Campaign agrees to stop using quote after New York Magazine complains about edited version

BY KARLA SCHUSTER | Newsday Staff Writer

August 4, 2006

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi's campaign for governor agreed yesterday to stop using a New York Magazine quote in its first major mailing, after the publication complained the excerpt was taken out of context.

But the slick brochures, quoting the magazine's profile of him as calling Suozzi "the perfect candidate for governor," have already been mailed to thousands of voters statewide.

The full quote reads: "Meet Tom Suozzi, the perfect candidate for governor of New York in any other year than this," referring to the huge lead Attorney General Eliot Spitzer holds in the Democratic primary.

"We felt the integrity of the story had been corrupted" by the use of the partial quote, said New York Magazine spokeswoman Serena Torrey, a former spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party. "The quote was deliberately shortened to mean something very different from what it meant in the story."

Torrey said the quote suggested the publication was supporting Suozzi, although New York Magazine has a policy of not endorsing political candidates.

While the Suozzi camp agreed to pull the quote, campaign manager Paul Rivera defended its use, saying it fairly represented the profile and denying it was edited to mislead anyone.

"It wasn't for want of other quotes that said good things about Tom that we used this one. We just liked this one," Rivera said. "We believe that Tom Suozzi is the perfect candidate for governor in this or any other year."

Rivera declined to say how many fliers had been mailed, or what they cost to produce. The Suozzi campaign also recently began a series of automated "robo-calls" to voters that refer them to the mailing.

A Spitzer spokeswoman urged the Suozzi campaign to issue new mailings apologizing for the use of the partial quote.

"It's troubling that Mr. Suozzi would knowingly deceive voters with false adverstising," said the spokeswoman, Christine Anderson. "We believe he owes an apology and retraction to ... the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who received this deceptive mailing."