Word: campaigning
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Last summer, I worked full-time as a campaign coordinator for a rag-tag bunch of Democrats, led by Zwirn, who are challenging the Republican leadership in my town, the town of North Hempstead. Having been involved in local Democratic politics for many years, I had become accustomed to the casual nature with which we all treated the futility of our efforts. But this summer, that futility hit home...
Running the campaign for Zwirn and his slate of two town council candidate, one candidate for town clerk, and one woman who was purportedly running for district court judge but refused to campaign, I realized that the vicious Republican cycle is also perpetuated by the quality of candidates the Democrats...
Zwirm acted neurotically and would pander to almost any group, no matter how politically repulsive. One of the council candidates was a Republican whom we nominated "for balance," taking the nomination away from an intelligent, articulate Democrat who could have run a much better campaign. The other council candidate was the hardest worker of the bunch. A liberal college professor, he is probably the only one on the slate with a chance...
Partially because the candidates were Democrats, and partly because I am an eternal optimist, I took the job running this campaign. I produced seven coherent strategies for candidates to walk through key neighborhoods. I produced several plans for candidates to greet commuters at railroad stations. I made repeated pleas for candidates to communicate with each other. All were ignored...
...before I left for Harvard, I put together a make-shift campaign headquarters on a shoestring budget with no telephones. It represented one of the only contributions the Democratic organization would let me make to a backward, lethargic campaign. Democrats had gotten so comfortable with idea of doing nothing and losing comfortably that they were completely surprised by the idea of an active (maybe even winning) campaign...