence by Kent Shelton; associate producer, Ricka Kanter Fisher; production stage manager, Jerry Bihm. Presented by Force Ten Productions Inc. At the Eugene O'Neill, 230 West 49th Street.

Snooks Keene ...............................June Gable
Howie Keene ................................Don Potter
Joe Buffalo Dance ........................Jack Dabdoub
Nurse Dagmar ............................Lisa McMillan
Hedda Holloway .........................Holland Taylor
Stinky Holloway ...........................Scott Evans
Gay Holloway ...............................Mara Hobel
Lauraine Holloway Fay ................Lillie Robertson
Nelson Fay ...........................Nicholas Hormann
Sidney Holloway ........................Dennis Florzak

THEATER: ON THE PARTICULAR PLEASURE OF SEEING A LEGENDARY FLOP
By Frank Rich
New York Times
March 20, 1983

Like everyone who caught the theater bug at an early age, I always made a point of saving Playbills. Not just my Playbills, mind you, but the entire world's: between a matinee and evening performance during adolescence, I would skip dinner in order to tour Times Square garbage cans and scoop up the programs of all the plays I had not seen. People who share this affliction surely know how near and dear those Playbills become as the years pass by. That's why we weep unabashedly over the scene in Moss Hart's memoir ''Act One'' in which the author's angry father torments his elderly, theater-loving aunt into ''dropping her beloved programs from trembling hands all over the floor.'' It's as if Hart's father had sacked a holy shrine.

But there comes a time in adulthood when one must either break this acquisitive habit entirely or rent a warehouse. I quit cold turkey, not to be overly exact about it, on Sept. 14, 1967. Or almost. There are still rare occasions when the old urge takes over and a Playbill simply must be tucked away for posterity. These exceptions are not the ones you might expect. I now realize that there's no point in saving programs from great nights in the theater. Those nights become part of history and will be profusely documented forever; it's always possible to dig up a Playbill from ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,'' after all, if really necessary. The Playbills that are truly worth saving are the rarest: those from the worst nights in the theater. And not just any worst night, either, but the very worst - those of the legendary bombs.

What makes certain bombs into legends? It's hard to say, precisely - they don't wear fur coats. Once it was a mark of distinction for a play to close in one night, but in these troubled times even that phenomenon is a sad commonplace. Some theater people define legendary bombs by the amount of money that went down the drain, or the high caliber of talent expended, or the extravagant foolhardiness of the esthetic mission. Others let Joe Allen, the theater district bistro, be the final arbiter: that restaurant has a whole wall bedecked with posters from a select group of famous turkeys. Whatever the definition, it can't be quantified - a flop just must have a certain je ne sais quoi to rise to legendary status. But what I do know is this: the only Playbill I've saved thus far in this decade is the one from ''Moose Murders.''

''Moose Murders,'' for those with short memories, was a catastrophe that reared its ugly stuffed head, complete with antlers, last month. Let's not review its contents here except to say that it was a comedy whose climax consisted of a gauze-wrapped quadriplegic rising from his wheelchair to kick a man wearing a moose costume in the groin.

In any case, I come not to bury ''Moose Murders'' again, but, in a fashion, to praise it. A legend it most certainly is. Those few of us who saw ''Moose Murders'' will always look back at it less with anger than with guilty pleasure. Indeed, since reviewing this show, I have received a near-flood of mail from ''Moose Murders'' audience members who, while detesting the play, were glad to have seen it, for reasons I'll explain. (You can bet that these correspondents are saving their Playbills, too.) Other letters have arrived from jealous folk who sorely resent not having made it to ''Moose Murders'' just to experience for themselves how atrocious it was. (These correspondents, no doubt, were frantically searching through Broadway trashcans for the Playbill the morning after the openingclosing night.)

Why the regret about having missed a dreadful play? Why the guilty pleasure in having seen it? The crazy thing about a ''Moose Murders'' is that it does remind one, however backhandedly, of the particular excitement of witnessing live theater.

If a great play unites audience and actors alike into a transcendent emotional or intellectual journey, so a truly wretched one can band audience and actors together into a shared nightmare. As passengers will always remember an ecstatic trans-Atlantic journey on the France, so will survivors always remember the camaraderie of their ill-starred crossing on the Titanic. A communal, we're-all-inthis-together feeling takes over, sink or swim.

It's not an experience available at run-of-the-mill flops, which are just boring and conventionally wasteful, or at the movies: while the audience at ''Heaven's Gate'' may draw tightly together, the actors making fools of themselves on the screen are not there to share in the collective embarrassment - they're already back sipping white wine and getting tan in Malibu. In my theatergoing years, the Broadway show that best illustrates the special allure of seeing a legendary flop - and diehard theatergoers' ravenous hunger for that adventure - is a musical called ''Rachael Lily Rosenbloom and Don't You Ever Forget It!'' Does anybody remember it? It never exactly opened. After a few preview performances at the Broadhurst in December 1973, a discreet announcement appeared in the Saturday papers that the show would close, prior to its premiere, that night. Happening to be in the vicinity of the Times Square half-price ticket booth that day, I bought a pair in the mezzanine for the musical's farewell performance. Arriving at the Broadhurst just before 8 P.M., I was startled to discover that the sold-out sign was up and that strangers were waving $50 bills in the air for any available ticket. Not for a second was I tempted to clear an $80 profit on my pair and miss out on this spectacle. Inside the theater, the atmosphere was so heady you'd think you were at a Tony Awards gala. There were celebrities from all the arts, ranks of standees in the back of the orchestra, paparazzi and autograph hounds pushing and shoving. When the lights dimmed, a voice came over the loud-speaker to announce that ''Tonight 'Rachael Lily Rosenbloom' will be played without an intermission.'' These words alone were enough to prompt the audience to break into a prolonged, punchdrunk ovation.

What followed was a musical fantasy of surpassing lavishness that made no sense, at any level, from beginning to end. The majority of the crowd fell into a sullen, open-mouthed stupor like that with which the audience greets the opening scenes of ''Springtime for Hitler,'' the fictitious Broadway flop within Mel Brooks's film ''The Producers.'' But no one walked out: ''Rachael Lily Rosenbloom'' became an existential test which everyone was determined to pass. The cast, many of whom were dressed in silver lame g-strings, attacked their tasks as if they were performing ''Guys and Dolls.''

