Local color, Part 2 of 7: Lesson from the 1994 campaign, and the 1995 campaign, which had success and set up conditions for 1996

(“Local color” is the category for stories about local matters that may certainly appeal to local people who read this blog, but not necessarily to a wider audience.)

Subsections below:

First, a word (or two) on Dr. John T. Whiting

Who paid Whiting?

In 1995: The Dem party club versus a campaign group

The club in 1995 yields the ground to the determined, ad hoc campaign group

Burrell wins in 1995; and possible reasons why

The issue of funding these small campaigns

Relevant to all three campaigns: The different methods of getting the message out

[This entry was a bit exhausting to put together, but it should—with Part 1—be a good prelude for Part 3, on the 1996 campaign, which I will be slower to put together. Edits 9/21/13. Edits 9/23/13. More edits 9/25/13. More edits 9/28/13. Edits 9/30/13. Another edit 10/4/13.]

First, a word (or two) on Dr. John T. Whiting

I mentioned Dr. Whiting in Part 1 of this series. He worked with the 1994 Vernon Democrats as a consultant, and was actually paid for his effort. None of the rest of us was paid, as made sense. Who paid him? I’ll come back to that later.

He mainly appeared at meetings of the Dem campaign group that gathered in Dick Conklin’s garage. There were also some photo-op situations he appeared in, such as a photo shoot of the candidates at such a venue as Someplace Special (the high-end food store that no longer exists); as I recall, Whiting and another (?) took a set of photos for a press-release kit to be sent to local newspapers. [See entry of September 23 with footnotes to this Part 2.] But it was his efforts at being a sort of management consultant, who aimed to get us to work like some kind of scientifically tailored group, that was his biggest role with us, and to me this caused far and away the most problems.

The one scandalous thing (relatively speaking) that he did was formulate a campaign flier that listed a slew of local townspeople, many or all of whom had been active in Vernon politics at one point or another, purporting to back the Democratic candidates. This list significantly included Republicans as well as Democrats. This latter feature putatively accorded with the actual fact that the Republican mayor, Marianne Reilly, backed us, while the Democrat Chuck Reinhardt backed the two Republicans running, Anderson and Kadish. But the flier was a fabrication, or at the very least an intriguing idea not properly followed up with seeking permissions from its supposed participants.

Whiting spoke about it in one of the last group meetings in Dick’s garage that he “chaired,” and he referred to the flier approvingly as “neat.” By that point, the group by and large wasn’t paying much attention to him, as he had generally been addressing us like a sort of schoolmaster [or a teaching consultant--not so condescending as a schoolmaster]. He was in a party of one over that flier. And the problem was, he didn’t consult with any of the people listed on it as to whether they consented to being on it. It even had their phone numbers, as I recall (I have a draft of it).

When he mailed it out, this led to enough offense on the parts of some of the people on it that it, I believe, was the focus of one or more newspaper stories. To me, it was a foolish move.

The issue of the names being listed on the flier was mentioned in an article by Skoder that appeared in the November 11, 1994, issue of the short-lived Highland Times. For earlier reference in my blog to this, see this entry from last November, starting under the subhead “The issue of a campaign flier….” That entry also refers to a letter signed by Patricia Dros, who had been on the Board of Ethics, that appeared in the November 18, 1994, issue of that paper. The issue of the phone-calling bank that emanated out of the Great Gorge Village, which she remarked on in 1994, is talked about briefly at the end of this entry, under the subhead “Phone calling (phone banks).”

##

The thing that annoyed me the most about Dr. Whiting is that he operated on the assumption that if we campaign volunteers worked per a very rigorous organizational method, we could be assured of efficiently hauling in the votes for our candidates. Thus, he had charts made up, specialized sets of charts per voting district; these charts spelled out a sort of hierarchical structure to be filled by one head campaign operative, and then a more hands-on person (a pseudo-lieutenant) beneath that leader, and under the hands-on person would be a slew of underworkers who would man the phones, calling local residents (working the lists that came from the Board of Elections) to get out and vote, and offering rides to those who needed them, etc.

