by Michael Barbaro

The commercial that changed the course of the mayor's race almost never happened.

Bill de Blasio's campaign team had mused about building an ad around his wife, Chirlane McCray, a telegenic African-American poet, then abandoned the concept.

They then turned to his 15-year-old son, but nothing seemed to go right. The de Blasio family kitchen in Brooklyn was not big enough for the camera crew, so they borrowed a bigger one from a neighbor. The neighbor's kitchen turned out to be too fancy, sending the wrong message for a populist candidate. So a long lens was used to blur out the expensive fixtures.

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Source: The New York Times