After the show, I ran into an acquaintance and asked him why the house was packed for the closing night of such a fiasco. He surveyed the lobby and said, ''These are all the people who didn't see 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.' '' He was right. To this day, there are thousands of theatergoers, me included, who regret having missed that legendary, 1960's bomb -a big-budget musical starring Richard Chamberlain and Mary Tyler Moore, adapted by Edward Albee from the Truman Capote story, that the producer David Merrick folded in previews at the Majestic. We weren't going to make the same mistake twice.

It was also at ''Rachael Lily Rosenbloom'' that I learned the answer to the eternal question that always follows in the wake of such theatrical disasters. That question, of course, is, ''Why didn't anyone realize how hopeless this show was before risking all the trouble and expense and public ridicule of putting it on?'' Some people speculate that the creators of a ''Rachael Lily Rosenbloom'' or ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'' or ''Moose Murders'' are suffering from temporary insanity. Others postulate that such shows are tax gimmicks or maybe clandestine pranks hatched by foreign agents out to undermine the American way of life. But the real answer is more benign and simple than that. Theater people, like all people, would always rather believe good news than bad news, especially about their own work - and someone is always willing to give them encouragement, no matter how ridiculous the project at hand may be.

If a musical on its way to Broadway gets terrible reviews and audience catcalls in Boston, it's often said, that musical's creators will ignore those omens entirely and instead choose to believe the opinion of the Ritz-Carlton waiter who confides, while waiting for a tip, that he found the show superior to ''My Fair Lady.'' At ''Rachael Lily Rosenbloom,'' one could see this process in action: in scattered pockets throughout the otherwise shell-shocked house were claques of theatergoers who sang along with the musical numbers and gave mini-standing ovations at the end of most of them.

These partisans had clearly seen earlier previews of the show and adored it; they were in tears when the final curtain rang down. No doubt there were other such ''Rachael Lily Rosenbloom'' fans at every stage of the show's development. There will always be somebody who loves a bomb, no matter how deadly, and there will always be at least one person connected with the production who will grab on to the straws of hope that these cheerleaders provide.

This myopia can afflict all theater artists, however mighty. It has happened to nearly everyone. But when the turkey finally rests in its grave, its perpetrators often bounce back. Pulling out my cherished Playbill for ''Rachael Lily Rosenbloom,'' I find that its co-producer went on to produce ''Evita''; that its co-librettist went on to write ''Dreamgirls''; that its female leads have recently found acclaim and stardom in ''Nine'' and ''Little Shop of Horrors''; that three of its chorus people were later leads in ''A Chorus Line'' (one winning a Tony Award) and another was a star of ''Ain't Misbehavin'.'' They probably look back and laugh, too, by now.

I can't promise that all will end so happily for the cast and crew of ''Moose Murders.'' We'll wait 10 years and see. In the meantime, I'm holding on tightly to my rare Playbill. It's a remembrance of a genuine theatrical occasion, and just possibly, given my correspondents who would kill for it, an annuity for my old age.

Posted by Merkookio at 01:31 PM | TrackBack

July 16, 2005

Hoarding Time

Those of us old enough know how to wear it on our sleeve - somehow every four years -- announcing to whoever is stupid enough to listen (and to the dwindling few who remember) the hoarding of that McGovern-Eagleton button (McGovern-Shriver doesn't cut it) from 1972.

Or how about that Harold Stassen button (only if you remember Anita Bryant before she was a poster child for Stonewall anger).

Or if you're really lucky, and if you're now part of the Giff Miller's Generation G (usually those that were Howard Dean meet-up kiddies), you might have an Abe Hirschfeld for Senate button.

So if you act quickly, you can find Virginia Fields buttons at rock-bottom prices before they appreciate in value much more than the candidate's platform or her fleeting troops. You can get the button here. Try the refrigerator magnet or the ten-pack.

And got that old Volkswagon beetle that's just itching for something to replace that 1964 Goldwater sticker. That's right, you can be the hit of the Westport cotillion with your own Virginia Fields bumper sticker at only $3.95 by clicking here. But do so only if you remember Chad & Jeremy.

So act today and you can help Virginia Fields raise the $3 million she'll need to beat Anthony Weiner from the embarrassment of fourth place.

Posted by Merkookio at 11:10 AM | TrackBack

July 14, 2005

Scapegoat still owns Fields' Web Domain

It's one thing to can your direct mail outfit for incompetence (or use them as a scapegoat as some have suggested), but before you do, it might be wise to take care of some necessary business.

According to Network Solutions, the domain name www.newyorkersforfields.com, the official Fields web site, is owned by her former direct mail firm Winning Directions.

newyorkersforfields.com

Registrant: Winning Directions
1366 San Mateo Ave
South San Francisco, CA 94080 US
Phone: 6508754000
Domain Name: NEWYORKERSFORFIELDS.COM

Last week Winning Directions was fired, along with consultant Joe Mercurio, for their alleged involvement in doctoring the infamous Photogate flier. No matter who has control of the Fields web site, it might be eligible for a mediocrity and blather award.

Posted by Merkookio at 12:47 PM | TrackBack

Good Morning, Mr. Mayor

Ever since www.virginiafields.com opened its doors, our traffic has steadily increased. In the last week, with Photogate, traffic has doubled.

Our most predictable site visitor has been the Mayor's office and the Bloomberg campaign. While the logs do not indicate exactly who has logged on (in many organizations, several individuals can be using the same IP number), almost every day we see site visitors with "mayorpxy" and "bloomberg2005.com" churning through our pages.

And we didn't even call the Mayor at home!

And the runner-up goes to ... www.nycvisit.com, home of the Atlanta Center for Lategano Disease Control, whose sole mission is to replace all eight million New Yorkers with tourists by 2012.

Posted by Merkookio at 11:49 AM | TrackBack

To the Barricades! Rangel knows no facts!

We knew that after his waffling performance on the West Side Stadium, but in a New York Times story, Representative Charles Rangel, often seen as Virginia Fields' political rabbi, called the Times to say, "I have no idea of the facts..."