Aside from how unrealistic this may seem (on an intuitive level) in a township that was much more reachable by mass-media means—and that includes newspaper ads, mailings, and radio ads—the actual unrealistic quality of this came out in just how I tried to implement it. I would give it a shot, to be a good sport, despite my skepticism. So I had my charts for my voting district. Craig Williams, a local township resident—who I don’t think was living in my voting district at the time (but maybe once had)—was my supervisor for my district. I was supposed to get a slew of people underneath me, doing the grunt work. Except I didn’t know anyone in my district who would do this (either be able to or want to). So I started doing all the phone-calling myself. [See Footnote entry of September 23.]

By the way, certain campaign methods that were old-hat in older suburbs, or even in the city, were brought up in conversation by some of our volunteers—“Oh, yeah, you need a bank of people doing phone calls; and you might have to ask if anyone needs rides to the polls.” It was old hands at city-area Dem campaign work who uttered such remarks, in a sort of passing academic fashion, like old-time dogma, but they wouldn’t necessarily be quick to do this grunt work themselves. I, who was new to this kind of work, was skeptical it was really relevant to Vernon, but—following grudgingly the “management” Dr. Whiting was giving us—I would give the phone-calling aspect a try.

By the way, it was typical of his method that he would specify certain number goals for each district’s supposed bank of workers to shoot for, to get voters to the polls. So it wasn’t bad enough that he could stipulate that we have a hierarchy of avid workers (whom it was a pipe dream to get), but specific numbers, as opposed to any particularly appealing message, were key to his prescribed method.

Fortunately, there were few enough registered Dems in my district that it was almost realistic for me to do all the phone-calling, for which I think I formulated what was a workable script for me. I think I got to about 50 or 55 (of the 200+, whatever the total was). I found very quickly that when I asked whether the recipient of the call needed a ride to the polls, I got a rather short laugh. Thus I knew quickly enough: that was a stupid question. Don’t be stupid bringing old-time campaign ideas like that in Vernon. This wasn’t an area where, as may have been the case in the 1950s or so, you needed to see if an old-timer needed a car ride to the polls. People would get to the polls if they were inclined to go, period. People here are that self-reliant. So drop the stupid “ride?” question—that was one empirically-based wise move I made in this situation. [See Footnote entry of September 23.]

(I was also being practical in this way because, in later 1994, I was working full-time at a temp job at MetLife’s pensions and annuities division in East Hanover, an hour-plus from home. This was a 13-month job I had in the wake of having worked at CPG in 1993-94. This left me with doing Democrat-calling in the evenings, and probably not whole-heartedly.)

To show how absurd Dr. Whiting’s organization-chart method was, when I slowly trudged through my phone-calling and got to about 50, I told my supposed supervisor, Mr. Williams, about what my progress was [update on figures: see Footnote entry of September 23], and he seemed rather nonplussed at (1) my being the only one doing the work in my district, rather as if it was my own hard-to-understand fault this was going on, and (2) that I had only gotten through 50 names. And it rather shocked me that he could so high-handedly be disappointed in my situation—what did he think his “supervisor” status mean, that he would lounge in the executive suite, smoking cigars, and let peons like me do all the dog work? In fact, I don’t know that he did anything substantive as my supposed district “director,” or whatever Whiting’s label for Williams’ position was. I know Mr. Williams is smarter than to be so presumptuous, and I wouldn’t have thought he would be so naïve that he could accept all of Dr. Whiting’s methods on their face and, a priori, think they would work and be suitable for our town, let alone expect that they would actually work in practice. (By the way, last I heard, Williams had been chair of the Environmental Commission in town and had resigned from this not too long ago.)

