RANGEL GIVING NOD TO FIELDS

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RANGEL GIVING NOD TO FIELDS
By FRANKIE EDOZIEN
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April 1, 2005 -- Rep. Charles Rangel, dean of New York's congressional delegation, threw his support yesterday behind the mayoral candidacy of Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields.
Rangel's endorsement came on the heels of a recent poll that shows Fields, the only African-American in the race, gaining on Democratic front-runner Fernando Ferrer.

Rangel had been inching toward Fields for months and, like some other black leaders, was disturbed recently by Ferrer when the former Bronx borough president claimed the police shooting of Amadou Diallo wasn't a crime and that the four cops involved were "over-indicted."

"I could not resist coming here to thank all of you for having the common sense and the knowledge to know that when it comes to candidates for the mayor of this great city, there is no one else with the ability and the experience of C. Virginia Fields," Rangel said at a Fields $250,000 fund-raiser.

Sources told The Post Rangel on Sunday will formally endorse Fields.

Fields told several hundred supporters that she'd "return the mayor's office of New York City to all the citizens of this great city."

Last night, Fields flew down to Atlanta for another fund-raiser, where guests paid between $50 and $1,000 and launched her Web site.

The Fields campaign is moving to portray her as the only candidate with the stature to be mayor, emphasizing her 16 years in government and her civil-rights background.


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FERRER LOSING 'RACE' AGAINST FRESH FIELDS
By DAVID SEIFMAN and FRANKIE EDOZIEN
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FERNANDO FERRER
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March 31, 2005 -- Democratic mayoral front-runner Fernando Ferrer got the bad news he most feared yesterday — black voters are defecting in droves because of his controversial comments about the Amadou Diallo case.
The Quinnipiac University poll found yesterday that Ferrer's lead over C. Virginia Fields — the only African-American candidate in the Democratic primary field — dropped from 26 to 15 points in just three weeks.

More importantly, the former Bronx borough president now leads the four-way race with 36 percent, down from the 40 percent he needs to avert a run-off with the second-place finisher.

Fields, the Manhattan borough president, jumped from 14 to 21 percent, comfortably ahead of Rep. Anthony Weiner (11 percent) and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (10 percent).

"Based on the polls so far, it would suggest it would be a run-off between Freddy Ferrer and myself," said an upbeat Fields.

Ferrer, a vocal critic of NYPD policies during the Giuliani administration, startled black leaders by telling a police group on March 15 that there was an effort to "over-indict" the cops who shot and killed Diallo and that the shooting wasn't a crime.

"That mistake was very valuable [to us] and it isn't completely factored in yet," said Joseph Mercurio, Fields' campaign manager.

"Only 46 percent of voters have heard about [Ferrer's comments on] Diallo — and the ones who have are wildly upset about it. As time goes by, I think more voters are going to have heard about it."

The poll of 1,371 registered voters, conducted March 21-28, found that of the voters aware of Ferrer's remarks, 41 percent are less likely to vote for him. Only 8 percent said they now viewed Ferrer more favorably.

Among blacks, the defection rate was 57 percent.

Some migrated to Mayor Bloomberg, who now has the backing of 30 percent of black voters in a head-to-head match against Ferrer. Three weeks ago, the mayor had 23 percent.

But Bloomberg still trails Ferrer among all voters, 40 to 46 percent, compared to 39-47 percent in the previous poll.

The other beneficiary was Fields, who had never before broken the 20 percent barrier.

"This is a clearly contrasting issue," Mercurio said of Ferrer's Diallo stance. "We have the opposite opinion about that issue that he does. Voters are with us, not him."

Chad Clanton, a Ferrer spokesman, said the campaign is confident that voters "know Fernando Ferrer's record" fighting police abuses and racial profiling.

At least one analyst agreed that Ferrer's political wound was temporary.

"It's early enough that he'll probably recover," said veteran consultant Jerry Skurnik.