NYC Mayoral Hopeful Blasts Rival's Wife for Remarks About Women Voters

Bill de Blasio's wife suggested Christine Quinn, who doesn't have children, isn't connecting with women voters

New York City mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn says a rival's wife crossed the line in questioning her connection with women voters because she lacks understanding about issues like taking care of children.

Chirlane McCray, the wife of Bill de Blasio, who in a poll last week was tied with Quinn in the Democratic primary for mayor, was quoted in a New York Times column by Maureen Dowd  saying Quinn was not the "kind of person I feel I can go up to and talk about issues like taking care of children at a young age."

The de Blasio campaign later released the audio of the interview, showing McCray had been misquoted. She actually told Dowd: "I don't see her speaking to the concerns of women who have to take care of children at a young age or send them to school and after school ... she is not speaking to any of those issues."

"What can I say?" she went on. "And she is not accessible, she is not the kind of person that I feel that you can go up and talk to and have a conversation with about those things, and I suspect that other women feel the same thing I'm feeling."

The Times corrected the column online.

Quinn, who is married to a woman and does not have children, said in a statement Wednesday that she was deeply offended.

"There are women all across the city who don’t have children for any number of reasons, whether they simply can’t, choose not to or circumstances don’t afford them the possibility ... to criticize me as not understanding what young families go through because I might not have children is over the line and I take great personal offense to the comment, as does my wife," she said.

Quinn noted that both she and her wife lost their mothers when they were teenage girls, and said "the decision to have children is a deep and personal one that we should be afforded the opportunity to make, without aspersion."

She said she has supported McCray and de Blasio's family, which has gotten attention during the campaign for being racially mixed, and for McCray's past history as a lesbian. The couple has two children.

"It's unfortunate that they cannot do the same about mine -- no matter how different it might be from theirs," Quinn said.

The Quinn campaign said after the updated quote that the statement still stands. 

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