I think as the short few weeks before Election Day went on, I—and whoever else made a college try at working Dr. Whiting’s armchair methods—quickly enough accepted the pleasing fact that his methods were no longer to be embraced, because they didn’t really work; and putting the real “pedal to the metal” of the race entailed more Vernon-appropriate activity in the last two or three weeks, when the most effective work of the campaign was in handing out (and mailing) fliers, already-posted signs on the roadsides, and especially the radio ads, whether or not some average consumers were simply turned off by them.

I still have papers John Whiting handed out in line with his PR-consultant way of “leading” us—while the real practical leaders, Burrell and Bravenboer, and Dick Conklin and Dan Borstad and Chris Rohde and maybe a few others, huddled in the strategy meetings for determining what went into the final media blitz, especially the radio ads, to really try to clinch our hold on voters. Dr. Whiting was not at all a part of this, as far as I knew, or if he was, he probably gave little substantive or effective help.

So when I look at his November 1994 letter that came after the election, where he sums up how we delivered X number of votes (while this wasn’t enough to win), I feel this was the capstone of a campaign technique that, clearly for Vernon, was almost delusional in how unapt it was to really square with what was needed in town. However, his fussily numbers-based approach, shown even in his last letter, seemed like it was ultimately more tailored to presenting a “final report” to whoever bankrolled his work—so he could thereby eminently qualify for his big paycheck—than it fit the realities of Vernon.

I could make a passing remark on the more general issue of employers trying to influence elections. I remember that in the 1980s and/or 1990s, Great American Recreation would try to influence the makeup of the township committee by making a big effort to get local people registered to vote, and this could happen among its employees (I remember my mother talking about this; and whether GAR actually recommended particular candidates for them to vote for, I don’t know). Aside from the question of whether it could be said that GAR tried to influence the Dems’ performance in 1994 through Whiting—certainly the attempt to do so is suggestive enough from what I’m saying—I quickly point out a few things: first, that Whiting’s efforts were largely futile, and that certainly Chris Rohde, Jerry S., Mary Harrington, and others I’ll mention, who were avid members of the Dem group, never felt they were in any sense “working for GAR or Mulvihill.” Further, I was—as I still am—enough offended at the idea that any employer could or should influence its employees’ voting behaviors that I was very much opposed to this idea when MetLife, where I was working in later 1994, tried to gets its employees (of which I was not technically one, as a temp) to contact their congressmen to inveigh against the Clinton health-care plan. For myself, no employer will tell me how to vote on anything; that is un-American.

Who paid Whiting?

At one point, when in (probably) November 1994 Dan Borstad was enough in my confidence, I asked him who had paid Dr. Whiting—who by that point numerous of us more-entrenched Dem volunteers (like Chris Rohde) looked at askance, if not with solid derision. I asked, was it Gene Mulvihill? Dan did say it wasn’t Mulvihill, but he wouldn’t say who actually paid him. I have not known since.

Whiting’s efforts were regarded as quixotic and ineffective enough that he was definitely not a part of our group in 1995, when we actually did get a candidate to win. I also seem to recall speaking, when Dick and Dan could well hear this, that I didn’t think one among us should be paid for our efforts. I remember definitely being resentful at Whiting’s position in the group, presumptuously trying to lead us, while all of us volunteers were unpaid and, as with me at least, had paid work we did that limited how much we could do the impractically outlined work the likes of Whiting drew up for us. It would be clear that, in 1995, when Dick and Dan used a consultant (a Dan Horuzy, for producing print ads) for a much more specific purpose, the person would be paid, but only as an outside consultant, not someone presuming to lead the group as Whiting had been in 1994.

I say all this because I would have Chris Rohde produce print ads for the Kraus & Crotty campaign in 1996, and Dick in 1996 registered some irritation with me over this, saying at one point that as a “volunteer,” Chris shouldn’t have been paid. This was ridiculous, because Chris was being employed by me as a consultant. She did not have the leaderly or other hands-on status that the most central volunteers typically did in the Dem group. More on the matter when I get to 1996.

Next is talk of 1995, which in retrospect is an important transition between the splendid spontaneous stuff of 1994 and the more anticlimactic, yet still very interesting, stuff of 1996.