The Times points out that Joseph Mercurio's emails to the campaign do not establish an explicit directive from Fields or campaign staffers to doctor the photos, but do not exclude that as a possibility either. However, if the emails are authentic, they would establish that Fields and her senior campaign advisors either knew about the doctored photos, or should have known about them. This would contradict recent statements from Fields and her campaign that they did not know about the doctored photos until last week.

For the Times article, click below.

Update: Articles from the News and Post also available, click the link below.

Fired Aide Releases E-Mail Notes He Sent to Fields
NY Times
by Randal C. Archibold
July 14, 2005

Just as C. Virginia Fields was trying to move past questions about a doctored campaign photo, her former chief political consultant released a string of e-mail correspondence yesterday that he said buttressed his claim that she should have known about the altered photo.

Joseph C. Mercurio, the fired consultant, released five e-mail messages that he said were sent directly to Ms. Fields and several of her lieutenants. They were dated from March to June and included the doctored photo, which was used in a campaign flier.

He said the messages would counter Ms. Fields's contention that she became aware only last week that the photo included stock images. She fired him and dismissed the company that produced the photos, Winning Directions, after news organizations brought the doctoring to light.

The photo was edited to include images of Asian-Americans in a group of diverse supporters to further her campaign theme of having broad ethnic and racial support.

"She obviously forgot now that there had been versions distributed back then," Mr. Mercurio said in an interview, and he went on to suggest that her campaign advisers were mishandling the situation. "So much for her internal audit of the process."

He added: "The accusation is I did this on my own and did not tell anybody and she just found out about it Wednesday morning. They had to prove their hands were clean and got rid of offending people. I don't know if they forgot what happened back in March or just are not experienced with dealing with crisis management."

Questions about what Ms. Fields knew of the photo, and when, have dogged her mayoral campaign for a week, and have led to further questions about her credibility, her management style in handling the situation, and her oversight of campaign details.

In response to Mr. Mercurio's statements, Ms. Fields's campaign officials said that she did not see the doctored photo because she did not make a practice of reviewing campaign material by e-mail, and that Mr. Mercurio surely would have known that. The campaign officials said that aides in her borough presidency office served as informal campaign advisers but that they did not scrutinize campaign photos; a spokesman for the aides said they were not aware the photos had been doctored.

"Virginia Fields does not review drafts of campaign literature in e-mail," said a statement from her press secretary, Kirsten Powers. "As is true with many candidates, she reviews all drafts of campaign literature in hard copy. She was paying Joe Mercurio $15,000 a month for his political services, and this included overseeing the campaign literature process, and the use of the photo in question was his decision.

"She was outraged to learn last week that the photo was doctored with stock images," the statement continued, "and she made a decision about who was responsible and took action. She never saw the photo before it was doctored. At no point did Mercurio disclose that the photo in the literature had been doctored. His attempts to blame this on other people are shameful and must stop."

Representative Charles B. Rangel, one of Ms. Fields's most important and influential supporters, rose to her defense, attacking Mr. Mercurio's motives in an unsolicited telephone call to a reporter.

"I have no idea of the facts, but I have never heard in all my years of a consultant who would breach a relationship with a client and attack them politically," Mr. Rangel said.

He suggested that Mr. Mercurio was bitter about Ms. Fields's refusal to keep him on. "He is going to hurt himself more than anybody else, and I encourage Virginia not to get involved in a debate," he said.

Ms. Fields has declined to give a detailed account of her review of the flier, saying she did not wish to debate with Mr. Mercurio.

Though they do not concretely show that Ms. Fields or her aides ordered the photo manipulation or even were aware of it, the e-mail messages keep alive a story the campaign has hoped would go away.

The March 15 e-mail message includes a draft of a flier with a photo of Ms. Fields at a news conference amid a diverse tableau of supporters. The message was sent to the personal e-mail accounts of Ms. Fields, who is the Manhattan borough president; Barbara Baer, the deputy borough president; and Luther Smith, the chief of staff of the borough president's office; and to the campaign account of Kimberly Peeler-Allen, Ms. Fields's campaign finance director.

Four days later, Mr. Mercurio sent the flier to that group again, but in the photo two white supporters had been deleted and two Asians put in.

Mr. Mercurio has argued that the change was made at the insistence of Ms. Fields and her deputies, but he declined to release any messages that included those instructions.

He insisted that he had no ax to grind and noted that he has continued to speak highly of Ms. Fields and her campaign.

"I have been correcting the record," he said, "while in fact saying nice things about her."

YES, VIRGINIA 'KNEW'
NY Post
by Frankie Edozien and Carl Campanile

July 14, 2005 -- C. Virginia Fields received before and after versions of a doctored campaign photograph in which two white supporters were replaced with Asians, according to bombshell e-mails made public yesterday by her fired top consultant.

Fields' ex-adviser Joseph Mercurio released the documents to back up his contention that the Democratic mayoral hopeful was aware that the photo had been changed to make her appear more "inclusive" before it was distributed to voters.

In a March 15 e-mail to Fields' AOL address, Mercurio sent a draft version of the campaign flier for her review. It showed a picture - taken at a press conference last year - of Fields surrounded by supporters. A white man and woman are standing to her right.

But in another e-mail four days later, on March 19, Mercurio sent Fields a new version of the handout - showing an Asian man and woman superimposed in place of the white couple.

"Virginia saw the before and after photos," said Mercurio, who was blamed last week for the photo flap and fired by Fields. "I'm showing you an e-mail that says she did."

The veteran consultant said he had no proof that Fields, the Manhattan borough president, read his e-mails - which he had copied to several of her top aides - but insisted she reviewed "hard copies" of all campaign materials in all their draft forms.

The handout, which was pulled after the scam-photo firestorm erupted last week, was Fields' key piece of campaign literature.

Fields flap? Picture this
NY Daily News
by Maggie Haberman
July 14, 2005

Here's the undoctored photo in the Virginia Fields' flyer flap, showing the people at the far left whose heads were later replaced with those of an Asian couple.

The original picture was part of the E-mails made public yesterday by Fields' embattled former strategist in the latest installment of finger-pointing over the fudged photo.

Both of the people erased from the original picture in an apparent effort to show diversity were identified yesterday as Fields backers. One, Trudy Mason, said she's known Fields for 20 years, and that the Manhattan borough president would never have knowingly erased her from the picture.

"I very much doubt that she'd remove me," Mason said.

