Fields Follies

The story just won't die. Joe Mercurio just emailed out copies of correspondence between him and the Fields campaign. The mid-March emails include .pdfs of the infamous flier, and the correspondence -- from Mercurio to top Fields aides and to Fields' own AOL account -- indicate Virginia could have seen before and after versions (links now work), and that her staff did. That does not, obviously, necessarily mean she read the email. In other bad news, Newsday reported today that Donna Brazile is skipping that fundraiser. OK, enough. UPDATE: Well, not quite enough. Fields spokeswoman Kirsten Powers responds: "Virginia Fields does not review drafts of campaign literature in email. As is true with many candidates, she reviews all drafts of campaign literature in hard copy. She was paying Joe Mercurio $15K a month for his political services and this included overseeing the campaign literature process and the use of the photo in question was his decision. She was outraged to learn last week that the photo was doctored with stock images and she made a decision about who was responsible and took action. She never saw the photo before it was doctored. At no point did Mercurio disclose that the photo in the literature had been doctored. His attempts to blame this on other people are shameful and must stop." UPDATE II: Last addition, I'm sure. Mercurio writes to clarify the nature of his business: "Just for the record I was getting 3% each of the total budgets for the primary, the runoff and the general election with a minimum payout of $15,000 a month. There is also a termination clause with payout. If I was getting 15 a month it would mean I would have gotten $7,500 for the runoff. Hardly."