In 1995: The Dem party club versus a campaign group

It’s important to note that the mid-1990s Vernon Democrats in their activities had two profiles: (1) campaigns that seemed to make an impression, if not also producing a winning candidate, from 1994 through 1996, but also (2) a club that was a focus of interest among its members for well over a year.

The club started in January 1995 (or so) almost as spontaneously as did the campaign that coalesced, mixing people from a variety of backgrounds, in fall 1994. We didn’t just meet in Dick Conklin’s house and wonder, “What do we do next?” The idea took hold among several to get going on “next steps” without much debate, and with the more enthusiasm and speed, the better. Dick, of course, was a key motivator to this, but others’ agreement was essential too. So we started a club, complete with bylaws and incorporation, that winter, and the idea to start getting people to run for county committee took hold about that fast. I myself was not only listed as a trustee for the corporate papers (six were needed for our nonprofit corporation, I believe), but I was made the secretary of the club (nominally an officer role), whose officers would lead meetings on a monthly basis (at least to start). (As secretary, of the type I was ostensibly made, you would normally be an officer of a kind; but actually I functioned as a recording secretary, in charge of taking minutes and other such things, and I didn’t really mind this. After a while I kept tapes of the business meetings in order to both participate and have a basis for minutes; I believe I still have the tapes, which run from early 1995 through sometime in 1996.)

Chris Rohde, of course, took the reins of the newsletter, not only writing and editing it, but setting up a means to print it. It was mass-mailed to registered Democrats in town and whoever else got on our mailing list, I believe. (Here is a copy of the first page of the first newsletter, so you get a taste of these monthly publications, which I think ended in late 1995.)

Because on the national level the Republicans, under Newt Gingrich, were starting their “Contract With America” in a kind of opposition to President Clinton’s agenda, Chris focused a lot of her earlier issues of the newsletter on national politics. For instance, her pillorying the Gingrich agenda as a “contract on America” was one obvious joke to incorporate in her entertaining material in the newsletter. I think it was generally assumed that, as the fall and campaign time approached, the newsletter would narrow its focus to more local (largely township) politics, from its initial national optic.

I remember there was some talk, sometime within 1995, and definitely between me and Chris at one point, of the purpose of the monthly-meeting club versus what happened in the fall. There actually were a range of viewpoints on what the club was about. I think Dick (and Dan Borstad, implicitly at least) felt the club was a ready “machine” for such campaign-directed activities as fundraising events in the summer (funds being designated for that fall’s campaign) and for hands that could help stuff envelopes, hand out leaflets, and so on during the hot-and-heavy campaign period.

Certain people, like Mary Harrington, weren’t so keen on the club being as focused as it was on local politics; in fact, she voiced her distaste for this (particularly the talk during meetings about local politics), which I found a little absurd, because why else had the club started? For one, it had started as an outgrowth of the 1994 campaign, which itself was entirely aimed toward getting candidates elected. Mary for her part liked the idea of the club as a sort of social framework, a chance to get out and talk. I remember one time she suggested we could have a “line dancing” event, for no other reason than for socializing. I don’t think anyone else was interested in this, hence it didn’t happen.

And one time she took me to task, rather surprisingly to me, for tape-recording our business meetings. I explained that this was so I could do minutes, and also participate (I couldn’t take close notes and take part in discussions at the same time). She seemed to back down, but I was rather surprised at her attitude. (In fact, the tapes show so much mere gossip was done during meetings that actually it could sometimes be hard to glean from them minutes that actually made us look like a serious political group.) But when campaign time came around, Mary was as ready as anyone else to hand out leaflets rather as she had done, I’m pretty sure, in fall 1994.

Various people from different backgrounds, usually sympathetic to us, would come to meetings and see how we carried on. I think some initial skeptics were impressed.

