Campaign Fiasco: What Really Happened
On January 2 nineteen candidates filed nomination papers for the Spring Election for seats on the Milwaukee School Board. Within the following week, four candidates (21%)(including your author) were disqualified by the Election Commission for inadequate nomination papers. What happened and why? Here is my story.
The Open Seat
When the only citywide School Director Tom Balistreri resigned in June, 2006, I quickly decided that I was interested in seeking the vacant seat in the next election.
At first I was concerned that former citywide Director John Gardner, an advocate of School Choice and great fund-raiser who had lost to Balistreri in 2003, would run for his old job.
I called Gardner and asked to meet with him; he agreed and brought incumbent Director Danny Goldberg (who represents the Southwest side) to the meeting. Gardner asssured me he had no intention of running, and seemed willing to support me in the race. Goldberg talked of introducing me to George Mitchell, the main fund-raiser for the School Choice movement in Milwaukee. I left the meeting confident that Gardner and Goldberg would back me in the School Board race.
Goldberg greeted me warmly at two School Board meetings I attended in the Fall. He told me that he heard that a former Deputy Superintendent named Willie Jude was also interested in the At-Large Seat. I expected that Goldberg would support me against Jude, although no firm commitment was sought or offered.
Meanwhile I posted my platform on the Web (Glazer2007.blogspot.com). The platform supported School Choice, but called for State testing of Choice students and eliminating schools whose students were not learning. I received an unsoliticited e-mail from George Mitchell stating that my testing plan would be a "bureaucratic nightmare" and vowing that he would certainly not support me. I kept this info to myself, fearing that if Gardner and/or Goldberg knew that Mitchell had rejected me , they would too.
At a meeting at Pulaski High School convened by the Greater Milwaukee Committee to seek strategies to improve Milwaukee Public Schools in late November, Danny Goldberg told me that a friend of his, whom he refused to name, was considering running for the At-Large seat, and that he would support his friend. I decided to win without Goldberg.
The Nomination Paper
To be listed as a candidate for any citywide elective office, the candidate must submit the signatures and addresses of at least 1,500 voters in the City . For the 2007 Spring Election the first day to circulate nomination papers was December 1, 2006, and the filing deadline was January 2, 2007.
I sent or delivered nomination papers to about 45 people.
I set about the task of getting at least 1,500 signatures myself, assuming that any obtained by others would be a "cushion" to make up for any names that might be deleted by the Election Commission. (If you think that this job is easy, try asking 1,500 strangers to sign a legal-looking paper with their home address as a favor for you.)
Besides buttonholing friends and acquaintances at Cong. Beth Jehudah, the Milwaukee Jewish Council, and Milwaukeeans attending a wedding in Illinois, my main method was to walk into a store and ask the owner and employees to sign. ( If the owner permittted, I would also solicit customers.) Although the method was successful for the most part, I was thrown out of several office buildings and the St. Joseph Hospital cafeteria by security guards. I learned to concentrate on buildings too small to employ guards.
Here are a few lessons I learned in this process:
1. Asians run a lot of small businesses in Milwaukee. They were nice enough, but many had a poor understanding of English, and none of them lived in the City.
2. Blacks are no less willing than whites to sign a white stranger's nomination paper.
3. If you ask a group of people to sign something, whatever the first person to speak does, the rest will follow.
4. Many people do not remember their own address correctly, and many do not know what city they live in.
5. Customers of bars and beauty/barber shops are the most willing to sign.
About midway through December I learned that former School Board President Bruce Thompson and former Director Jim Koneazny (1) were among my rivals. I immediately called John Gardner, who told me that he and Danny Goldberg were both backing Thompson over me. At this point I realized that all the School Choice money that I had expected to receive would now be given to Thompson. The unions, meanwhile, would probably back Koneazny. In shock, I contemplated withdrawing from the contest.
This is what I had done in 2002, when I planned to run for Register of Deeds and dropped out when State Rep. John LaFave (with $60,000 in his political piggybank) entered the race. A friend has been dogging me about this ever since.
Since I had already garnered about 850 signatures by that point, I decided not to turn back. Instead, I would try to take the pro-School Choice voters away from Thompson in the Primary by running as "Our Voice for School Choice". If I could get through the Primary this way, the School Choice people would have no alternative but to support me over the union-backed candidate in the General Election. On the other hand, if Thompson and I advanced to the run-off, the union support would flow to me. I figured I had a shot either way.
Endgame
I kept a daily log of signatures obtained that day and the total in hand. By December 27, the total hit 1,522! Over the top! I had enough, but wanted more just for "insurance." I picked up 17 more on the 28th, and another 32 on Friday, December 29, including papers circulated by Michael Zeidler (2) and Asst. City Atty. Vince Bobot that came in the mail. On Saturday night, December 29, I pinned together my papers with 1,571 signatures and delivered them to the Election Commision about 9 AM on Tuesday, January 2.
I spent the rest of that week scouting out billboard locations and preparing about 75 fund-raising letters. I held off on stamping the letters or ordering the billboards until I was sure that I would be on the ballot. Days passed, and I heard nothing.
