Inspired by the ado over Barack Obama’s use of Deval Patrick’s phrasing, and similar use by Hillary Clinton of at least one Obama phrase, I emailed a few quotable people in New York for them to give them the opportunity to put a catchphrase of their own on the record.
Here they are:
Simcha Felder:
“Do not place unsolicited advertising materials on this property."
Brian Ziff-Levine:
“It’s the undecideds, stupid.”
Joe Mercurio:
“Silence is an incredibly stupid communications strategy. No wait I actually stole that from Frank Luntz.”
Doug Muzzio:
"’If a frog had wings he wouldn’t be bumping his ass on the ground’ (cribbed from my father-in-law, Darrell Saunders)."
Phil Anderson:
"No reform, no raise."
Charles Barron:
“The renter’s rebate. Rock Hackshaw gave me that idea when I was running for mayor in 2005. The next thing I know, Gifford Miller is talking about it, and now, Christine Quinn is."
Bill Cunningham:
“I think most of the phrases associated with me are either too blue for a family newspaper or even a blog, or things that tend to expose a certain, je ne sais quoi, rougher side of my nature. As to poachers, I think it’s too late. Doctoroff referred to Amanda Burden as ‘the velvet hammer,’ a phrase used (by me) years earlier to describe Patti Harris.”
Chris Owens:
"’Inevitable my ass.’ My alternate phrase would be ‘a thinking people is a powerful people.’"
Gatemouth:
“Off-hand, the first thing that comes to mind is Gate’s ‘the Albany Bi-Partisan Iron Triangle‘, and my reference to Clarence Norman and Vito Lopez as ‘Fredo and Sonny.’ And of course, the phrase ‘Joe Bruno Democrats’"
Jasmine Moy:
"The only thing I say that I find my friends stealing is my line that ‘I’m anti inter-borough dating.’ But I’m definitely not the first person to have felt/said that."