Fired strategist Joe Mercurio says the original photo and an E-mail trail he released yesterday show he's been scapegoated by Fields, who denies knowing about the image swapping.

Mercurio said his E-mails to Fields and other staffers show he kept the campaign posted - sending them the original picture in a draft of a campaign mailing, then sending them the altered version for approval.

But sources close to Fields say she often does not read her E-mail and never knew the photo was doctored in an apparent effort to show diversity.

"She never saw the photo before it was doctored," the campaign said in a statement. "At no point did Mercurio disclose that the photo in the literature had been doctored."

Sources close to Fields noted that Mercurio, who initially defended the flyer, said after he was canned that it was done in June against his wishes - never saying that the doctored photo was also used in a March flyer.

Mercurio insisted he showed Fields copies of the pieces.

"I'm objecting to the fact that they're saying they didn't know anything about it ... that I dreamt it on my own, did it on my own and made them use it without noticing it," he said.

Posted by Merkookio at 12:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 13, 2005

Fields flier stand-in identified

Sources tell VirginiaFields.com that the white lady appearing on the 'before' version of the Photogate flier (see below), and subsquently replaced with the head of an unidentified asian woman, is Fields supporter and Democratic activist Trudy Mason. Among other things, she has been described as a Fields supporter, a Democratic State Committeewoman, and associated with the East Side Lexington Club.

One Politicker comment from "East Side Dem" said, "No wonder the Fields campaign wanted to change the flyer."

Another comment from Fields critic "Lead Dog" said, "Editing out Trudy Mason is the only smart thing the Fields campaign ever did. It is almost reason to forgive the folderol, and to support Fields."

The white male, whose head was replaced by that of an asian male, looks awfully familiar. Looking closely, in both cases the heads were replaced but not the bodies or clothing. Sort of like Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker in Mars Attacks.

Posted by Merkookio at 11:35 PM | TrackBack

Two Honkies get Axed

Former Fields' consultant Joe Mercurio has released the before and after versions of the infamous Photogate fliers. The first version shows two white individuals appearing to stare off into space. The second version (subject of Photogate), shows two Asians also appearing to stare off into space. Question is, who are those two whites, and did they also not endorse Fields?

For the complete fliers in PDF, see before and after. See page 2 of each PDF file.

Update #1:

The Politicker is reporting the Fields' campaign response to the release of the two versions of the Photogate flier:

"Virginia Fields does not review drafts of campaign literature in email. As is true with many candidates, she reviews all drafts of campaign literature in hard copy. She was paying Joe Mercurio $15K a month for his political services and this included overseeing the campaign literature process and the use of the photo in question was his decision. She was outraged to learn last week that the photo was doctored with stock images and she made a decision about who was responsible and took action. She never saw the photo before it was doctored. At no point did Mercurio disclose that the photo in the literature had been doctored. His attempts to blame this on other people are shameful and must stop." -- Kirsten Powers, Fields spokesperson.

Update #2:

Newsday (Dan Janison and Glenn Thrush) are reporting:

Valachi had his papers, Monica had her dress and Captain Queeg had his strawberries. Now Joe Mercurio has his e-mails.

Mercurio was dismissed as C. Virginia Fields' campaign consultant after it was discovered two Asian-Americans had been digitally inserted into campaign literature. Now he's waging his own e-mail campaign defending his reputation.

Fields said she didn't know the faces were added. Mercurio has insisted otherwise since his firing was announced Friday.

On Wednesday, Mercurio sent reporters copies of four of his e-mails to Fields and senior staffers, dated between March 19 and June 20, that included attachments of the Asian Americans-included flier.

They seem to contradict the borough president's claims. Calls to a Fields spokeswoman weren't returned.

Posted by Merkookio at 04:48 PM | TrackBack

Of Course her campaign is in turmoil!

So why is she talking about it? Click for the New York Times article below.

Fields Plays Down Concerns That Campaign Is in Turmoil
by Randal C. Archibold
New York Times
July 13, 2005

With questions still swirling about a doctored photograph in a mayoral campaign flier, C. Virginia Fields sought to move past the problem yesterday by proposing ways to improve subway safety.

Ms. Fields, at her first formal news conference since the problem arose last week, repeated a statement that her campaign manager put out about subway safety after the London subway and bus bombings last Thursday. But she still found herself addressing the fliers, if only to play down suggestions that the fuss has damaged her campaign.

"I don't have that same concern and neither does my campaign have that same concern," said Ms. Fields, the Manhattan borough president and a Democrat, when asked if her campaign was adrift. "We are continuing to do what we have been doing, outreach to voters, talking to voters, continuing to raise money, continuing to implement plans that we have to implement. So that is not my view or the view of my campaign."

She declined to provide details on the flier, which included a picture edited to include a more diverse backdrop of supporters than had appeared in the original. Since then, Ms. Fields, who has based her campaign largely on her appeal to ethnic and racial groups, and the campaign consultant she dismissed on Friday over the matter, Joseph C. Mercurio, have sparred through the news media over the candidate's role and knowledge of the photo manipulation.

"My credibility is not under question," Ms. Fields said, declining to release any information supporting her version, adding that Mr. Mercurio's dismissal ended the matter.

Yesterday's event, at the entrance to the subway station at 169th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, followed the postponement of a news conference Sunday on the same topic, when the problem over the fliers was at a fever pitch.

Ms. Fields, running second in polls among the four major candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, appeared before the cameras yesterday for more than nine minutes, with an assistant cutting off questioning when it focused on the fliers.

She suggested that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg press the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a range of steps to improve safety and security, including increasing the number of workers at stations, equipping tunnels and stations with cellphone service and expanding the use of security cameras. Ms. Fields did not release an estimate of the cost of the additional measures.

She criticized Mr. Bloomberg for what she said was inattention to subway safety. The governor appoints the majority of the transportation authority's 17-member board, and the mayor can recommend four appointees.

"I for one was very astonished to hear Mayor Bloomberg calling the London attacks a wake-up call, because our wake-up call was 9/11," Ms. Fields told reporters, referring to a statement that Mr. Bloomberg made on Sunday.

A transcript of his remarks to reporters on Sunday suggested that the mayor meant the transportation authority had received a wake-up call, though he literally got one when an aide woke him up to tell him about the London bombings as he returned to New York from his Olympics-hunting trip to Singapore.

