With less than a week to go before the 2008 presidential election, the traditionally Democratic stronghold of Queens - in a city and state just as starkly blue - is alive with politics of all stripes. Otherwise hotly contested local races have been injected with an overdose of political adrenaline by an emotional and taxing presidential campaign. Swingstaters take note.
“It’s a very, very busy period,” said Queens County Republicans (QCR) Executive vice Chair Vince Tabone. “It’s tiring, but it’s a good tiring at this point,” added Tabone, who heads up the Queens effort to elect Senator John McCain. “I think we’re gonna do well in Queens for McCain.”
Bonty Defoe, the coordinator of Queens County for Obama (QCO), the borough’s largest grassroots effort to elect Senator Barack Obama, struck a similar cord.
“It’s been really positive, I have to say. It’s hectic but it’s positive,” Defoe said. “It’s been a ride, I’ll be really happy when it’s over. I’m tired!”
Tabone, Defoe and their legions of volunteers and staffers are sprinting to the finish of a political marathon, one which, like the New York City Marathon two days before the election, is chock-full of last-ditch efforts and its fair share of exhausted, cramped and energy-craved contenders rooted on by loyal supporters.
The roadmap to victory in Queens could not be more different between the two campaigns, however.
“Whether or not the state may go for McCain, Queens just may,” said Tabone, “and all politics is local.”
In fact, Tabone stressed the importance of the New York State Senate races and noted that many of the local candidates are going door-to-door distributing their campaign literature along with information about McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
“Some of our people are going to battleground states, but a lot of people are fighting the good fight here in some of the key local race districts,” Tabone said, noting that his office has set up a phone bank and that Queens residents are receiving “robo calls” on behalf of local candidates.
While the official Obama campaign installed a Queens field organizer for the general election, Defoe is largely using QCO’s Jamaica headquarters as a center to dispatch volunteers to the front lines - in Pennsylvania.
“People have to understand the battle is not here,” Defoe said. “We can sit here and try to fight the battle” but our energy is better utilized outside Queens and New York, she explained.
Defoe’s logic is underscored by the fact that her QCO predecessor, Jonta Williams, left her grassroots volunteer post to work full-time for the official Obama campaign in Germantown, PA.
Since she took the helm, Defoe has doubled QCO’s email list to 2,000 and has registered over 2,500 new voters, 850 of which in the final two days before the voter registration deadline.
Tabone estimates that QCR’s new registrants number in the hundreds and he says his task is “uphill because the big urban centers tend to turn to the left.”
But Tabone notes that Queens is unique in its diversity and its complex mix of “blue collar, white collar, homeowners and small businessmen.” The McCain supporters of Queens are not just typical dyed-in-the-wool Republicans; the campaign will turn out Independents as well as an impressive number of Democrats, he said.
“We probably get six, seven, eight calls a day asking for McCain/Palin signs. We’ve never had that before - and they’re not Republicans - that’s across the board in Queens,” Tabone said. “I think there’s a different energy level, a sense of concern and crisis that we’re at a crossroads in the country.”
As exhibited by the success - achieved largely through Obama’s bottom-up approach to Internet organizing - by groups like QCO, the Queens Democratic Party (QDP) is cognizant of the high energy pulsating through the campaign in its final days.
“I have not seen such enthusiasm for the Democratic brand in the 22 years I have been the Executive Secretary,” said Michael Reich of the QDP. “This has been a pinnacle.”
Asked if he and his fellow Queens Democrats are optimistic or cautious, Reich laughed. “We are cautiously optimistic,” he said, “that we’re going to be very successful. All the indications are that we are going to have a strong Democratic turnout.”
Reich and his colleagues are hoping that high turnout leads to victories for their local candidates - Joe Addabbo over incumbent State Senator Serphin Maltese; James Gennaro over incumbent State Senator Frank Padavan; and Elizabeth Crowley over Anthony Como, who won a special election in June to replace Councilmember Dennis Gallagher.
“People are going to come out for the national races, so the focus has to be on tying the local races to the national races,” said Reich, highlighting a Democratic effort that includes phone banks and direct mail and will utilize between 1,000 and 2,000 people for a get-out-the-vote surge on Election Day.
Tabone, who called the Republican campaign the most organic he has worked on - and his resume includes names like Giuliani, Pataki and all the national GOP candidates since 1994 - said, “You can’t win citywide or statewide without Queens, so it’s kind of a bellwether.”
While Defoe and her roster of grassroots Obama supporters will head to Pennsylvania to encourage voter turnout as soon as they cast their ballots in Queens, she recognizes the importance of turning local pledges into actual votes.
“For us it’s a matter of going through neighborhoods and physically reminding people to vote,” Defoe said. In the Jamaica communities surrounding her office those reminders will come blaring through a bullhorn in the shape of an Obama speech set to music.
“No one counts their chickens before they hatch,” she said.
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