This was true while also, as I’ve conveyed with some old-time Dems’ ideas about campaigning methods that weren’t relevant to Vernon, and with Mary’s distaste for politics, there was a certain mismatch between the tendencies and preferences of some of us with the realities we faced in town. I submit that this showed what a spontaneous, healthy-compromise group it was, where despite how tooled we were to local realities, we could still pitch in with what was needed at campaign time. Even if I seem kind of crabbily second-guessing in this blog entry at times, I was a “fellow who played well with others” among the Dems in 1994-96. (This though skepticism about Dr. Whiting was right on the money then, as it is now, and not just on my part.)

On a more valid point of curiosity at the time: I remember, when talking with Chris Rohde, using the term “standing army” to describe our club, with its regular meetings and rigorous newsletter, when pondering how this club would phase into the 1995 campaign. Though I very enthusiastically did my tasks within the club, and looking over the longer term later, I rather preferred it to some of the campaign stuff, I was puzzled as to how this standing army, which seemed so religiously maintained during 1995, would end up interrelating with the campaign activity, because I knew this had a whole different texture and organization from the club. (Meanwhile, I still attended township-government meetings as I had done before, ostensibly as a member of the public, though one or more of the club’s Dems, who never went to those meetings, thought or presumed I was the club’s “eyes” at those meetings. Once or twice, I had some practical role to play as these “eyes,” but that was not my main reason for attending the township meetings.)

The club in 1995 yields the ground to the determined, ad hoc campaign group

Long story short, when fall 1995 rolled around—and this time our candidates for two TC seats were, again, Howard Burrell and, running for the fourth time, Dick Conklin—a campaign-specific group did solidify, and the tenor it had was different from 1994’s. There definitely was an air about it as if it would do its most seminal campaign things while keeping its cards close to its vest (though whether it was trying to keep things secret or aloof to us other club members, I don’t know; I don’t think it was necessary). And, most especially, the campaign-specific group would do things to make sure it didn’t lose this time around.

In a development that surprised me as much as it happened behind closed doors (I wasn’t around when it happened), Chris Rohde was summarily barred from taking part in the campaign inner sanctum—meaning, largely for her, writing campaign literature. She had done this in 1994, and while her 1994 flier wordage and other such stuff used rhetoric that was a bit strong and tendentious at times (e.g., rather amusingly, one item on a 1994 flier said the Republicans “[had] the long knife out for our schools,” which realistically is never really true in any municipal election in Vernon), I think it worked well enough in the 1994 context, where the newness of our group and the sheer enthusiasm seemed to make up for certain lacks it had, such as in passing suitability of some of the wordage. (Skoder, for her part, writing in The Highland Times, criticized the type of campaign rhetoric we used in 1994, and on some aspects, I don’t think she was entirely wrong. See this 2012 blog entry for quotes from her.)

What was even more surprising is that Chris had authored the newsletter throughout 1995, and as should have been an obvious assumption, if it needed tweaking in terms of rhetoric or specific points, Dick or whoever else could always request this. In short, by virtue of how it ended up going out, it had apparently been satisfactory enough to club leaders. Now, suddenly, Chris was out as campaign literature-writer. And apparently it had not been a subtle ouster; as she told me later, she was told in effect, “You know nothing!” I don’t know who pressed this point; certainly Howard Burrell was not the type to do it.

I mention this “dirty laundry” because it will be significant background for some decision I made in the 1996 campaign.

Ironically, for all the sudden rejection of Chris’s campaigning style, one move was made in fall 1995 that equally incensed her, and I don’t really blame her on this: a man named Paul Horuzy, now deceased, who I believe ran a PR firm in Ogdensburg (I think), was employed—and paid—by the 1995 Dem campaign to produce campaign materials, I think mainly mailed fliers and such. He had at hand wordage that Chris Rohde had actually written—apparently she had already submitted it to the campaign group—and adapted this to a more average type of campaign advertisement he designed. She criticized his derivative approach as “boilerplate crapola.”

Chris was bitter and, obviously, gone from the scene during the 1995 fall campaign. (But she would return…hold on for that…. [Update 9/30/13: See Part 5 on this.])

I remember the 1995 campaign as somehow being more closed and ruthlessly efficient than the 1994 campaign. Again, as in 1994, I helped hand out leaflets at post offices and the like, and helped, I believe, with putting together mailings. As an aspect I will look at more with the 1996 story, we had a few newly emerging temporary (enthusiasm-motivated) helpers in 1995 who weren’t there in 1994, and vice versa. And as was essential to any such campaign, the biggest investment in money, and the biggest media blitz, was the radio ads that ran the last week or two. As I recall, all the most central administrative meetings that focused on this stuff, I was not part of.

Meanwhile, I believe the club had some meetings in fall 1995, but it was largely semi-dormant—one meeting was largely to stuff envelopes and do other campaign “yeoman’s work” (the campaign-specific “purpose” of the standing-army club)—and generally I have a memory of the 1995 of my having only peripheral roles in the campaign itself, and this had a busy, determined way of carrying on.

Burrell wins in 1995; and possible reasons why

With Election Day, our candidate Howard won. Dick did not, which quite disappointed him (this would be the last time Dick ran for TC). On the Republican side, Ralph Carnesecchi won, and it became a bubbly news item that Howard and Ralph, though from different parties, would work together as new members of the TC for 1996 [see Footnote entry of September 23, including election figures and referring to an article on Carnesecchi's attitude]. This was posed, I believe, along the lines of their having the mutual affinity of executive types who were newly taking their government seats, while their enthusiasm for their government roles bridged party differences, or some such thing.

If you asked me how essential (1) our rigorous Democratic club and (2) its tough ad hoc campaign group were to Howard’s winning, I think the two did have a role. But it also goes to show how, for the Democrats in Vernon Township—as for the party in much of Sussex County—it took a party group that went into a bit of overkill with all its year of activities in order to produce a winning candidate, while the Republicans, because they were so much more accepted on a folk-culture level, could afford to do less (or do less intense). I think it’s also true that our group, having made an initial impressive splash in fall 1994, and with its steady business in 1995, must have impressed a lot of voters who could be swayed to vote Democratic on occasion, with the result that we could float a winner in the likes of Howard.

I have long also thought—and this may be a more significant reason than the nature or capability or prestige of our club—that Howard’s being a charismatic man played a highly important role in his winning.

For one thing, results in township races have shown, over many years, that a fair number of people vote based on an individual’s qualifications. People don’t all simply vote along party lines. We see this in two Republicans in one race for two seats getting different amounts of votes, and two Democrats in one race for two seats getting different amounts. This would also be true, importantly, in the 1996 Vernon TC race, where one of our Dem candidates actually got more votes than one of the Republicans running (though that person was running as one of two Independents, while there were also two regularly labeled Republicans running—it was a three-“party” race in 1996, of two “business Republicans,” two Democrats, and two “Independents” who were men who either had previously [or would normally] run as Republicans; more on this situation in a future entry).

But Howard always impressed people as a natural leader. I would even encounter someone from my township in the much different support-group milieu in 2001-03 (based to a large extent in the county seat of Newton) who could speak about Howard in line with this (before she even knew I had been involved with Howard’s Vernon TC campaigns).

I think that it may come down to this, for some people in town (and I put this this way in line with how I’ve known this town for decades): these people would assess that “He’s an educated, well-spoken man, in an executive role (he was a sales exec for an acrylics manufacturer for years)—so that, as a Black man, he must be something special when running for office: thus, let’s give him a chance.” I can think of no better way than to explain how, for a swath of voters, he got elected as the first Black TC member in Vernon’s history. And I don’t say this with contempt for these voting people, but just based on knowing how the town is. And I am proud to have been part of this. If this was what it took to get a Black man voted on TC, so be it.

In fact, I think this reasoning among some voters goes without saying; what I am unclear about is whether it—along with some voting for him on a less racially-indexed basis—made up the majority of people who voted for him in 1995, rather than our party group also helping “seal the deal.”

