Dear Mr. Squadron, please run a crappy campaign. Yours, the left.
Dear Daniel,
I write to you with a concern that I believe you will gain by addressing. You see, your campaign just isn't the stuff that we lefties can get behind. Frighteningly enough, you are running your campaign in such a way that the possibility of you winning can't simply be dismissed out of hand and with a smile. And that, really, is just simply unacceptable, as you surely must realize.
Progressive campaigns in New York City are run as follows: one gathers a group of people, and they are always the same people, into a room and makes a speech. The content doesn't really matter all that much, truth be told. After that ritual, one passes a hat and asks the participants for their spare change, after which, one has completed the biggest fundraiser of one's campaign. At that point, please bring on the folk singers or, for extra points, that crappy rock band your campaign director's kid plays in. That's authentic, and we like authentic.
And when our candidates fail spectacularly, as they necessarily do, we gather at our local coffeehouse - not at Starbucks, thank you - and bemoan our fate: that we haven't been able, yet again, to force electoral outcomes through the sheer blazing force of our unassailable rightness.
So, please do everyone concerned a favor and stop raising or spending money. It makes you suspect to do either. Them, please stop working so hard - this too is an unforgivable lapse. Our candidates start their feeble fundraising efforts roughly three months before the polls open, and it's traitorous to do otherwise - a deficiency in Progressive consciousness.
Once you've done that, please send out xeroxed mailers about The Power Of The Grassroots. Pretend with us for a moment that a bunch of ineffective scolds standing on street corners are, indeed, the authentic voice of the people. You see, that's us, and we xerox with abandon.
In return, we promise to carry your campaign to the conclusion we all want to see, your inglorious defeat. This because, as much as we may yammer about stuff, we really don't want anything to change. For the abovementioned blazing rightness, our most cherished attribute, to shine dazzlingly enough for our tastes, we prefer to lose every race we contest.
Yours in Solidarity,
The Left
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New York State Senate | Daniel Squadron
His Family's Money is the Difference
Submitted by Gothanonymous Reader (not verified) on 10 August 2008 - 5:42pm.
He can run a different race because he has a great deal of money, and a great deal of family connections. Look at the anti-Connor article on the NY Post/Murdoch owned Park Slope Courier. Think that just got there because of his campaign smarts? Nope, Squadron's father was good friends with Rupert Murdoch.
The "left" isn't united in this race
Submitted by Gothanonymous Reader (not verified) on 12 August 2008 - 1:35am.
Are you saying "I'm more progressive than thou?"
I know many on the left who live in the district, including myself, who are supporting Daniel Squadron. I known no other Senator than Marty Connor in twenty-five years.
Many of us on the left who oppose him remember when he wasn't "progressive." We remember when he shifted with the political wind. We remember his knocking off the ballot progressive Democratic primary challengers in his own district, and representing their opposition on many other occasions. We remember when he opposed the progressive School Board slates on the Lower East Side. Since he says he makes very little for his election work, he can't even claim he did this for money! Those on the left who support him now either overlook that fact or don't know him as well as we do.
His colleages in the Senate rejected his leadership after the numbers of Democratic Senators steadily declined. If was only after he was deposed that Democrats in the Senate began their steady rise to the point that they are now close to a majority. It seems questionable now why they are now rushing to support him.
I remember when, as Senate Democratic Leader, he was rarely seen in the community.or at political events. Being humbled by his colleages was a blessing in that we began to see him far more often. (If you say that it was due to his "responsibilites" as Senate Dem Leader, then why didn't David Paterson follow the same model?)
Those of us on the left who live in the district who oppose him believe that it's time for a change.
Great!
Great!