How to survive an election: One campaigner’s account

Editor's note: the following is a report From Leader Staff Writer Erik Coler who spent the summer campaigning for a Senate hopeful.

Working on a campaign takes passion. It involves putting in long hours and talking to people by putting yourself out there with a risk of being yelled at and made fun of and at the end of it all you can still lose. That's every campaigner's worst nightmare; you put in hours and hours of work and after all of that time and devotion, your candidate loses. This summer I worked for John Messer, an unheard of candidate for state senate in the 16th district.

The strange thing about the 16th district is that if you look at, it resembles the letter "x" splashed across a map of Queens. The district splits itself into at least 10 different neighborhoods and all of them have their own ethnicity.

If you have ever visited Chinatown in Manhattan, then you would have an idea what Chinatown in Flushing, Queens looks like. In the past, if you were a Chinese immigrant you would move to Manhattan, but Chinatown today is too expensive in the lower income areas. If they cannot make it to Manhattan they move to Queens. The district is made up of a majority of Chinese immigrants and the 2nd largest group is Russian Jews, then Bengali-Americans, then African Americans and Latinos.

Messer's race was a three-runner between incumbent Senator Toby Ann Stavisky; my candidate, John Messer a local leader in the community, and Issac Sasson, a man who won $13 million in the lottery and then decided to run for state Senator. But in a competitive race like this, a candidate wins by the little things, like posters and flyers and showing up at events.  

Campaigning is hard work. My summer routine was to wake up every morning around 9 a.m. to get into the office around 11. The commute involved taking an underground bus service that would shuttle out anyone across the Brooklyn Bridge, racing other cars on the BQE to get to Flushing where the main office was located.

My job was to work with managing canvassing volunteers as an office manager and work with the communications director and field director, bouncing ideas and talking about strategies

One thing you have to realize when coming into a campaign is that people will hate you just because you are standing in their path. When you stand on a street corner handing out pamphlets or going door to door, people will hate you just because you are spending a little of their time talking about politics with them. You will have many negative experiences including times when people ignore you, yell at you, threaten to call the police on you and in the most extreme cases, some will even spit on you.

People will go out of their way to not talk about the simplest of issues involving politics. This has become the sad truth of politics. Our democracy has become a system of uninvolved voters who would rather vote on how a commercial on television or an ad campaign makes them feel rather than an intellectual issue.

During the heat of the election, I noticed that the tricks get dirtier, candidates start making accusations and people begin pulling down other people's poster signs. Campaigns become dirty and focused on winning as opposed to helping the community.

Today, running for a position is about how much money you can spend. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars just to print out flyers and pamphlets to get your name out there, and during the campaign it becomes a nuisance.

What I really learned about campaigns is that there is a lack of trust on both sides. The public do not trust the candidates and the candidates do not trust the public's intellect and will pander to their emotions. This spiral of distrust has ruined the process of voting.

The election is set for September 13, and I hope my hard work from the summer pays off. I promised Messer I would help out in any way, and that is a promise you can take to the bank.