Jumping in


(by mgh)

Politics matters least when it goes right. When good policymakers have power, there is no need for you or me to spend time on it. I'd rather be in the park, at work, or on my couch.

And that's where I've spent most of my time until now. The question is, how bad does it need to get before I get involved? I began blogging the New York City mayor's race a few months ago to find the answer.

I stopped a couple weeks later. I just didn't care that much: my voice was not going to change anything, and reading about the campaigns was like watching third graders squabble. I went back to the park, work, and my couch.

Then some things happened, and today I spent a few hours collecting signatures for Gifford Miller's mayoral campaign. I'll be blogging over the next few days how I went from tuning out politics completely to doing something I'd never thought I'd do -- doing politics in public. (And why I didn't even feel dirty after.)

Over the next few days, I will post journals here about how I came to get involved, why I care about the New York mayor's race, and what it's like for a political newbie to stand outside his workplace cafeteria or in the lobby of his apartment building with a ballot petition and a big-ass sign that says "Gifford," in full view of everyone he sees and works with every day.

I hope you will stick with me for these confessions of a political know-nothing getting involved for the first time. Maybe they will even prompt you to answer this challenge: if you spend at least one hour per day on political blogs, I challenge you to spend one hour per week helping a political candidate or action group. More on that later, too.

For now, let me just finish this introduction by getting out of the way the campaign talk that will probably dominate the early discussion anyway: Bloomberg v. Giff Miller, and Giff Miller v. everyone else.

I lost faith in Bloomberg when he welcomed the Republican National Convention to town, and let Bush exploit the graves of thousands for political backdrop. The RNC was when Bush went ahead in the national polls, and Bloomberg bears direct responsibility for Bush's success.

Before that, I had had problems with Bloomberg's policy in the schools — an extension of Bush's own education policy, which is based on standardized testing. Test scores went up in New York, but that shows only that if you train kids to answer test questions they can get good at it. That is not what school is supposed to be about.

I do not oppose Bloomberg on every issue - I appreciate the smoking ban, and I love the new 311 non-emergency city help line. But look where he's put his biggest efforts: the West Side stadium giveaway and the Olympics, two huge absurd failures that have wasted untold time and money.

I like Gifford Miller because of three policy issues, and one campaign strategy issue. He wants to build the Second Avenue subway, which the east side (where I live) needs. He wants to lower NYC schools' class sizes, to 17 kids per class in the lower grades and no more than 23 through high school, so teachers can do their jobs and teach the kids instead of just testing them. And he wants to hire 1,000 new police officers to put on quality-of-life beats, so the more experienced officers can be moved to anti-terror and emergency tasks.

Giff Miller is running a grassroots block-by-block campaign, organized by Karen Hicks who ran Howard Dean's state campaign in New Hampshire. He has been endorsed by the local and national Democracy for America groups. That's what finally made it click for me. He's also raised the most money and gotten the most endorsements of the Democratic candidates, though he does not lead in the polls (but then, people are not really paying attention yet either).

We can talk politics in the comments... but what I'd really like to hear is what your first experience going face-to-face with people in a political campaign was like, or if you haven't done it yet, what's holding you back. Please stay tuned here where I'll be once again blogging the NYC mayor's race and, mostly, my own learning curve as I step outside my comfortable routine in order to get good policymakers in power so I can (eventually) go back to my couch.

Posted: Fri - July 8, 2005 at 07:08 PM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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