I will offer a couple little anecdotes to show the realities here: once, when I saw Howard appearing in a greet-the-public situation, I saw a local Black man, an unpretentious sort (whom I didn’t know)—who probably knew from long experience to (generally through his life) keep his head down—give an approving, somewhat shy wave to the more “big personality” Howard, as if the Black man was signaling his approval of Howard’s doing (presumably for their race) what he was. I was touched by this sight.

A less complimentary situation was when Mark Hartman, a local news reporter, was speaking on Howard’s behalf (Mark had an unusual ad hoc position at the time of being a news reporter who was also advocating for Howard to an extent—maybe he had resigned from his paper by that point), finishing up some spiel he was giving with a creative allusion to a common enough expression: “You the man, Howard!” Someone (a white person) nearby, from a generation old enough not to use that kind of expression—though this man ostensibly was there in support of Howard—said, “Yeah, they use that kind of expression, don’t they?” or some such thing (said low and among a select group, of course). [Update 9/28/13: Now that I've thought about it, I think this "You the man" thing happened during Howard's run for the county Board of Chosen Freeholders in 1999, and the white person who responded to this as I said may not have been a Vernon Township resident. But the other race-related stuff I recount here was during the mid-1990s Vernon campaigns.] [Update 9/25/13, 9/28/13: There were a few other racist remarks that I heard in 1995 and maybe in 1994, which I won't report here; you'd be surprised to know whom they came from in the Vernon context.] As if remarking on the Black provenance Mark Hartman’s use of a Black-style expression in acceptable enough form regarding Howard. I thought this was a provincial thing for the white man to say.

Anyway, the writer in me brings up these anecdotes.

[Update 9/25/13: Another line of analysis for why Howard won--not that his winning wasn't generally deserved--would concern the tremendous amount of money that was pumped into radio ads for the campaign in 1995. The topic of radio-ad costs will be covered in a future entry in this series.]  

In any event, the end result of politics is often what is most valid; the process it takes to get there can be of decidedly mixed quality.

##

Anyway, that’s a thumbnail sketch of how the 1994 and 1995 Dem campaigns (and the standing club) did their thing. A lot of this is important to understand how the 1996 political year for us unfolded.

The issue of funding these small campaigns

I almost forgot, in first drafting this, a key aspect of our functioning, in 1995 and 1996. This helps show why it was a major advance for our club, in early 1995, not only to incorporate on the Vernon level but for our members to become part of the duly elected body of the county Democratic committee, with a chairman elected via bylaws. It’s probable a lot of the following was behind Dick’s rationale for having the county committee aspect rigorously set up.

Funding of campaigns, on whatever level in this country, is a flashpoint of controversy, and not least because of the Citizens United Supreme Court case of 2010. In fact, there is so much more ire on the part of the public today, whether they are ill-informed on specific points or not, related to campaign funding, that this issue alone would tend to keep me from getting up to my neck in campaign activity today to the extent I did in the mid-1990s.

This also relates to the concept of “pay to play,” which is a flashpoint of attention in New Jersey—covered avidly by statewide news entities as well as providing a focus of criticism for whoever wants to deplore politics in the state. As it happens, the 1996 Vernon TC campaign, when I will write about it, provides an interesting example of this, for you to see to what extent there was something ethically or legally questionable about it (then or in the abstract, through the years). My personal opinion is that we didn’t do anything unethical or illegal in this regard in 1996 (and the relatively insular Vernon Dem campaign group in 1995 probably didn’t, either). I was also somewhat naïve about potential controversy of the funding at the time, but…my 1996 story will show to what extent I know what I’m talking about.

