Bambi Meets Godzilla

The race that really surprised us this year was the contest for County Legislature in the 18th Legislative District, in Perinton. It wasn't surprising in the result, which the politically sophisticated anticipated, but in the unexpected trajectory of the campaign that, as it proceeded toward election day, made the ultimate result apparent.

Republican politicos have kept a nervous eye on Nora Bredes ever since she moved here from Long Island ten years ago.  
It could not have been happy news to incumbent Republican Ciaran Hanna to learn that Bredes would be his opponent.

A former Suffolk County Legislator and one time Democratic candidate for Congress, Ms. Bredes became a public figure in the New York City area years ago, as leader of the citizens' group that fought for nearly a decade to stop operation of the Shoreham nuclear plant.   She stopped it.   A graduate of Cornell, Ms. Bredes directs the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership at the University of Rochester.   She has won numerous state and national awards for accomplishments in environmentalism and public health.   Smugtown Beacon described her as "ridiculously overqualified" for the county legislature.

Legislator Hanna, a businessman in Fairport, has a low profile outside of his district.   Political insiders in both parties consider him one of the smartest and best members of the County Legislature.   Hanna's gentlemanly, modest demeanor accompanies a towering sense of responsibility to his constituents and a steely resolve to protect their interests.   Hanna's bolting of his own party on a point of principle got him stripped of a committee chairmanship a few years back.   This won him even higher respect in his district.   He continues the tradition of his admired family, the Hannas, whose members have distinguished the family name through high-minded public service spanning decades.

Ordinarily, a candidate of Hanna's quality would have little to worry about, especially in a Republican-leaning district. It does not in the least disparage his record or abilities to acknowledge the noteworthy accomplishments of his opponent, or her strong experience.   It's as if the winning yacht in the America's Cup found itself facing the Battleship Missouri, with all guns blazing.

One nervous Republican wag chose a different metaphor.   In a nod to Hanna's soft-spoken manner, he worried that this race had the potential to be "Bambi meets Godzilla."

As we now know, he was right.   Except that the roles were reversed.

All along we thought Hanna had the ability to defeat the challenge from Bredes, but we felt that Bredes's strengths as a candidate were daunting.   It's rare to see someone with a resume of her quality running for local office, rarer still someone of such accomplishment.

On Tuesday Hanna didn't just beat Bredes, he humiliated her:   62% Hanna to 38% for Bredes.   The Democrats' brightest hope  --   not just for getting elected but for her obvious capacity for forceful, articulate leadership once elected  --   held to under 40%.   She won little more than the base Democratic vote.

How did this happen?   Especially in a district which, though it leans Republican, voted routinely for Louise Slaughter and for David Koon?

From start to finish, Ms. Bredes ran the wrong campaign. Local elections in towns and districts with populations of the size found in Monroe County are won by door-to-door campaigning by the candidate.

Legislator Hanna understood this well, starting a vigorous door-to-door schedule as soon as Bredes announced her candidacy and never stopping until election day.   He canvassed every neighborhood in the district.

Bredes thought she could win with mailings, literature drops and coffee gatherings in people's homes.   She did little or no canvassing.   Nor did she participate in the parades and similar public events comprising part of the routine schedule for a local candidate.

Walking door-to-door, a candidate can visit 50 or more homes in the two hours it takes to meet a dozen people at a reception in someone's home.   Inevitably such gatherings tend to involve people who already are disposed to vote for you, since they're friends of the candidate's friend who arranges the gathering.   The only finite resource in a campaign is the candidate's time.   Home-based meet-and-greets are sucker bait for the inexperienced.

Yet Ms. Bredes is no inexperienced candidate.   Years ago the New York Times told her story as an example of how a candidate succeeds in getting elected for the first time.

We have to believe that a campaign for public office on Long Island, with an appreciably larger population for each county legislative district, is a very different proposition from a similar campaign in Perinton.   Probably it involves broadcast media as well as mailings.   Home-gatherings may well complement the mix in a useful way, where population size makes meaningful door-to-door campaigning impractical.   Such a campaign probably looks a lot more like our county-wide campaigns here.

However, in races for legislative districts in Monroe County, if one good candidate goes door-to-door and another good, even astonishingly accomplished, candidate does not, the candidate who goes to the door wins, absent overriding issues.

Commenting in Rochester Turning on Tuesday's result, Ms. Bredes blamed a "lack of civic culture" in the Rochester area, among other factors, for her loss and for the loss by fellow Democrats, suggesting most citizens aren't engaged in thinking about political matters.   Now, as people interested in politics ourselves, we'd say there's much truth to her observation, though not as a reason for her big loss.

But that's the equivalent of an unsuccessful Monroe County Republican candidate complaining, for example, that he lost because the local press is hostile.   Of course it's hostile if you're a Republican.   That's just part of the deal when you run for office under the GOP banner in Rochester.   You didn't know that before you ran?   Didn't factor that into your planning?   What were you thinking?

In addition, the Bredes campaign suffered from the defect of all the Democratic legislative campaigns, in that it criticized Republican management of the County but offered no solutions whatsoever.

It is at least possible that Ms. Bredes's instincts, or the character of her social and professional circles, led her to run what could be viewed as an elitist campaign.   We give her the benefit of the doubt, going no further than observing that she misread the constituency insofar as assessing what was necessary to win.   Maybe the general expectation on the Democratic side that they could indict their way into office had something to do with it also.   We confine our conclusions to the fact that she didn't campaign door-to-door as her opponent did, a failure representing a fundamental misreading of the voters.

Perhaps the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership can offer a course on getting to know your constituency before you run for office.