By the afternoon of Friday, January 5, I desperate to know for sure. I called the Election Commission, and was told they were counting my signatures at that very moment, and would call me back in ten minutes. I waited 30 minutes and called back just before leaving for the synagogue, as it was nearly Shabbos. They were still counting, but would call me back very soon. I went to Beth Jehudah.
When I returned about 5:40 PM, my wife said there had been no calls. Just as I was about to say Kiddush, the phone rang. I went to my answering machine and listened carefully. It was Neil Allbrecht at the Election Commission. "Unfortunately," he said, "we had to eliminate 94 addresses from your nomination paper, so you are 23 short of the number required to be on the ballot." My heart sank like a stone. All of my efforts had come to nothing. I could not believe that so many addresses on my petition could be wrong! I decided to go down to City Hall Monday morning and check each deleted address against the City Directory and prove that at least 23 of the deleted addresses were legitimate.
I hardly slept Friday night. The hours crawled by all night, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and Sunday night till City Hall opened at 8 AM Monday morning. Shortly after I arrived at the Election Commission office, I was provided with my nomination paper, with deleted addresses noted, and the 2006 City Directory. A clerk was assigned to "baby-sit" me so I could not alter the nomination paper. I noted each contestable deletion (3) on an index card,, then looked up each contested address in the City Directory. I found nine of them, most with the name of my signer, plus one more in the ATT Phone Directory. But I was still 13 short!
I took the rest of the cards with me as I left the office. Maybe even the City Directory missed some addresses? Maybe some were new construction? I decided to start with addresses near City Hall, then work my way west toward home. I only needed to find 13 good addresses out of about thiry cards!
First was 627 E Pleasant St----no, it was really 625. Then 1875 E Kenilworth----no, the closest was 1901. How about 1320 E Albion? No, it was really 1328. And so it went until I searched in vain for 3650 N King Drive, and it wasn't there. It was no use. I went home and threw out the fund-raising letters and shlepped the memorabilia of the campaign that never was into the basement storage room.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Koneazny and I were among 4 candidates for County Supervisor for the 5th District in 1980. Koneazny beat me and (now County Clerk) Mark E Ryan in the Primary, but lost to Paul Mathews.
(2) Son of former Mayor Frank Zeidler. The Mayor's widow was among the signatures Michael got for me.
(3) One address was missing, and others were clearly wrong, which I should have caught myself before submitting. For example, one address was 5208 W Keefe Ave., which is the 53rd Street School Playground. (It should have been 5209).
The Open Seat
When the only citywide School Director Tom Balistreri resigned in June, 2006, I quickly decided that I was interested in seeking the vacant seat in the next election.
At first I was concerned that former citywide Director John Gardner, an advocate of School Choice and great fund-raiser who had lost to Balistreri in 2003, would run for his old job.
I called Gardner and asked to meet with him; he agreed and brought incumbent Director Danny Goldberg (who represents the Southwest side) to the meeting. Gardner asssured me he had no intention of running, and seemed willing to support me in the race. Goldberg talked of introducing me to George Mitchell, the main fund-raiser for the School Choice movement in Milwaukee. I left the meeting confident that Gardner and Goldberg would back me in the School Board race.
Goldberg greeted me warmly at two School Board meetings I attended in the Fall. He told me that he heard that a former Deputy Superintendent named Willie Jude was also interested in the At-Large Seat. I expected that Goldberg would support me against Jude, although no firm commitment was sought or offered.
Meanwhile I posted my platform on the Web (Glazer2007.blogspot.com). The platform supported School Choice, but called for State testing of Choice students and eliminating schools whose students were not learning. I received an unsoliticited e-mail from George Mitchell stating that my testing plan would be a "bureaucratic nightmare" and vowing that he would certainly not support me. I kept this info to myself, fearing that if Gardner and/or Goldberg knew that Mitchell had rejected me , they would too.
At a meeting at Pulaski High School convened by the Greater Milwaukee Committee to seek strategies to improve Milwaukee Public Schools in late November, Danny Goldberg told me that a friend of his, whom he refused to name, was considering running for the At-Large seat, and that he would support his friend. I decided to win without Goldberg.
The Nomination Paper
To be listed as a candidate for any citywide elective office, the candidate must submit the signatures and addresses of at least 1,500 voters in the City . For the 2007 Spring Election the first day to circulate nomination papers was December 1, 2006, and the filing deadline was January 2, 2007.
I sent or delivered nomination papers to about 45 people.
I set about the task of getting at least 1,500 signatures myself, assuming that any obtained by others would be a "cushion" to make up for any names that might be deleted by the Election Commission. (If you think that this job is easy, try asking 1,500 strangers to sign a legal-looking paper with their home address as a favor for you.)
Besides buttonholing friends and acquaintances at Cong. Beth Jehudah, the Milwaukee Jewish Council, and Milwaukeeans attending a wedding in Illinois, my main method was to walk into a store and ask the owner and employees to sign. ( If the owner permittted, I would also solicit customers.) Although the method was successful for the most part, I was thrown out of several office buildings and the St. Joseph Hospital cafeteria by security guards. I learned to concentrate on buildings too small to employ guards.
