Why I ran, and what I learned
Under our winner-take-all voting system, the vast majority of candidates who ran for local offices this year ended up losing. A few of them, bitten by the politics bug, are already making plans to run again. Twenty summers ago, I was one of them. Back in 1997, a combination of ego, energy, ambition and a desire to fix neighborhood problems led me to set up a campaign to unseat then-councilwoman Mary Pinkett, who’d been in office 23 years. I challenged her in the Democratic primary, the race that really counted, and also appeared on the Green Party line in November.
I volunteered on a bunch of local and national races before and after 1997, but none was as fun and fulfilling as that doomed council effort. It was a heady mix of doorknocking, fundraising cocktail parties and endless strategizing while hunched over district maps and turnout statistics.
I met a startlingly broad variety of people along the way, picking up endorsements from the New York Times, the Amsterdam News, the terse union bosses at Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers and the Crown Heights-based publisher of a Yiddish-language newspaper, Der Algemeiner Journal.
More importantly, I met tons of neighbors who became campaign workers and volunteers. Some were lawyers, some were landlords, some lived in public housing and at least two were homeless — a young couple squatting in an abandoned factory.
Nearly every local Democratic politician endorsed me, including my assemblyman, state senator and congressman (Roger Green, Velmanette Montgomery and Major Owens, respectively), partly out of a desire to settle old scores with Pinkett.
The Democratic county leader, Clarence Norman Jr., wanted nothing to do with me: I’d done political chores for years, but he more or less threw me out of his office when I told him I planned to run.
No big deal: Some of the city’s wisest and most experienced mentors showed me the ropes and kept the organization from beating up on me too badly. My chief protectors were Montgomery and former Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch, the legendary political wizard who steered David Dinkins to Gracie Mansion.
Incumbency carried the day as it nearly always does; Pinkett won re-election — her last, as it turned out — with 52% of the primary vote. I finished second with about 30%, and the balance went to another first-time candidate, James Davis, who later became a friend and won the seat.
Twenty years is a long time in politics, and many of the people from that 1997 race are gone.
Pinkett died in 2003, and Davis was assassinated at City Hall that same year by a political rival. My campaign attorney, the great Paul Wooten, is now a judge, and one of my campaign strategists, Michael Oliva, has gone on to win long-shot races all over the city.
In 2001, when the seat I’d chased was finally open thanks to term limits, I decided that running for office wasn’t a good fit.
Some of my considerations were personal: The time demands on a candidate — which get even more grueling once you’re a public official — are a punishing mix of early morning meetings, hours-long hearings and evening events.
And public officials are beholden to the wishes and whims of voters, who can be demanding, painfully parochial or flat-out wrong about key issues.
I’m glad to debate issues all day and night, and as a journalist I’m comfortable telling almost anybody that their facts or philosophy are inconsistent, short-sighted or even foolish. Much of that freedom to speak freely vanishes when you’re arguing with people who are your employer.
I have often seen politicians turn 180 degrees on issues in order to stay in sync with voters. That’s great for democracy, but I reluctantly had to conclude that others are better suited than me to the quintessentially political task of sensing the direction of a parade and racing to get in front.
There was also a serious money issue at stake: Even before the current wave of gentrification hit my Crown Heights neighborhood, it was clear that American-dream financial goals like owning a brownstone would be difficult, if not impossible, on the salary of a public official.
Even though I decided politics wasn’t for me, I’m hoping that our latest crop of first-time candidates includes people who intend to stick with it. Thanks to term limits, a lot of city offices will open up in 2021 — enough time for newcomers to decide if this year’s experiences represent the start of something great.