New York City voters have enjoyed the best and fairest campaign finance system in the country for almost 25 years. Now, a shadowy group organized as New York City Is Not for Sale is attempting to influence this year's mayoral race with a secretive, independent committee much like those that have so tainted federal elections in recent years. This is the last thing the city needs.
Connect With Us on Twitter
For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.
On Monday, the group began a four-week, $250,000 campaign with a television ad attacking the City Council speaker, Christine Quinn. Ms. Quinn is the leading candidate in September's Democratic primary.
Candidates for city office should quickly unite to disavow and discourage such negative advertising from largely unidentified sources. And the City Council and the city's Campaign Finance Board must take new steps to quickly unearth the identity of these murky operatives and let voters know what they find. One suggestion is to require that independent ads include the names of top donors and their contributions. Without such disclosure, a flood of negative advertising could overwhelm the coming campaign.
Though its main target has been Ms. Quinn, the group does not claim a connection to any other candidate. A spokesman for the group has refused to reveal donors until May 15, when that information will be required by the Campaign Finance Board. But the Web site for the group says its organizers include a union leader and activists fighting the city's horse-drawn carriages enjoyed by tourists. The Web site also says that Ms. Quinn is not progressive enough for the city and would "appease special interests that do not have the well-being of all New Yorkers in mind."
An outraged Ms. Quinn did not let this attack pass unnoticed. In fact, she overreacted, allowing a lawyer for her campaign to write to several media companies demanding that they yank the ad from the airwaves because it is "false, misleading and deceptive." The main complaint was that the ad accuses the speaker of being on the "wrong side" of the debate over whether to require businesses that receive a subsidy from the city to pay workers a living wage, even though Ms. Quinn eventually supported a compromise.
By the standards of the city's tough politics, the ad is pretty tame stuff. What makes it troubling is that voters will not know who is behind it until too long after the ads have disappeared. Ms. Quinn asked all her opponents to send "a clear and unified message that super PAC-style ads are not welcome by any candidate in this race." The response so far has not been encouraging.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Editorial: A Phantom Ad Joins New York’s Mayoral Race
Dengan url
http://opinimasyarakota.blogspot.com/2013/04/editorial-phantom-ad-joins-new-yorkas.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Editorial: A Phantom Ad Joins New York’s Mayoral Race
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Editorial: A Phantom Ad Joins New York’s Mayoral Race
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar