For seven years, her relationship with Mayor Bloomberg was a political plus for Christine Quinn. Then she ran for mayor and was destroyed by her close ties to the administration.
The left-leaning electorate in Tuesday’s Democratic primary never forgave Quinn for helping Bloomberg extend term limits.
They were upset that her plans for reforming stop-and-frisk didn’t go as far as those of front-runner Bill de Blasio, who positioned himself as the anti-Bloomberg candidate in the race.
Quinn’s team also ran a Rose Garden-style campaign that ceded populist ground to de Blasio, according to a source close to her campaign.
As an example, the source cited the political mileage de Blasio got out of loudly opposing the closing of Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital.
Quinn also promised to keep Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, providing de Blasio with an opportunity to question her NYPD reform plan.
“They were playing to a general-election audience; not the 7 percent of New Yorkers who vote in a primary,” said another source of Quinn’s campaign.