"I'm sure that they got a wake-up call the other day, just as I did," Mr. Bloomberg said. "When mine was a physical one, theirs should have been a mental one."

Spokesmen for Mr. Bloomberg pointed out that the Police Department had intensified patrols and taken other steps to improve security.

Ms. Fields also found herself issuing an apology on Monday after she used the words "paddy wagon" in a television interview on NY1 over the weekend to describe vans used by the police in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, when she and others participated in civil rights demonstrations. The term is offensive to some people of Irish descent.

Posted by Merkookio at 02:32 PM | TrackBack

Of course she has no credibility!

Flap's photo finish; Boro prez wants to move on
by Celeste Katz
New York Daily News
July 13, 2005

Manhattan Borough President and Democratic mayoral hopeful Virginia Fields said yesterday she wants to put the flap about doctored campaign pictures behind her. Despite accusations to the contrary, she said, "My credibility is not under question."

Even before Photogate, most of those aware of Fields' record knew she couldn't be trusted.

For the Daily News article, click below:

Flap's photo finish; Boro prez wants to move on
by Celeste Katz
New York Daily News
July 13, 2005

Manhattan Borough President and Democratic mayoral hopeful Virginia Fields said yesterday she wants to put the flap about doctored campaign pictures behind her. Despite accusations to the contrary, she said, "My credibility is not under question."

Fields' problems began when a direct-mail firm retouched a photo of her at a news conference to give the impression of a multicultural rainbow of supporters backing her.

It wasn't the case, the campaign had to admit. The photo was a composite, or collage, that was meant to represent the kind of multiethnic support Fields has culled.

Fields ended up firing the mailing firm, Winning Directions, as well as campaign consultant Joseph Mercurio - who firmly shot back that Fields and other staff members knew precisely what was going on with the images.

Asked yesterday at an uptown news conference whether she believes fellow Democrats should be worried that her campaign has lost focus because of the issue, Fields said no.

"We're continuing to do what we have been doing - outreach to voters, talking to voters, continuing to raise money, continuing to implement plans that we have to implement," she said.

Speaking under a broiling afternoon sun at the 169th St. and St. Nicholas Ave. subway stop, Fields accused Mayor Bloomberg of revving up his security rhetoric only after the London bombings, not 9/11.

Fields said New Yorkers simply "have no idea" what they're supposed to do in the event of a subway attack - and those with no command of English are in particular peril.

She suggested a multipronged plan, including providing emergency instructions in Spanish, Chinese and Korean in addition to English and translating announcements into those languages.

Fields said she also backs staffing station booths, making sure cell phones and pay phones work in the stations and expanding the use of security cameras.

Bloomberg's campaign responded icily to Fields' London critique.

"Although we usually correct the record when politicians distort the mayor's remarks, we aren't going to respond to someone playing politics with terrorism," said Bloomberg campaign spokesman Stu Loeser.

Originally published on July 13, 2005

Posted by Merkookio at 11:02 AM | TrackBack

"Quite frankly, my schedule is full"

So says Donna Brazile, former campaign manager for Al Gore and advertised headliner for tonight's fundraiser for Virginia Fields in Washington D.C.

Newsday reports that Ms. Brazile is backing out of the Fields fundraiser citing previous engagements.

Could it be that the Fields campaign never confirmed Ms. Brazile's attendance, or is she backing out at the last minute given the utter turmoil of the Fields campaign?

Charles I'm-for-the-stadium-except-when-I'm-against-it Rangel is expected to show. Imagine the strain on his face.

For the Newsday piece, click below.

Brazile's no-show in D.C. takes Fields by surprise
Newsday
by Glenn Thrush
July 13, 2005

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis Herman and Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager Donna Brazile are at the top of an invite to Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields' big-money Washington, D.C. fund-raiser tonight.

Brazile and five other women power brokers, the event's flier proclaims, "cordially invite you to join them."

But Brazile, a CNN analyst and political consultant, won't be joining Democratic mayoral candidate Fields, who was already reeling from a series of embarrassing setbacks and gaffes. Brazile cited a previous engagement and a desire to avoid a time-consuming local race.

"My name is listed, but I am not planning on attending. I have a conflict tomorrow night," she wrote in an e-mail to Newsday yesterday.

"I agreed last month to help out," she added. "This week, I received an e-mail and, quite frankly, my schedule is full. I just returned from the NAACP [convention in Milwaukee] and must get back to my work." Brazile will make a donation to Fields' campaign.

Word of Brazile's decision took Fields' staff by surprise. "We were under the impression she was coming," said campaign aide Kirsten Powers.

On Friday, Fields fired consultant Joe Mercurio in a nasty flap over the digital insertion of two Asian-Americans in a campaign flier.

That same day, Fields travelled to her native Birmingham, Ala., where she collected at least $25,000 in contributions and recalled how Birmingham police packed her and other protesters in "paddy wagons," during 1963 civil rights marches.

The snakebitten campaign issued an immediate apology for the phrase, which includes a 19th century slur against the Irish.

Tonight's $250- to $1,000-a-head fete, held at B.Smith's in Union Station, is sponsored by Fields' ally Rep. Charlie Rangel. The Harlem Democrat is expected to attend.

Posted by Merkookio at 11:01 AM | TrackBack

July 12, 2005

The Ginerator, Making Copies

One would think with all the minions taking up space on the 19th floor of the Municipal Building (even if they were to do it on their own time), you could find someone who could publish and print something that puts your candidate in a good light. But no, with Photogate still hounding the Virginia Fields' campaign, they rushed out xerox copies of new campaign literature for a campaign stop Monday, according to a report in the New York Post.

Now with Joe Mercurio gone, was Virginia Fields left to do her own paste-ups? How much cash is left? Are donors fleeing from what some reporters are calling a 'hapless' candidate?

Click below for the NY Post report.

Reeling Fields' Latest Fliers Real Cheapies
NY Post
by Stephanie Gaskell and Frankie Edozien

July 12, 2005 -- Trying to bounce back from her campaign flier debacle last week, Virginia Fields campaigned at the Utica Avenue subway stop in Crown Heights yesterday - where she passed out new materials to voters that appeared to have been shoddily made.

