Joe Mercurio

When you’re running a campaign by bashing partisanship and the status quo, losing a fight in Albany can be like a win. At least that's one theory about the potential impact of the congestion pricing fight on Michael Bloomberg's national ambitions.
While talks are continuing, the plan is, at best, on life support. That apparent failure provides him with a convenient foil, and may have the effect of convincing him to run, says consultant Joe Mercurio.

“I think he would see the presidency as a place to get much more done. The legislative process needs to be corrected and one of the ways you correct is to have national policy that has lots of carrots.”

Nor does Mercurio think the setback will have any lasting impact on Bloomberg's public appeal. “I don’t think people are going to see this as a failure,” Mercurio said.

“The year he went through the horrendous West Side rail yards thing--if you asked ten people on the street, they’d be hard pressed to remember it happened. And now, they’re building on that site and think he did it. In truth, he had to be beat into submission.”

I was looking through Andrew Cuomo's final campaign finance statement from the attorney general race -- that's what politics nerds do in their spare time -- and one figure that jumped out at me was the $250,000 that Cuomo still owes for television ads.

It seemed, at least, to show that the Cuomo people were taking Jeanine Pirro more seriously than the media was during the late stages of the campaign. It also seemed to be a big number to have outstanding, given the FCC requirement that candidates pay for their ads as they go in order to prevent media outlets from essentially making in-kind loans to campaigns.

I asked media consultant Joe Mercurio about it and he said it was "a lot of money for media reconciliation."

Cuomo spokeswoman Wendy Katz emailed this explanation: "There is always a process of an accounting reconciliation for millions of dollars of media time purchased in the final stage of the campaign. Those adjustments await the final disposition."

Not incidentally, the campaign has $963,477.60 left on hand -- more than enough to pay off all their bills, which total $291,811.75.

-- Azi Paybarah

In the days before yesterday's election, The Politicker asked a number of people who work in and around politics to predict the outcome. Many preferred not to (cowards!) but a couple dozen went along with the admittedly silly exercise.

There was a bit of a wisdom of crowds result here: the median prediction, as it turns out, was right on -- 58.5% for Mike. A lot better than those public polls.

There is also a clear winner of this contest, for which the prize is honor alone. Political Consultant Joe Mercurio not only hit Mike's number on the nose, to the first decimal place; he was also just 0.2% off Freddy's number. Mike McKeon also hit Mike's number right, but unwisely discounted the Ognibene/McMillan factor. Isac Weinberger and I did pretty well too.

The predictions, which range from a Bloomberg landslide to a Ferrer squeaker:

New York Magazine scribe Chris Smith: 68-30 New York Post bomb-thrower Fred Dicker: 65-33 Former Working Familes worker Adina Berrios: 62-37 Most-Quoted Man in New York Doug Muzzio: 60-38 Television Instigator Andrew Kirtzman: 60-38 NY1 Host Davidson Goldin: 59-37 Labor Politcal Guy Peter Colavito: 59-39 Brooklyn Loyalist Michael Tobman: 59-39 The Ubiquitous Isac Weinberger: 59-38 Newsday's Exiled Glenn Thrush: 59-37 GOP Tough-Guy Mike McKeon: 58.5-41.5 Reality: 58.5-38.7 Mercurio: 58.5-38.5 Miller Speechwriter Noel Hartman: 58-41 Fields Campaign Chief Chung Seto: 58-41 State GOP Director Ryan Moses: 58-40 Me, Guessing Blindly: 58-39 Crainian Insider Anne Michaud: 57-42 Brooklyn Aficionado Bob Liff: 57-40 GOTV Guru Kevin Wardally: 57-40 East Side GOPer Lolita Jackson: 56-42 Hank Aide Dave Vermilion: 56-40 The Conservative Hank Sheinkopf: 54-42 And a Hopeful Rafael Martinez Alequin: 47-50

Rafi brought the "It's Over" New York Post cover to Freddy's "victory party," telling anyone who would listen that he had it ready for Ferrer's Dewey-Defeats-Truman moment.  read more »

Several people also submitted their guesses on the rest of the ballot, and Kevin Wardally did best on that score, predicting a Democratic Council sweep and a Corzine win, calling the ballot measures right, and coming in just a few minutes late on the timing of Freddy's concession speech.

Thanks for playing!

The story just won't die.

Joe Mercurio just emailed out copies of correspondence between him and the Fields campaign. The mid-March emails include .pdfs of the infamous flier, and the correspondence -- from Mercurio to top Fields aides and to Fields' own AOL account -- indicate Virginia could have seen before and after versions (links now work), and that her staff did.

That does not, obviously, necessarily mean she read the email.

In other bad news, Newsday reported today that Donna Brazile is skipping that fundraiser.  read more »

OK, enough.

UPDATE: Well, not quite enough. Fields spokeswoman Kirsten Powers responds: "Virginia Fields does not review drafts of campaign literature in email. As is true with many candidates, she reviews all drafts of campaign literature in hard copy. She was paying Joe Mercurio $15K a month for his political services and this included overseeing the campaign literature process and the use of the photo in question was his decision. She was outraged to learn last week that the photo was doctored with stock images and she made a decision about who was responsible and took action. She never saw the photo before it was doctored. At no point did Mercurio disclose that the photo in the literature had been doctored. His attempts to blame this on other people are shameful and must stop." UPDATE II: Last addition, I'm sure. Mercurio writes to clarify the nature of his business: "Just for the record I was getting 3% each of the total budgets for the primary, the runoff and the general election with a minimum payout of $15,000 a month. There is also a termination clause with payout. If I was getting 15 a month it would mean I would have gotten $7,500 for the runoff. Hardly."

This won't be my last post on today's campaign flap. But I couldn't help noting that someone in the comments section dug this up off Joe Mercurio's Web site:

"Dramatic photography  read more »

"Say goodbye to boring photos of politicians lined up in a row smiling at the camera. We know how to create attention-grabbing action shots and portraits of distinction. We provide the services of one of America's leading political photographers, Lynn Holmes, and our vast collection of dramatic stock photos."

On this piece of Fields literature, Virginia stands amid a racially diverse tableau of citizens. At first glance, she looks like she's leading a press conference.

At second glance, though, it looks like there's been some cutting and pasting involved in getting two asian faces into the picture.  read more »

"It doesn't purport to be a particular event," Fields consultant Joe Mercurio tells us, arguing that the images are actually part of a montage in which Fields appears twice. The art, he said, is meant to convey her inclusive stance.

(via Chris Brodeur)

Hmm, we were always a bit confused about the reports of a non-agression pact between Freddy Ferrer and Virginia Fields.

We were further a bit puzzled when, after news broke that Freddy hadn't been so mad at those Diallo officers after all, Virginia released a sharply-worded rebuttal.

But Joe Mercurio clears it up for us in the Times today:

"Mr. Ferrer and Ms. Fields recently reached an agreement not to attack each other during the primary campaign, but a spokesman for Ms. Fields, Joseph Mercurio, explained that they are allowed to contrast their positions."  read more »

He further explained that if the two candidates meet in person, they will limit themselves to fighting with knives.

Nothing irritates campaign finance reformers like the notion that worthy public financing schemes wind up enriching a large industry of political consultants. So, in their honor, we're listing some of the top earners in the Mayor's race so far.

The Esler Group (Miller): $232,537 (That's for... raising money.) Mirram and Mirram Global, aka Ramirez et al (Ferrer): $94,950 National Political, aka Joe Mercurio (Fields): $69,500 Benenson Strategy Group (Weiner): $21,936  read more »

We're also not sure whether Freddy's getting his $55,000 worth out of a Texas company called Convio, which made this website.