Closing and Losing

Last Friday, on Halloween, we had the closing for the apartment, and New York, that old slut, put on a costume. The apartment gleamed as we walked out the door, with our superintendent Iggy telling us not to be a stranger. The weather was warm and gentle. On the subway, an Hispanic man gave me his seat. When we got out, a Halal food truck vendor smiled at me. During the closing all the lawyers were kind and funny. The new buyer hugged us. Behind this gentle disguise, Manhattan leered, but all I felt was loss.

I had also lost my political womb. In New York, as a thumb-sucking Democrat, all my party needs were taken care of. I closed myself in during the Reagan years, emerged to adore Clinton (who wouldn't have slept with him?), retreated again during the Bush years, and became ecstatic over Obama. But basically, I did nothing active to promote our issues. My friends and I nodded to each other in smug agreement; no discussion needed.

Up here, it is very different. They need me. When I moved to New York 50 years ago, I left 8 very old Democrats in my hometown. And, except for the city of Hudson, the numbers here haven't changed that much. Republicanism is so pervasive that I believe it has now evolved as a genetic mutation north of Westchester, entrenched and reproducible at birth.

So, over the past few months I have forced myself to knock on about 200 Democratic doors and to call hundreds of them in order to generate enthusiasm for three local candidates: Sean Eldridge for Congress; Didi Barrett for Assembly; and my personal favorite Brian Howard for State Senate. Didi was an incumbent and a solid upstater. She's tough and very local and so managed to keep her seat. Brian, a former teacher, principal, and superintendent, would have been terrific for our state, but he was inexperienced and his campaign was drowned out by Congressional urgencies, and he lost. So did Sean.

Midway through the campaign, Sean had a debate with Chris Gibson, his ultimately very victorious opponent, that I watched online. Sean appeared calm, although he betrayed some nerves by continually knocking back water from an endless supply of plastic bottles, setting each one carefully in front of him and then dipping it down somewhere by his feet after he emptied it. His answers were careful, measured, and by the Democratic Book. 

Then, in the middle of the debate, the mediator asked the candidates to rate Obama's job score on a scale of 1 to 10. Gibson, surprisingly, gave the President a six -- generous for his side of the fence. And then Sean spoke: "Well, I guess I'd go lower, 4 or 5." At that moment, I knew we were truly dead. Over the course of the next few days, a number of the Democrats in town, particularly from our most solid base -- those in the African American community -- told us they felt betrayed by Sean's low score. So did I. So did a lot of the other workers. Although we trudged on, we did it with somewhat less enthusiasm.

There are four types of Democrats in the region that form our base: old, brown, eccentric/artistic, and weekenders. That's about it. In town, the local Bangladeshi population was 100% behind us, and so were most of the African Americans, the local artists, writers, and all the men who wear boas and spikey shoes to the supermarket. On my own road, three out of the six Democratic homes, including ours, were owned by weekenders.

As for the aged voters, the responses from many of those whom I called, especially from Olga, 84 years old, suggested to me that a part of this voting population might be straying from the flock. Olga has supported the party all her adult life, but she "wasn't sure she was going to vote Democrat this year " because Fox News seemed to give "a pretty poor picture of Obama and I thought they were pretty balanced. And I voted for him twice." I learned that her beloved husband had recently died, that she had fallen in the bathroom and lay there next to the cat litter box all night long, and it was her belief that shooting every person who tried to cross the border was a simple solution to all our problems. Her best friend, also in her eighties and a Democrat, watched the same balanced news and had also turned on the President. I told Olga she should stop watching Fox News and didn't offer her a ride to the polls. Because we called everyone at least twice, I got Olga again on election night. This time I learned she was having a terrible time with her dentures and couldn't find a dentist who could relieve the pain they were causing. I asked around the headquarters' room for referrals and someone suggested "Nothing but the Tooth", a local practice, but she had used them already and they were unable to help. I commiserated about her teeth but didn't ask if her opinions had changed nor offered a ride to the polls.

During this final desperate weekend, I served haphazardly as the canvassing captain, and was in and out of the local headquarters from 8 AM to 6 PM for the first three days and 8 AM till 11 PM on Election Day. We were only calling our fans, the loyal Dems, but it was still tough. We had hit them so often, and they were getting pounded, as I was, by so many other political calls and emails, that, in the end, I could sense from their growls and desperate responses that they were becoming resentful and even bitter. And I couldn't blame them.

After the election, I kept hearing political experts claiming that one of the reasons we lost was because Obama hadn't communicated his own positive record strongly enough. But why should he? He has to run the country. Communication is what the party strategists are for, the hacks who sent out the 60 daily hysterical, whining, panicking, desperate daily emails, the shrill death throes of the election. I would think that, given their powerful verbal swords, these articulate and professional Democratic marketers could have swash-buckled both supporters and opponents effectively with Obama's important successes and political feats, with his attempts to reduce disparities between rich and poor. But they didn't and neither did many of their candidates, who simply mouthed in ads and in person the same mechanical liberal catch phrases over and over until everyone became tone deaf.

The idea of backing away from Obama was an insane strategy unless the Democrats were hoping to get Olga and her friend to the polls. But for the rest of us, who are in there for the long haul, we really like our President; we think he's done an amazing job in the face of racist, vicious, and stupid opposition. Even if we couldn't win, the best the Dems could have done this season was to embrace Obama, his record, and his efforts to reduce the wealth gaps, and then go with God. Losing would at least have been honorable.

Don't get me wrong. I like Sean a lot. He is earnest, honest, has good ideas and intentions, and his wealth allows him to be independent. However, he didn't stray far from the party pack (I longed for him to produce a spontaneous sentence). Some people complained to me that when he visited local stores and restaurants, he was too distant and he didn't buy anything. Sean also has the disadvantage here of being gay and, worse, perceived as a weekender. He owns a house upstate but, like me, he is still a cidiot, a Manhattan expat. Finally, and fatally, Sean was pitched against a large, genial military veteran, a family man, and an incumbent who personally knows half of the people in the district. In spite of Gibson's generally nasty voting record, he crossed party lines a couple of times so he could claim being a moderate. Therefore, at the end, he took all of the Republican and yanked in some Democratic votes and won.

I would like to see Eldridge run again, but by that time he needs to be rooted, friendly, and entrenched in the lives of his neighbors. And his young smart campaign workers must not be fighting the last war. The intense grassroots grunt work with its multiple hits on well-researched targeted voters that worked so brilliantly for Obama didn't this time. Our targets considered the knowledge we had of their ages, addresses, phone numbers, and voting history invasive. In addition, with the introduction of multiple emails on top of ads, phone calls, and door knocking, the noise became deafening. Certainly during the next race, Sean needs to sit down at Tansy's and have a bowl of her wonderful home made vegetable soup, even if he's already eaten Earth Food's fabulously rich Veggie Supreme for breakfast. And he also needs to find Olga a good dentist. So if Sean wins then, like the fabulous Sally Fields did at the Oscars, he will be able to yell, "You like me. You really, really like me."