Just days after firing her campaign manager Joe Mercurio for authorizing a campaign leaflet that superimposed two Asian-Americans over two whites, Fields presented handouts that were Xeroxed, not slickly produced like most campaign literature.

The Xeroxed handouts are a possible sign that the Fields campaign is running short on cash or scrambled to give something out since it can no longer use the doctored photo.

When asked if she thought the flier flap would hurt her campaign, Fields said voters would judge her on her record.

"Voters are smart, voters look at everything," she said.

The Fields campaign also apologized yesterday for comments she made in her hometown of Birmingham, Ala.

While remembering her experiences as a 17-year-old taking part in the civil-rights protests led by Martin Luther King Jr., she recalled being "put into a paddy wagon."

The term "paddy wagon" is considered by some to be offensive to the Irish.

"She did not mean to offend anyone. If she did, she is very sorry," campaign spokeswoman Kristen Powers said.

Also yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg was endorsed in five different languages by members of a union representing 3,000 doctors from city hospitals.

Posted by Merkookio at 06:38 PM | TrackBack

Paddy Wagon - what's the fuss

You have to hand it to NY1 News. While on a visit to her hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, Virginia Fields recounted the march in 1963 when she was arrested with Dr. Martin Luther King.

She remarked how she and others were put into the "paddywagon," a term that while may have had its roots in the insensitive treatement of the Irish, but for all intents and purposes is solidly ensconced in mainstream American discourse.

While there's a lot to question of Ms. Fields' character and readiness to be Mayor, this is not one of those issues, especially as neither NY1 reporter Frick or Frack (Dominic Carter and Davidson Goldin)--who are fanning these flames--are Irish.

Probably what does further damage to the Fields' candidacy, is that she's apologizing for it!

In his famous "I've been to the Mountaintop" speech of April 3, 1968, the night before he was slain in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Martin Luther King himself twice referred to "paddy wagons" in Birmingham.

See his speech here (pdf file, page 3).

See NY1's report, click below:

Fields' Campaign Under Fire Again, This Time For Insensitive Remark
NY1 News
July 12, 2005

Democratic candidate for mayor C. Virginia Fields' campaign is apologizing for using the term "paddy wagon" in an interview with NY1.

In Alabama on Friday, the Manhattan borough president talked about being arrested during a civil rights protest in 1963. In her comments, she described police vans as "paddy wagons" - a term that's considered offensive by some Irish-Americans.

"We marched to mid-block at best and the paddy wagon was there and we were told we were marching without a permit and we could either turn around or we would be arrested," said Fields in the interview last Friday. "We fell on our knees and we were put into the paddy wagon."

Fields' campaign spokeswoman released a statement saying, "Obviously she did not mean to offend anyone. If she did, she is very sorry."

Fields' campaign had already been facing controversy over a campaign flier that used a doctored photo. In the wake of that incident, Fields fired her top campaign consultant, Joe Mercurio, on Friday.

Polls show her running second in the four-way Democratic primary race.

Posted by Merkookio at 10:59 AM | TrackBack

July 11, 2005

BEEP won't replace canned consultant

BEEP won't replace canned consultant
New York Post
by Stefan C. Friedman

July 11, 2005 -- Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields has "no plans" to fill the position left open by political consultant Joseph Mercurio's ousting, sources say.

In the wake of revelations that a campaign flier was doctored by Photoshopping an Asian couple into a photograph, sources in Fields' camp say they can steer the ship out of trouble with their current staff.

"There are no plans to replace him," said one source. "We have a great team in place--a great media person, pollster, campaign manager and field person."

One place his departure can't hurt is the wallet--the cash-poor campaign was paying Mercurio $15,000 a month.

Posted by Merkookio at 10:51 AM | TrackBack

Sharpton attacks ex-Fields aide

Would anyone expect anything less from the Rev.? Mercurio to go sailing.

Click below for articles from Newsday and the Sun.

Sharpton attacks ex-Fields aide
Newsday
by Bryan Virasami
July 11, 2005

The Rev. Al Sharpton took jabs at a political consultant Sunday who was fired by mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields over a doctored campaign photo.

During Sharpton's Sunday program on WLIB/1190 radio, he said it was unprofessional for Joseph Mercurio to criticize his former boss, the Manhattan borough president who is seeking the Democratic mayoral nomination.

"For someone to leave a campaign and then turn around and try to make all kinds of allegations and bordering on some very, very ugly language, I think a professional ought to be a professional," Sharpton said.

Fields fired Mercurio after admitting a photo in a flier was doctored to include two Asian-Americans who weren't supporters.

Mercurio told reporters Fields had seen the photo before it was released. Fields said Mercurio's version was wrong.

In response to Sharpton's comments, Mercurio called on Sharpton -- who has so far declined to pick a primary candidate -- to throw his support behind Fields. "I challenge him to endorse her," Mercurio said. "He knows she's the better candidate and he shouldn't put her through a lengthy checkout. He knows now she's the better candidate."

Sharpton's comments were made minutes before Fields went on the program but she didn't comment on the issue.

Endorse Fields, Fired Consultant Advises Sharpton
The New York Sun
July 11, 2005
by Jull Gardiner

A former top political consultant to one of the Democratic mayoral candidates, C.Virginia Fields, said yesterday that a prominent African-American activist, the Reverend Alford Sharpton, should step up and endorse Ms. Fields as she tries to bounce back from a recent flap over a doctored photo.

The consultant, Joseph Mercurio, who was fired Friday by Ms. Fields and then rebutted the campaign's assertion that he was ultimately responsible for the use of the photo, commented after Rev. Sharpton attacked him yesterday on his weekly radio show, which airs on WLIB-AM.

"If he thinks Virginia Fields is a good candidate, like I think Virginia Fields is a good candidate, he should get off it and finally endorse her," Mr. Mercurio told The New York Sun during a phone interview. "He's been talking about it for weeks. He should do it and help the borough president out when she needs it."

Rev. Sharpton's possible endorsement has been the object of speculation for months, but he has hedged so far and said he may not endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary at all. In the 2001 primary, Rev. Sharpton endorsed one of the Democratic candidates, Fernando Ferrer, who is the front-runner in the field of four contenders for the party's nomination to challenge Mayor Bloomberg this fall. Mr. Ferrer, who is Hispanic, hurt his chances of winning black votes, and Rev. Sharpton's backing, this year when he said in March that the fatal shooting by police of an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, was not a crime.

