While Rumor Of P.J. Kim As Planted Spoiler Persists, Source Becomes Clearer

When P.J. Kim entered Council race in Lower Manhattan in May, rumors immediately began to swirl that he was running at the behest of Council Member Alan Gerson.

The rumor went that after helping Gerson split the Asian-American vote during this year’s Council race, Kim, who had only recently moved to the district, would be allowed to gain a political foothold in the neighborhood.

A lot of evidence since then has contradicted those rumors, starting with the $71,000 Kim raised in the first two weeks of his campaign to his recent endorsement by the New York Times and the fact that the Kim is likely to steal more votes from Gerson than from the Chinese-American candidate in the race, Margaret Chin. Many now believe that Kim could actually win the race, rather than be a spoiler. The Campaign Finance Board's decision on Friday to continue denying Gerson matching funds will likely not help the incumbent.

Nonetheless, those rumors to some degree persist, including at a candidate debate Thursday night in Tribeca when a Chin supporter, Neil Fabricant (a tenant activist, former legislative director at the New York Civil Liberties Union and the man behind both the website BloombergWatch.com and the anti-Bloomberg newspaper called Fed Up New Yorkers, which this week endorsed Chin) raised the issue directly during the portion set aside for questions from the audience.

“Aren’t you really just a spoiler in this race?” Fabricant asked Kim.

Though there is little credible evidence that the rumor is true, there is some evidence concerning who has spread the rumor.

Two people who have heard the rumor say it was first broached to them by Ray Cline, an operative for the Progressive Strategies Group, who works for the Gerson campaign. One willing to go on the record was Michael Oliva, a political consultant not involved with the Council District 1 race. At one of Kim’s first public appearance as a candidate, a Village Reform Independent Democrats candidate night, Cline bragged that he was the one who recruited Kim to run, according to Oliva, who spoke with Cline at the forum.

“He was saying he pulled off a brilliant move to get another Asian into the race,” Oliva said.

Kim’s campaign consultant, Michael Tobman, also said he had heard Cline was spreading the rumor, which he called “ludicrous.”

“It’s an effort on [Cline's] part to deflect attention from P.J.’s serious candidacy and to make people feel as if voting for P.J. is a waste of a vote,” Tobman said. “Instead, the exact opposite is happening, as evidenced by the New York Times endorsement of P.J. It’s professional malpractice and slander his part.”

Cline, for his part, was vague about whether he had spread the rumor about Kim, although he strongly denied that he had recruited Kim to run in the Council District 1 race.

“Some people in this business think I’m smarter than I am,” Cline said. “I’m willing to let them think that.”

What Cline did readily admit was that he had approached a Chinese-American candidate who had “run against Chin before” about running this year, with Cline’s express purpose to steal some of the Chinatown vote from Chin. Cline declined to say who the candidate was, however, citing a need to keep the conversation private. Cline said the unnamed candidate refused his offer.

Rocky Chin, one of two Chinese-Americans who ran against Chin in 2001, said Cline had never specifically asked him to run. Kwong Hui, the other Chinese candidate in the 2001 race, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

During Chin’s three unsuccessful campaigns in Council District 1, she has always been hindered by the presence of other Chinese-Americans on the ballot. So Chin said she was not surprised by Cline’s apparent effort to siphon off some of her Chinatown base.

Kim is of Korean descent.

“They always try to do that,” Chin said. “People think they can split the Asian vote.”

Gerson, meanwhile, acknowledged in an interview Thursday that he had been approached months ago about the idea of recruiting a Chinese-American candidate. But Gerson said he quickly dismissed the idea.

“Several people have suggested that, and it’s one that’s not a totally original idea. It’s not a creative suggestion to me,” Gerson said. “And I totally unequivocally rejected that.”

As for the rumor about Kim, Gerson said he was unaware of any sort of smear campaign launched by his political advisor, though he said he would look into the matter.

“I’m going to have a conversation later this evening with Ray Cline,” Gerson said.

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