The petitioning season just ended in Brooklyn. In the past, particularly in 2005, I found the efforts of the Brooklyn liberal grassroots to be largely all talk and little action. But in the NY-11 Congressional race in 2006, the progressive grassroots just did a dandy job petitioning.
Chris Owens is in a four-way race for the Democratic Primary. Owens is running a grassroots campaign with an all-volunteer petitioning effort. His opponants are spending far more money and have hired staff to help petition. In fact, I have seen his opponent David Yassky's huge paid army of volunteers petitioning all through the district. Yassky's almost exclusively white, clean-cut, paid army was a sharp contrast to the unpaid, diverse and perhaps a bit more ragged-looking volunteers petitioning for Chris (I was one of those ragged-looking volunteers).
Based on last year's poor showing by the Brookly grassroots, I had a secret fear that Chris was making a mistake relying on the grassroots for petitioning. My fears were re-enforced by the stories from IND that all those disenfranchised new members I wrote about before had been doing no petitioning. I knew that wasn't strictly true, but I wasn't sure that the disenfranchised were going to make a good showing.
Well, I do know that at least some of Chris' volunteers were people who had been disenfranchised by IND. So I am happy to say that this year, the Brooklyn grassroots, including those who IND felt were a threat, delivered 13,500 signatures for Chris, more than 10 times the required number.
I have no doubt that Chris' opponents will make a good showing from their petitioning efforts. But they had to pay staff to do it. Chris' signatures are an indication of the enthusiasm people have for his candidacy.
Chris has a great list of endorsements, including ImpeachPAC, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc., Americans for Democratic Action PAC, Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn (though some feel only due to packing), Democracy for NYC (by a record 96% vote!), New Democratic Majority, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), Democratic Progressive Action Caucus (DPAC) and even the Brooklyn Green Party. Now he has made a very respectable showing in petitioning using all volunteers. So far so good...but will it take him to a primary victory?
