C. Virginia Fields' campaign has been spinning ever since Fliergate. Yesterday, she held an emergency press conference, with real life Asians (as opposed to Photoshopped ones), telling reporters, "By and large, I knew all of [the people in the montage], except the two Asians in there, I don't know them." Fields' new campaign manager is Chinese - Chung Seto, whom Newsday says holds the "highest position" for an Asian in any campaign. Fields' solution to the problematic flier was to blame the company, Winning Direction, and say she'd "withdraw" the mailing, so if you see some people lurking around your mailbox, they might be Fields campaign operatives! One man who was in the flier picture, David Givens, was annoyed and told the Post, "If you're going to put my photo in campaign material, please tell me. I haven't endorsed her." Which brings us to the other Fields problem: She has a "casual" photograph of herself with some firefighters in both the flier and on her website, and it turns out that the Fire Department doesn't allow photographs of firefighters in political campaigns. The FDNY said that even though firefighters might appear in news conferences that are used by political candidates, Deputy Fire Commissioner Francis Gribbon tolds the NY Times, "We don't endorse political candidates or become involved in campaigns in any way. So we would not allow it." Unless it's a politician tugging at the September 11 heartstrings, because Gothamist feels like we've seen a lot of those.
Fields has been trailing Fernando Ferrer in all the polls. The Democratic Primary is September 13. And for some Google Adwords fun, The Politicker points out that now Michael Bloomberg's campaign has outbought his opponents. Shock!
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While it's usually advisable to stay on the good-side of firefighters, particularly if you're campaigning for public office, why does anyone have to obey Fire Department rules on the use of photographs? Clearly, a firefighter wouldn't be allowed to provide pictures to a candidate, but why can't the candidate, using his or her own photographer, have their picture taken with them?
Plainly, Fields isn't violating a rule that applies to firefighters. Moreover, as a government entity, the FDNY rubs up against the first amendment when it comes to restricting this type of activity amongst the general population (e.g., "Asked to assess the campaign's use of the photo, Mr. Gribbon said he thought it was inappropriate. "For the purposes of a political campaign, I would not approve of that photograph," he said.") The NYT headline would seem to have it all wrong when it claims Field's "violated" a Fire Department rule.
Perhaps there is an election law that Fields is bumping up against, but no article has cited it.