February - March 2003 Edition

Howard Hyde -- After The Election    by Howard Hyde So what is it like to run for council in Fair Lawn? How do you find yourself being a candidate?  Well, I guess it started two years ago when I volunteered to run the finances for the 2001 Republican ticket. I was and am still not happy with the way the town was being run and felt that it had a lot to do with one-party rule. I learned a lot about campaign finance reporting that year as well as telling myself how differently I would run if I were the candidate instead of the treasurer.  Sure enough, the following year I was asked by the Republican chair in town to be the next candidate. I was told that I would be up against a well-known incumbent who had a lot of money and a party machine that had a 2 or 3 to 1 registered voter advantage in town. Not the most enticing sales pitch. Perhaps this is why the Republicans took a chance on a little known, 34 year-old rookie. Nevertheless, this was my opportunity to share with the town how I would repair the system and make a difference in the community.  It all started at the Radburn street fair last spring when I opened my campaign account with $100 of my own money and used a combination of my personal computer and my daughter’s crayons, markers and stencils to begin to get my message out. Right away my opponent down the street was giving away stickers and other items that, at the time, cost more than I thought I could raise in a whole campaign.  During the campaign, I realized that there were three things you needed to be successful.   First you needed money. I raised about $7,000, which you would think is more than enough to win. Not when the other guy has 3-4 times that amount. When you’re getting your dollars at $20, $50 and $100 at a time from people with a stake in town and he’s getting his from vendors at $2,000 at a time, it’s tough to compete. The biggest costs of a campaign are first of all, actually funding the fund-raisers. Coming up with hundreds of dollars up front and hoping that people will show up to pay for a plate full of eggs is costly and stressful. Just the postage on the invitations is a killer. Anyone who thinks it isn’t expensive to advertise should call the Shopper and the Record and ask them what their advertising rates are. Wow! Plus, it costs about a thousand dollars for the yard signs that need to continually be replaced because they mysteriously disappear from people’s yards, sometimes on a daily basis. When the Democrats told me that it must be kids stealing my signs, I thought those kids must really hate the color purple.  Second, you needed to think.  Have you ever tried to buy $100 worth of groceries with $20? Ever had to give some things back to the cashier, because you didn’t have enough cash to cover the entire bill? Try doing that every day. First, budgeting is key to running as the underdog. You need to carefully consider every dollar you spend, so you can make it through the aisle without giving back some of the items in the cart. Secondly, when there is no room for money you have to get creative. Instead of a professionally done, glossy mailer that costs thousands of dollars to produce and mail, I pulled out my computer and some cardboard boxes and made homemade signs. I topped them off with a couple of items from the Oriental Trader Magazine and kept my fingers crossed. Thirdly, what you say and write takes a great deal of thought. One word positioned the wrong way or one slip of the tongue can give people the wrong impression on the message you are trying to convey. In the candidates’ debate, I knew that if I made one slip-up that it could be the end for me. When you are the young guy people tend to look for an excuse to go with the incumbent and with this thing running on Channel 66 three times a day I needed to be perfect. Try preparing for that. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I had revising and proofreading over and over and still there is no guarantee that everyone will hear what you are saying.  Lastly you needed to campaign. What does that mean? It means spending countless hours in the evenings and weekends getting people to know you and getting them to understand how and why you can change the town for the better. From August through October I needed to visit thousands of residences in Fair Lawn as well as attend as many local events that I could. Whether it was attending a church or synagogue function or visiting the Senior Center, Shop Rite, the Bagel Store, the VFW or just walking Memorial Pool, the word “free time” never entered the picture. When I got home from work, I would eat dinner (sometimes) and then head out. My daughter couldn’t figure out why I kept having to go “back to work” after I just got home from work. The word “sleep” almost never entered the picture. During the campaign, I was pulled over twice by the police as I walked door to door. Why? Well, if I saw some crazy guy stuffing campaign flyers in people’s doors at 4AM, I would probably pull him over to and ask him what he’s doing. It does show that the police are on the job!  In the end, we all know how it turned out. I was disappointed for sure. I really thought I was going to pull the upset. If you heard the Rocky music coming from my dad’s mini-van that last weekend you know what I am talking about. The frustrating part is not knowing why. Did people really just vote for Frank Lautenberg and go straight down the ticket? Was it that I was unable to overcome voters who vote only for Democrats no matter what? Did people vote for the name that sounded familiar to them? How many people voted after watching our debate and interviews and analyzing our positions and how many voted after seeing our names for the first time when the curtain shut? Was this a decision based on him being right on the issues and me being wrong on the issues or was it based on a sunny day in November?  I am convinced that I did everything I could to win this race and sometimes things just don’t go your way. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Some people need to climb Mt. Everest, some need to jump out of a plane. I needed to do this. Along the way I enriched my life by meeting a great deal of people that I would have otherwise never known. I can now call many of these people my friends. I learned a great deal about government and about politics. Believe me, they are two different things.  The big question that has been asked is will I run again. Actually it’s been phrased many ways. I hope you run again. You have to run again. Please run again. Etc…I have received many letters and phone calls from residents supporting a 2nd run at it. There is another election in 2003 and I am considering it. However, I need to feel like Fair Lawn is ready to elect a young guy with new and creative ideas regardless of party affiliation. I hold hope in my recollection of watching the election returns in my college dorm room on November 7, 1989 when Rudolph Giuliani was defeated by David Dinkins for the Mayor of New York City, he gave it a 2nd try. Despite a five to one Democrat voter advantage, he pulled the upset in 1993 and the rest as they say, is history. Not a bad role model. Maybe you will see me again in the spring as a candidate. If not, I’ll still be around to put my 2 cents in.  Thank you Fair Lawn for the chance to serve you.