The New York Daily News, Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Gov. Cuomo’s publisher is marketing his book to his political backers with help from his campaign. HarperCollins sent out an email Tuesday to Cuomo donors and supporters promoting the book.
And it may have worked. Cuomo’s book jumped from No. 13,886 to No. 4,426 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list by 6 p.m.
Bill Mahoney of the New York Public Interest Research Group complained the campaign list was used “to promote Cuomo’s private business interest.” Mahoney tweeted Tuesday morning that he received an email about the book at an address he set up in 2007 to register for an Eliot Spitzer open house at the governor’s mansion. Mahoney said since then, the state party or whoever the governor has been since then are the only ones still using that e-mail account.HarperCollins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said the publisher bought the list for an undisclosed “market value.”
Mahoney says the email came from the book’s publisher, Harper Collins, raising the likelihood that either the party or the governor’s office turned over their email lists, which could be a no-no even under the state’s notoriously lax campaign finance laws..
“If he’s not reimbursing them, it seems like he would be using the campaign committee’s resources for personal benefit–and that is not permitted by law,” Mahoney said.
Harper Collins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said in an email that the publisher “did rent a list from Governor Cuomo’s campaign for one time use to promote Governor Cuomo’s new book.”
When asked how much the company paid, Andreadis said the publisher bought the list for an undisclosed “market value.”
To date, the purchase has not showed up on Cuomo’s campaign finance filings or those of the state party. The next disclosure date in Friday.
Veteran Democratic consultant political consultant Joseph Mercurio said it’s not uncommon for entities to purchase or rent lists from campaigns for fundraising or commercial use.
“But this kind of thing, when you’re promoting your own book and using your political list to send it out to basically political people, it’s kind of a stretch,” he said, adding it’s even more so being so close to the election.
Another veteran consultant, who asked for anonymity, said different lists go for different prices. A voter list that is not email usually costs around $25 per thousand people on the list. A fundraising list can range from $35 a thousand to $75 a thousand, the consultant said.
Cuomo has taken heat from Republicans, including his gubernatorial challenger, Rob Astorino, for releasing and promoting his book just weeks before the election. They have argued that some of the efforts made on behalf of the book, including an appearance last week on David Letterman’s “The Late Show,” should be considered in-kind contributions.
Astorino has called for Cuomo to release his book contract publicly. Cuomo was paid at least $700,000 to write the book from publisher Harper Collins.
The book has not sold well. A week after its release, it ranked 13,886 on Amazon.com’s best seller list.
Said Astorino spokeswoman Jessica Proud: “Andrew Cuomo is twisting himself into a pretzel to explain all the government and campaign resources he is spending promoting a book for personal enrichment,” O’Reilly said. “Now he is caught giving Harper Collins an email list to try to buoy staggeringly poor book sales. If Harper Collins truly rented the list from Governor Cuomo, let’s see the terms of that rental agreement and the time stamped emails proving when it was coordinated. Mr. Cuomo said he’d be the most transparent governor in history. Here’s an opportunity to show it.”
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