Ad Watch: Quinn and a ‘Smoke-Filled Room’

• 0:05  Real Estate Money

  The screen for “Smoke-Filled Room,” the first television ad of the New York City mayor’s race, opens on a room smothered in smoke, and the ad quotes from a 2011 column in The New York Times that described Christine C. Quinn as the recipient of “golden truckloads of contributions from the … hedge fund and real estate set.” Ms. Quinn has received about $1.3 million from real estate industry contributors, significantly more than any other candidate, according to a recent analysis. Ms. Quinn does not smoke cigarettes.

• 0:12  ‘Living Wage’ Battle

  The narrator intones: “On the issues New Yorkers care most about, she is always on the wrong side.” The ad cites a Daily News column asserting that Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, blocked a Council vote on the so-called living wage bill, which would raise the wages of workers at city-subsidized real estate projects. Ms. Quinn did block any vote on versions of this bill for months; she eventually supported compromise legislation that covered fewer workers than the initial proposal, and that exempted employees of a major real estate developer. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg vetoed the bill; the Council overrode the veto and is fighting a lawsuit filed by the Bloomberg administration to overturn the law.

• 0:17  Term Limits and Paid Sick Leave

  The narrator refers to Ms. Quinn’s “flip-flop on paid sick leave and on term limits.” For three years, Ms. Quinn stopped the Council from voting on legislation that would require some city businesses to provide paid days off to sick employees. Ms. Quinn said the city’s economy could not sustain the added costs. But this year, under pressure, she negotiated a compromise, pleasing some advocates. On term limits, Ms. Quinn did reverse her position: in December 2007, she said she would “not support the repeal or change of term limits through any mechanism”; in October 2008, she led a successful effort in the Council to overturn the city’s existing term limits law.

It is a fairly typical political advertisement: cheesy production values, overwrought narration and a soundtrack of ominous piano music playing over the unsmiling visage of the ad’s target, Ms. Quinn.

But “Smoke-Filled Room,” which started to run on Monday on three cable television channels, has gained attention for its unusual provenance: it was financed by a group of political activists who are not affiliated with any candidate. The group, called NYC Is Not for Sale 2013, is legally allowed to spend unlimited amounts on political advertising, as long as it does not coordinate its activity with a candidate. The group’s founders have pledged to spend more than $1 million on ads that attack Ms. Quinn â€" the first instance of a so-called independent expenditure in the 2013 mayor’s race.

The activists behind the ad include an animal-rights group that has long clashed with Ms. Quinn over horse-drawn carriages; a labor leader whose union has given money to Ms. Quinn and her rivals; and a wealthy businesswoman who has contributed to Ms. Quinn’s campaign. So far, the group has declined to disclose a full list of its donors, although it will be required to do so by mid-May.

Ms. Quinn has responded by calling the ad a “disgrace” and labeling it a troublesome intrusion of outside money into the city’s stringent campaign finance system. On Tuesday, she asked her rivals for mayor to sign a pledge condemning the use of any independent expenditure in the campaign.

In an unusual move, Ms. Quinn’s campaign lawyer also sent cease-and-desist letters to two New York television providers, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, demanding that the advertisement be stopped. Ms. Quinn’s campaign contended that it contained “a false statement”; the ad’s creators say it is accurate. The ad continues to run.