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 run.
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.
The woman running for town clerk is dynamic, but she ran only after losing the nomination for judge. She's a good campaigner, but her political ambitions are elsewhere. And the woman running for judge is a disagreeable do-nothing, a poor excuse for a candidate.
WITH a slate like this, you ask why we lose?
But it comes as no surprise that the Democrats cannot attract, winning candidates. You either have to be truly devoted to a political cause or a little bit crazy to run a race you cannot possibly win. And because there are few political causes about which to become passionate on Long Island, the candidates are usually a little crazy.
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.
Frequently, the candidates wouldn't even talk to me. One resented the fact that I was doing too much, because it made her look like she was doing nothing. Zwirn hated me at first because of an old political fight he had with my father. As a result, nothing got done.
The day 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.
Being a Democrat in Nassau County might best be defined as the politics of the down and out. We have no inspiring candidates, close to no money and almost no voter support. We are used to losing, and probably wouldn't even know what to do if we won. The result is one-party, closed-door government, running local affairs with no effective opposition.
People ask me, "How can you fight so vehemently against one-party government on Long Island and not decry the same system in Cambridge?"
There is a difference. Among the Democrats of Cambridge, many different interests and political views are represented. It's almost like having the normal range of liberal and conservative candidates--but shifted 10 notches to the left.
On Long Island, politics is run by a monolithic political entity that more resembles the Kremlin than Cambridge City Hall. There is one party line, one party candidate and little room for dissent within that party. The county's party boss is also presiding supervisor of the county's largest town.
In Cambridge, if you disagree with one Democrat, another might win. On Long Island, if you disagree with one Republican, you lose.
LAST week, my absentee ballot came in the mail. I thought about Republican Kiernan and his resource recovery plants and his relatives on the payroll and his 10 a.m. meetings. But then I thought of Zwirn, his panderings, his personal grudges and his neurotic campaigning. What kind of town supervisor would he be?
I marked my ballot. That choice was harder than I thought.