BY PAUL SCHINDLER | City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the out lesbian Chelsea Democrat, has now raised more than $4.9 million for an expected 2013 mayoral run, the maximum she can use in her party’s primary.
The New York Times reports that with matching public funds, the speaker will have 6.7 million, which is as much as she is allowed to spend under the city’s public campaign financing law.
Josh Isay, a Quinn campaign consultant, told the Times the early fundraising success gives her “a huge advantage, because the campaign will be able to focus on organizing and she can concentrate more on talking to voters and less on raising money.”
The newspaper reports that other Democrats likey to run in 2013 –– including the 2009 Democratic mayoral nominee William C. Thompson, Comptroller John C. Liu, Public Advocate Bill De Blasio, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer –– are well behind Quinn in raising money.
Unaligned political consultants the Times spoke to disagreed about how decisive an advantage early fundraising represents.
