Queens Politics from Where I stand, Part 1
So You Want to Run For Public Office?
One day sitting in front of your tv perhaps annoyed by the news you try “channel surfing” but you can’t escape it—every channel (except one with a boring infomercial about trim abs) has a story about politics or worse—a political advertisement!
This reminded me that years ago there was a nationally syndicated cartoonist named Jimmy Hatlo and his highly successful “They’ll Do it Every Time,” appeared weekly in almost every major U.S. newspaper. Under the title he had a cartoon called Hatlo’s Inferno and he had a hell for everything, with every torture for every human foible and for every fool he could imagine! Were he around today he would have one for us too and that would be to sit in front of that tv unable to close your eyes to watch political debates and listen to the network commentators who tell you what you just saw and heard throughout eternity. Well it’s almost like that now!
Yes, this is only primary election time and the worse is yet to come. And YES, it will come like a giant tsunami and it will hit your neighborhood, your city, your state and the whole country—it’s called the “General Elections!” Worse than Death and Taxes, you can’t escape it. The best you can do is rent or buy about one hundred movie CD’s or suffer and suffer you will.
The next best thing, or worse thing, you could do is say: “If I can’t beat them, I’ll join them!” Hell’s Bells, I’m going to run for office myself and this is where the fun, if you can call it fun, begins!
In the first place it is a matter of place and time. In Colonial Times it was simple all you had to be (without mentioning race and religion) was a “land owner.” Ask to be placed on a ballot and there you were—a candidate. In sparsely populated East Cupcake North Dakota it might pretty much be much the same today. But no, not so fast, you live in New York State; the State with the most confusing, complicated archaic election laws in the entire universe. I know, been there, done that! Efforts to change and simplify New York’s election laws have been downed faster than White Castle hamburgers with the same belly bombing after effects.
Running for office, any office in the “Empire State” is so difficult and complicated it’s difficult to know where to start. We have a state where the major political parties and incumbents have a strangle hold on the system. As the ventriloquist Senor Winces’ used to have his puppet say “it’s difficult for you, easy for me.” The “ME” being the major party candidate.
He, the major party candidate, has all the support, money, worker volunteers and more “kisser uppers” than you can shake a ballot at. He and his party know all the Election Districts, Assembly Districts, Congressional Districts, State Senate, Council and Civil Court Districts in any race and they have the maps and voter registration records that can be purchased from the Board of Elections. He and they have and can file all the required mountain of forms. They know how and when to file the forms (there is a calendar for this and dates are super critical). You best know to do this or forget running for office—if you mess up on the slightest technicality you will never see your name on the ballot and I haven’t begun to mention “signatures and challenges!” Getting people to sign your petition to is akin to asking for a blood donation and just as there are blood types there are “types of registered voters.” Only registered democrats can sign for a democratic candidate—republican for a republican and so on. They can only sign for one candidate once. If you need, say 1000 signatures to get on the ballot you’d better submit 2000 and more because sure as shootin’ pardner they will have a small army of worker ants at the Board of Election’s Office to challenge each and every signature.
Years ago when I ran for a seat in The United State’s House of Representatives so many signatures I collected were challenged that what was left was not enough to be placed on the ballot. They gotcha right there—you can’t swing at a ball if you can’t get into the batters box! At a hearing at the Board of Elections I threatened to handcuff myself to a table in order to get a favorable ruling—that failed so I ended up taking my case to the Pro Se Division of Federal Court. Me alone facing a battery of their attorneys and I was lost. The judge was stern and told the attorneys that “they” could be fined up to $10,000.00 for each illegally red lined signature but when they got the case postponed to the month of December I cried out, “but your honor, the election is in November” to no avail. This was a classic case of “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied!!!” My Opponent was the sole candidate who won the election that year without a single vote cast against him. It was like having the Kentucky Derby with only one horse.
It was pure idealism that made me decide to run in the first place when in the prior election for Congress the Incumbent had every single line on the ballot; Dem., Republican, Conservative and all the rest. Even then one had no choice—if you wanted to vote it was for him or nothing! I burned inside as I asked myself “what country am I living in?” That burning flame was so intense that I vowed that I would run myself as a challenger. To add insult to injury there preceded a series of events that to say my opponent ran a campaign so one sided against me that to say that it was “overkill” would be gross understatement. I always asked myself, especially after my Godmother (who I had loved dearly) called and asked me to drop out of the race what in the hell was he afraid of? Did me and my 85 young college men and women staff and volunteers stand a chance of being elected; of winning the election? When he saw when and how we collected so many signatures he must have thought so; or maybe it was the buttons and my campaign t-shirts on handsome young men and pretty young co-eds that made him or his advisors decide to “nip this dangerous thing in the bud!”
To be continued; let us know if you want to hear more…
Part II, DIRTY TRICKS and the actual running of a political campaign to follow next time or, as they say on “Spanning the World-- if there is a next time!”
Submitted for your approval by Sam Di Bernardo,
The Older and Wiser Candidate for New York City Council Dist. 32 Queens, NY
email: forlearning@hotmail.com
youtube: www.youtube.com/electsam
Fasebook as: samuel di bernardo
PS, I think this is some pretty good stuff so, do me a favor and make a comment or two
Thank you
Sam
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