In his comments about the Fields flap yesterday, Rev. Sharpton said it was "unethical" and "outright questionable" for a consultant to break confidence and attack a candidate after making money off the campaign.A candidate, he said, has the right to take action when something isn't handled properly, but an adviser should not publicly gripe and damage the campaign.

"I ran for mayor--I mean, this is no joke," Rev. Sharpton said moments before Ms. Fields joined him on the air for an interview. He ran in the Democratic primary in 1997, when Ms. Fields's predecessor as borough president of Manhattan, Ruth Messinger, was the nominee.

"There are a million things that come across your desk a day," Rev. Sharpton continued. "That's why you hire people to handle it. And when it is not handled in the way you want, you have the right to take action.They don't have a right to come back and try to slam-dunk you after stuffing their pockets at your expense."

Mr. Mercurio, a longtime consultant whose company, National Political Services, was paid roughly $145,000 by the campaign through April, said he was the lone voice of opposition to printing the flier that included the doctored photo. Others in the campaign, including the manager, Chung Seto, pushed for it, and Ms. Fields had seen various iterations of the flier and did not object, he said.

"I simply corrected the record," Mr. Mercurio said. "The amount of money you are paid does not lessen your requirement to be honorable, maintain your integrity, and to tell the truth."

Rev. Sharpton, who did not mention Mr. Mercurio by name yesterday, took other digs at him, saying female candidates such as Ms. Fields, the only woman running, cannot be judged by a different standard. And he challenged the consultant, at least in jest, to a fight.

"If he likes to fight, he wants to fight, he can come fight me, 'cause I think that this is unethical," Rev. Sharpton said.

The photo that ignited the controversy featured Ms. Fields at a news conference in the center of an ethnically diverse group. It proved to be a composite of several different images, among them a stock image of two Asian-Americans, whom Ms. Fields did not know, and pictures of people who are not supporting her bid for mayor.

The Fields campaign held a news conference Wednesday in an attempt to control the damage and presumably to put the issue to rest, but that seemed only to fan the flames and raise more questions.

Forty-eight hours later an unexpected round of mudslinging, between the sides had started, with Mr. Mercurio and the Fields camp each blaming the other for not flagging the photo before it was printed and distributed as part of a flier.

Mr. Mercurio said that he spoke to Ms. Fields by phone Friday while she was in her hometown of Birmingham, Ala., for a fund-raising event and that she told him it was "appropriate" for him to correct the record publicly if he needed to. The way he tells it, he said he would speak well of her. Aside from the matter of the photo, he has done so.

The Fields campaign has stopped commenting on the matter and canceled a news conference yesterday. A spokeswoman for Ms. Fields, Kirsten Powers, would comment only on the possibility of a Sharpton endorsement.

"Al Sharpton will make his decision when he wants to make it," Ms. Powers said. "There was never any expectation that he was going to make an endorsement on the radio show this morning."

A spokeswoman for Rev. Sharpton did not return a call. The minister, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, said he had not talked to Ms. Fields about the incident and indicated he would have had the same reaction had it happened in another campaign.

Mr. Mercurio, now that he is not working on the mayoral campaign, said he plans to spend his summer sailing.

Posted by Merkookio at 10:49 AM | TrackBack

Laughing for, with, or at?

If anyone really cares, Virginia Fields will hold a fundraiser July 19th at the Laugh Factory on 42nd and 8th Avenue (where Show World formerly entertained the masses). Entertainment by Paul Mooney.

We thought about using this picture, but it was too white and we would be forced to add a few blacks and chinese.

This will not be the first time Virginia Fields has appeared at the Laugh Factory. A few weeks ago, she appeared and even sang this song (God's Honest Truth, she sang that -- if anyone has the actual tape, please contact us).

Posted by Merkookio at 10:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 10, 2005

Both Sides Cool the Rhetoric in Furor Over a Fields Flier

Both Sides Cool the Rhetoric in Furor Over a Fields Flier
by Nicholas Confessore and Patrick D. Healy
New York Times
July 10, 2005

An unusually public dispute between mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields and Joseph C. Mercurio, the consultant she abruptly fired last week after revelations that her campaign had issued campaign fliers with doctored photos, receded from public view yesterday, even as New York's political classes debated how the turmoil would affect the Democratic primary.

Click to read the entire article:

Both Sides Cool the Rhetoric in Furor Over a Fields Flier
by Nicholas Confessore and Patrick D. Healy
New York Times
July 10, 2005

An unusually public dispute between mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields and Joseph C. Mercurio, the consultant she abruptly fired last week after revelations that her campaign had issued campaign fliers with doctored photos, receded from public view yesterday, even as New York's political classes debated how the turmoil would affect the Democratic primary.

On Friday, Mr. Mercurio said that the fliers - which used a stock image of two Asian-Americans and other cut-and-paste images of supporters of various ethnicities to imply they had all been present at one campaign event--had been printed over his objections. Ms. Fields insisted that he was ultimately responsible for them.

But yesterday, citing a desire not to escalate the dispute, both Ms. Fields and Mr. Mercurio declined to provide e-mail messages, invoices, or other documentation to corroborate the accounts of how the fliers had been produced.

"If they're not saying anything, I'm not going to get into any correspondence," Mr. Mercurio said.

Ms. Fields, the Manhattan Borough President, appeared to be lying low, canceling a news conference on subway security scheduled for today. And Ms. Fields' rivals for the Democratic nomination have been careful not to criticize her for the fliers.

Fernando Ferrer, a mayoral candidate who has led the field in most polls, said he was sympathetic to her after his own troubles this spring, when he said a police shooting in 1999 of an unarmed black man, Amadou Diallo, was not a crime--a statement for which he was attacked by Ms. Fields, among others.

"I've known her for a long time, she's a woman of real integrity and honesty, and I trust her," Mr. Ferrer said in an interview Friday, though he had not been asked any questions about Ms. Fields. "We've got to move on from this, and move on to the real issues of the campaign."

Some observers said they did not expect the incident to affect her chances, emphasizing that voters tended to have little interest in internal campaign issues. Others said that the furor could actually solidify her support among black voters.

