Christine C. Quinn, a leading contender for mayor, on Thursday became the first Democrat to air a television advertisement. Titled “Middle Class,†the 30-second spot is running on broadcast and cable channels across New York City.
Ms. Quinn, who is the City Council speaker, can claim some credit for expanding prekindergarten, whose enrollment grew from 40,000 in 2002 to more than 58,000 in 2012, but not all of it: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was heavily involved. There is still a citywide shortage of pre-K seats, and Ms. Quinn’s Democratic opponents, including Bill de Blasio, argue that too many of the classroom spots are part time, rather than for a full day.
New York City law requires balanced budgets, so that accomplishment, while accurate, is hardly heroic. Her claims of playing a role in thwarting teacher layoffs and firehouse closing are accurate but require a caveat: in negotiations, Mr. Bloomberg routinely threatens such cuts as an initial bargaining position in the annual ritual of blustery budget give-and-take. Ms. Quinn did allow the Council to approve a so-called living wage bill, a measure long sought by progressives that requires higher pay for certain workers in private developments subsidized by the city. But the ad’s spare language glosses over the contentious question of the law’s scope. Ms. Quinn demanded the inclusion of business-friendly exemptions that limit the law’s initial projected impact to several hundred workers a year, far fewer than many advocates had wanted.
The claim of “creating thousands of new tech and manufacturing jobs†is a semantic stretch. It is largely based on the Council’s role in financing the expansion of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, now a small-business incubator. Job growth from that project has surged in recent years. But the navy yard was churning out jobs well before Ms. Quinn was speaker, and its expansion has been financed by an array of public and private sources, including the state and federal government. “Helped create†thousands of jobs would be far more accurate.
The advertisement will test the potency of Ms. Quinn’s central message: love her or hate her, she gets stuff done. But â€" surprise! â€" it oversimplifies the messy work of government.
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