When the 1995 county committee was up and running, its chair became Charlie Cart. One big selling point of him, as Dick used to say (and to my knowledge, Dick is not a corrupt person in such matters), is that Charlie was good at raising money for campaigns. Charlie, to the extent I know about him (which isn’t a lot), was a union operative; he worked at an office of the AFL-CIO (and the SEIU [Update 9/25/13: The full set of acronyms, indeed the name on the door of his office suite in those days, was "IIAWU SEIU AFL CIO CLC, Local 16."]) that was in Newton, N.J. Also, within the past decade (to my recollection), he got in trouble with the state, I think it was (or maybe the federal government), for running an allegedly fraudulent union, or such. As far as I knew from the news reports, he helmed a group health-insurance-related organization…and I won’t go any further into this, because I don’t have the details at hand.

The bottom line is, in the mid-1990s, I was not aware of him doing anything illegal in his paid (non-political) work, and I generally found him to be a very friendly guy and generous (in line with a sort of political enthusiasm) in his way of supporting Democratic causes. I don’t say this out of being pro-union, because I am not. I am not a very union-friendly guy; while this may make me an atypical Democrat for New Jersey, I have almost never had reason to rely on unions at any point in my dense career, and in the abstract, I don’t generally look too highly on unions (though my mother is more old-time anti-union in the way of old-line Republicans, and I don’t think as I do about unions because of her). Still, Charlie Cart’s role as a sort of funds-acquirer for Democratic groups in Sussex County was essential in the mid-1990s, and he was quite a warm personality to deal with along these lines. In light of this, I think it is a small tragedy he got in the legal trouble he later did. [Anyone with information to correct my “record” here can contact me at the e-mail address I’ve provided in other contexts. Probably, anyone willing to contact me with relevant info already has, or can get, this address.]

I wouldn’t say all this if it wasn’t for the fact that funds Charlie Cart raised—thousands—were key to the 1996 Vernon Dem race, and I believe these were key to the 1995 race too (in a way in which he wasn’t key in 1994, because that was before the county committee was set up).  

Relevant to all three campaigns: The different methods of getting the message out

Let me move as quickly as I can at a look at the different campaign methods, which were (nearly all) used in all of the 1994-96 campaigns.

There are different methods, which are fairly standard throughout the country (though some are obviously supplanted by the Internet today):

Handing out leaflets—This is easy and relatively cheap to do. I always liked getting out to post offices and A&Ps and such to hand out leaflets. I used to have a spirit and toughness for this. Don’t know if I’d fare so well today.

Mass mailings—A similar tool to leaflets—and often (on our level, for practical reasons) using the same flier material. Expensive, insofar as postage is involved. An amusing story on this tool from the 1996 campaign is in the offing.

Phone calling (phone banks)—This I always hated, and after 1994 I opted not to do it myself (though some people loved doing it). I tried doing it in 1994, as I mentioned. Some longtime party operatives talked about it as if it was an essential tool, but I wasn’t so impressed by it for Vernon. And this was before “robo-calls,” which are common today. (In 1994, someone working on behalf of Great American Recreation and/or a related group set up a phone bank in the area of the “spa,” and supported our candidates, but this was not part of our campaign group, and we did not authorize this person to do this.)

“Coffees”—Some people liked this, but it inherently has a limited reach. For the socially oriented, it is nice, and relatively cheap. It basically means having a small social group at someone’s house for coffee, cookies, and chatting. “Meet the candidates.” A 1996 version will amuse you.

Roadside signs—This has always been done for all sorts of campaigns, in Sussex County and of course elsewhere; and it annoys a lot of people far and wide, when the signs linger on roadsides after Election Day has passed. I posted signs each of the 1994-96 campaigns, being creative in finding places to put them (and I tried to collect my signs after the election was past), and I am glad not to be involved with this anymore.

Buttons and other tchotchkes—There are companies, as with campaign signs, that cater to producing these. Can be nice; a button is a good thing to give out to people as a reminder when coffees, rallies, and such don’t reach them. This works better with younger people, I think.

Newspaper ads—For an area like Sussex County, an essential tool. Best reach for your buck, but it can be expensive. Will look at this with the 1996 story.

Radio ads—The most expensive option of all (thousands of dollars, potentially), and with a large reach. It can be risky, for reasons I’ll look at.