Here are a few lessons I learned in this process:
1. Asians run a lot of small businesses in Milwaukee. They were nice enough, but many had a poor understanding of English, and none of them lived in the City.
2. Blacks are no less willing than whites to sign a white stranger's nomination paper.
3. If you ask a group of people to sign something, whatever the first person to speak does, the rest will follow.
4. Many people do not remember their own address correctly, and many do not know what city they live in.
5. Customers of bars and beauty/barber shops are the most willing to sign.
About midway through December I learned that former School Board President Bruce Thompson and former Director Jim Koneazny (1) were among my rivals. I immediately called John Gardner, who told me that he and Danny Goldberg were both backing Thompson over me. At this point I realized that all the School Choice money that I had expected to receive would now be given to Thompson. The unions, meanwhile, would probably back Koneazny. In shock, I contemplated withdrawing from the contest.
This is what I had done in 2002, when I planned to run for Register of Deeds and dropped out when State Rep. John LaFave (with $60,000 in his political piggybank) entered the race. A friend has been dogging me about this ever since.
Since I had already garnered about 850 signatures by that point, I decided not to turn back. Instead, I would try to take the pro-School Choice voters away from Thompson in the Primary by running as "Our Voice for School Choice". If I could get through the Primary this way, the School Choice people would have no alternative but to support me over the union-backed candidate in the General Election. On the other hand, if Thompson and I advanced to the run-off, the union support would flow to me. I figured I had a shot either way.
Endgame
I kept a daily log of signatures obtained that day and the total in hand. By December 27, the total hit 1,522! Over the top! I had enough, but wanted more just for "insurance." I picked up 17 more on the 28th, and another 32 on Friday, December 29, including papers circulated by Michael Zeidler (2) and Asst. City Atty. Vince Bobot that came in the mail. On Saturday night, December 29, I pinned together my papers with 1,571 signatures and delivered them to the Election Commision about 9 AM on Tuesday, January 2.
I spent the rest of that week scouting out billboard locations and preparing about 75 fund-raising letters. I held off on stamping the letters or ordering the billboards until I was sure that I would be on the ballot. Days passed, and I heard nothing.
By the afternoon of Friday, January 5, I desperate to know for sure. I called the Election Commission, and was told they were counting my signatures at that very moment, and would call me back in ten minutes. I waited 30 minutes and called back just before leaving for the synagogue, as it was nearly Shabbos. They were still counting, but would call me back very soon. I went to Beth Jehudah.
When I returned about 5:40 PM, my wife said there had been no calls. Just as I was about to say Kiddush, the phone rang. I went to my answering machine and listened carefully. It was Neil Allbrecht at the Election Commission. "Unfortunately," he said, "we had to eliminate 94 addresses from your nomination paper, so you are 23 short of the number required to be on the ballot." My heart sank like a stone. All of my efforts had come to nothing. I could not believe that so many addresses on my petition could be wrong! I decided to go down to City Hall Monday morning and check each deleted address against the City Directory and prove that at least 23 of the deleted addresses were legitimate.
I hardly slept Friday night. The hours crawled by all night, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and Sunday night till City Hall opened at 8 AM Monday morning. Shortly after I arrived at the Election Commission office, I was provided with my nomination paper, with deleted addresses noted, and the 2006 City Directory. A clerk was assigned to "baby-sit" me so I could not alter the nomination paper. I noted each contestable deletion (3) on an index card,, then looked up each contested address in the City Directory. I found nine of them, most with the name of my signer, plus one more in the ATT Phone Directory. But I was still 13 short!
I took the rest of the cards with me as I left the office. Maybe even the City Directory missed some addresses? Maybe some were new construction? I decided to start with addresses near City Hall, then work my way west toward home. I only needed to find 13 good addresses out of about thiry cards!
First was 627 E Pleasant St----no, it was really 625. Then 1875 E Kenilworth----no, the closest was 1901. How about 1320 E Albion? No, it was really 1328. And so it went until I searched in vain for 3650 N King Drive, and it wasn't there. It was no use. I went home and threw out the fund-raising letters and shlepped the memorabilia of the campaign that never was into the basement storage room.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Koneazny and I were among 4 candidates for County Supervisor for the 5th District in 1980. Koneazny beat me and (now County Clerk) Mark E Ryan in the Primary, but lost to Paul Mathews.
(2) Son of former Mayor Frank Zeidler. The Mayor's widow was among the signatures Michael got for me.
(3) One address was missing, and others were clearly wrong, which I should have caught myself before submitting. For example, one address was 5208 W Keefe Ave., which is the 53rd Street School Playground. (It should have been 5209).
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 8:49 AM
1 Comments:
I feel bad that you did not make the ballot. However, do not look at your efforts as for nothing. I am sure that Rabbi Twerski would explain that Hashem's master plan is nigh impossible for us to understand. Sure it hurts that you did not make the ballot, and yes your presence on the board would probably have helped Jewish education in Milwaukee, but that is from our POV here on the ground. You did an admirable job and if nothing else you came away with some great learnings to put toward your next election campaign.
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