Luck and a Shrewd Strategy Fueled de Blasio’s Ascension |
Luck and a Shrewd Strategy Fueled de Blasio’s Ascension
The New York Times
2013-09-11
Michael Barbaro, Political Writer
The commercial that changed the course of the mayor’s race almost never happened.
Bill de Blasio’s campaign team had mused about building an ad around his wife, Chirlane McCray, a telegenic African-American poet, then abandoned the concept.
They then turned to his 15-year-old son, but nothing seemed to go right. The de Blasio family kitchen in Brooklyn was not big enough for the camera crew, so they borrowed a bigger one from a neighbor.
The neighbor’s kitchen turned out to be too fancy, sending the wrong message for a populist candidate. So a long lens was used to blur out the expensive fixtures.
But when the commercial was finally shown to the candidate and his wife, they seemed overcome, instantly recognizing the power of its message: that the aggressive policing of the Bloomberg era was not an abstraction to Mr. de Blasio, it was an urgent personal worry within his biracial household.
“This,” predicted the campaign’s pollster, Anna Greenberg, “will be huge.”…
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Tags: Bill de Blasio, Michael Barbaro, New York, New York City, New York Times, The New York Times