“Business leaders opposing paid sick leave legislation have raised or given nearly $370,000 to the mayoral campaign of the person who has blocked a vote on the bill: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the Daily News has learned. The business leaders were among the 180 people who penned an open letter to Quinn last summer arguing that mandating paid sick leave would be prohibitively costly for small businesses.”

“Hoping become the city’s first openly gay mayor, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn faced a smattering of boos from LGBT groups Wednesday night for her resistance to paid-sick-days legislation — despite a generally enthusiastic reception to her candidacy.”

“Even if Quinn got on her knees and begged forgiveness for the murder of the term limits law, I still regard her as too compromised to become mayor. She is clearly viewed as the frontrunner and many New Yorkers seem downright medicated by the prospect of an openly gay woman as mayor…who cares who the front runner is in March…New York women don’t vote on the basis of gender.”

“Quinn basically had a deal with Bloomberg that he would support her and, as such, is clearly presenting herself now as pro-business, while walking and talking her way across the five boroughs as a populist. Therefore, Quinn has positioned herself uncomfortably over the issues like paid sick leave. The backlash on the sick leave issue has already cost her the support of Cynthia Nixon (one of the stalwarts on marriage equality) and may cost Quinn the support of Gloria Steinem as well, as women are perceived to suffer disproportionately without sick leave reform.”

“No Democrat who was the front-runner for an open seat for New York City mayor at the dawn of the campaign has been elected mayor since 1953.”

“City Council Speaker Christine Quinn might lose the endorsement of the political club that launched her to power…Many Chelsea residents, dissatisfied both with her performance representing their neighborhood and her job as speaker, have joined the [Chelsea Reform Democratic] club in a bid to ensure anyone but Quinn wins its mayoral endorsement.”

“A group of protesters is ramping up efforts to thwart the mayoral hopes of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The fringe anti-Quinn contingent has been active for years, protesting outside her events with colorful placards covered in critical slogans. But as the 2013 election to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg heats up, so, too, has the fervor of those determined to slow front-runner Quinn’s ascent — with members planning a full-fledged counter-campaign.”

“Dozens of prominent liberal New York City rabbis are demanding that 2013 mayoral frontrunner Christine Quinn approve a bill that would require city businesses to provide employees with paid sick days.  ‘The progressive Jewish community, with its deep, longtime narrative of social justice and aggressive fairness, is in no way cemented to Speaker Quinn,’ said Michael Tobman, a New York City-based political consultant.”

“They [Quinnipiac] want us to believe that Quinn, whose only real test so far has been in her Council district of Chelsea and Greenwich Village, is somehow the Democratic front-runner in this entire city. Both Thompson and de Blasio have heard this before.”