"Surprisingly, some people who had been supportive but lukewarm were offended by Mercurio's comments, and were very supportive of her," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who said he would still consider endorsing Ms. Fields in the primary. "Sometimes when leaders are attacked, people close ranks behind them."

But other analysts, including some on good terms with Ms. Fields, said that the mud-slinging might hurt her efforts to raise money, a result she can ill afford. Despite consistently ranking second in the polls, she has raised the least money among the Democratic candidates.

Posted by Merkookio at 10:55 AM | TrackBack

July 09, 2005

Sam Roberts coddles Gin; gets Mush

There's one thing any New York City politician knows: when you can't answer the hard questions (or refuse to answer the soft questions), you change the interviewer. So too C. Virginia Fields; after striking-out in a WCBS Andrew Kitzman interview in April, she rushed down to Chelsea to be coddled by the New York Times' Sam Roberts. Hard questions are rarely heard in the NY Times-sponsored New York Close-up on NY1 News. Roberts just nods and soaks it in while allowing the candidate to blather on. Perhaps he's just being kind.

So Thursday she trekked to Chelsea again.

It wasn't me; it was them. Nod. I can be the inclusive Mayor. Nod. Not intended to mislead. Nod. I have deep support. Nod. And so on. You can listen to the audio here (.mp3 file, 9 minutes, about 4 megs).

It's all been addressed, etc.! Steps were taken, etc.! Action, etc! We're competitive, etc. We're focused, etc. It's all a distraction, etc. They believe in my vision, etc.

"I am still opposed to a stadium"

Since when?

Note: When the Fields' MBP website goes down around January 1, 2006, click below for her press release on the stadium.

Note: photo stolen, photoshopped, and is not intended to mislead, trick or confuse Sam Roberts.

September 18, 2000

STATEMENT FROM MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT C. VIRGINIA FIELDS RE MAYOR'S COMMENTS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SPORTS STADIUM ON MANHATTAN'S WEST SIDE

"I am shocked and angered by the Mayor continues to put forth the proposal to build a new sports stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. "The Mayor has said that he is currently reviewing proposals from and meeting with several sports teams, including the Jets.

"I continue to be in opposition to a 'stand alone' stadium, but would support the construction of a stadium for the 2012 Olympics if it were built as part of other structures that would ultimately benefit New York City. Additionally, I am preparing to release my own request for proposals on ways to use the vast amounts of property available on the West Side, such as the development of affordable housing, a new media center, a bio-tech center and other commercial ventures.

"Yesterday, the Mayor noted that one of the major stumbling blocks to moving the Fulton Fish Market to the Bronx is concern for traffic congestion. This should be the same concern when he proposes placing a stand alone sports stadium on the West Side of Manhattan; traffic congestion would be a nightmare on weekdays and weekends.

"Although, like any New Yorker, I am excited about the possibility of the 2012 Olympics being held in New York City, I want to hear more from the people who would be most affected by such a proposal. That's why I believe all proposals should be reviewed more comprehensively before any final decision is reached "

###

Posted by Merkookio at 11:12 PM

He Said and She Said, but not really

Fallout from Photogate seemed everywhere today.

Newsday's Dan Janison reports how Fields fired her top consultant Joe Mercurio and he went public Friday claiming that her top staff had seen, approved and insisted the famous flier be printed and used. If Mercurio is correct, then it raises questions on the veracity of Fields herself and the judgment of her top staff, both at the campaign and at the Borough President's office. If Astoria Graphics had actually done the printing, then why was the contract with Winning Directions canceled?

The New York Times said Fields' campaing was in "turmoil" (as opposed to Newsday's characterization as "flailing") and that Mercurio made the additional claim that it was Fields Campaign Manager, Chung Seto, who had written a statement ascribing the blame to Winning Directions (a direct mail outfit) whereas the firm never actually apologized. Why would they if they were not responsible for the printing?

Meanwhile, the New York Post says that Fields knew the flier was doctored in advance, contradicting her disavowal.

In a separate Editorial, the Post says the Democratic infighting will guarantee a Bloomberg re-election.

For these and other stories, click below.

New doctored photo revelations hit floundering Fields campaign
Newsday
by Dan Janison
July 9, 2005

Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields' flailing mayoral effort suffered a new blow Friday as a key consultant she'd just fired went public with a suggestion that Fields and top aides approved the use of a doctored photo in a campaign flier.

The flier featured a photo of Fields surrounded by people presumed to be political supporters -- though not all of them were. The images of two unidentified Asian-Americans were added into the picture, apparently for diversity's sake.

After Fields, a candidate for the Democratic nomination, announced Friday that her campaign "terminated" consultant Joseph Mercurio over "strategic differences," Mercurio gave a detailed account in an interview of how the flier and the photo came to be.

In it, Mercurio said he had opposed the photo's use, not because of the addition of Asian faces from stock, but because it wasn't a good use of campaign cash.

Different versions of the flier, with some showing whites and others showing Asians, went to Fields' chief of staff, her deputy borough president, her campaign treasurer and Fields herself, Mercurio said.

At a later point, he described how campaign manager Chung Seto and treasurer Milton Wilson explicitly insisted to him that a printing outfit other than the company Winning Directions be allowed to use the image. That was arranged, he said.

Winning Directions was blamed by Fields for the fiasco and dismissed, but not the other company, which Mercurio identified as Astoria Graphics. That company has not made any comments.

Fields later issued a statement asserting on the one hand that "his characterization of events is false," but saying at the same time she "would not dignify any of his accusations with a response."

The flap is expected to haunt Fields on the campaign trail a bit more, as damage to her rival Fernando Ferrer from his controversial statement to a police group about the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo appears to abate. That preceded a shake-up in Ferrer's campaign.

Fields Fires an Adviser. He Fires Back
by Patrick D. Healy and Randal C. Archibold
NY Times
July 9, 2005

The mayoral campaign of C. Virginia Fields slid into turmoil yesterday as she fired her senior adviser, who in turn accused her of misleading the public about what she knew of campaign fliers whose pictures had been doctored to suggest an ethnically diverse group of supporters.

The adviser, Joseph C. Mercurio, who had largely run the Fields campaign until yesterday, took the unusual step of going public with withering criticism of Ms. Fields and her other top aides. He said he was doing so because the campaign was using him a