NYC firm helps De Blasio from obscurity to City Hall

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20131028/POLITICS/131029895

Bloomberg) -- As Bill de Blasio weighed a longshot run for New York City mayor, he needed help from people who shared his self-described activist-progressive views. He found it in a political consulting firm, hatched in a Manhattan sublet, where many on the staff are closer in age to his children than to him.

BerlinRosen Public Affairs, the eight-year-old firm founded by Valerie Berlin and Jonathan Rosen, has built a reputation working behind the scenes for Democratic candidates and causes such as paid sick leave, limiting police stop-and-frisk tactics and universal preschool—issues that dominated Mr. de Blasio's message and helped take the 52-year-old from underdog to frontrunner.