In an election year marked by voters' unprecedented distaste for incumbents, it is still remarkably difficult to be a challenger. Consider Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter's race to unseat New York State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada.
Espada has been charged in several incidents of corruption throughout his time in office. Though he claims a residence in his Bronx, NY, district, it is widely known that Espada's primary residence is a $700,000 Westchester home far away from the poor and working class folks he supposedly represents. In 2009, Espada gained attention by switching to the Republican party in order to give Republicans control of the Senate. He eventually switched back, re-gaining control for the Democrats but only after extorting the position of Majority Leader. Oh, and then in April 2010, Espada was indicted for stealing $14 million from a non-profit health clinic he founded.
Still, in a sign that the party machine, though squeaky, continues to roll, Pedro Espada is running for re-election.
Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter is running to replace him. Pilgrim-Hunter has lived -- and still lives -- in the Bronx for more than two decades. She's a highly respected community leader, a leader with the Northwest Bronx and Clergy Coalition -- one of the area's most respected community groups -- and board president of the Fordham Hill Cooperative, the largest housing complex in her district. As a community leader, she has delivered concrete victories for the district. Notably, Pilgrim-Hunter led the campaign to stop New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg from converting a neighborhood armory into a shopping center and instead push for community development uses of the community space. Not only is Desiree is exactly the kind of authentic community representative we would hope to see in elected office, but a potential bright spot of the generally reactionary, anti-incumbent energy this year is that people like Pilgrim-Hunter -- from the community, not the party establishment -- might actually win.
But party politics continue to stand in Pilgrim-Hunter's way.
Jose Gustavo Rivera, a life-long Democratic party operative who was most recently Director of Outreach to New York's other recent party-installed politician, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, was put forward by the Democratic political machine establishment as their alternative to Espada. After all, even if there's a change of faces in the state capitol, party insiders and benefactors can't stomach a change of loyalties. They want their own man in office. They don't really care who as long as he's theirs.
Rivera is a smart guy and no doubt his heart is in the right place. But his candidacy reveals everything that is wrong with politics today. Rivera has never been involved in his local community. Not once. In fact, Pilgrim-Hunter organized hundreds of community meetings blocks away from Rivera's home over the last several years. Rivera never came once. But Rivera knows the right people in the Democratic Party and in Albany. All too often, the best financed candidate wins and the best financed candidates are either self-funded millionaires or the candidates picked by and blessed by the party establishment (either Democrat or Republican) and thus significant choices have already been made for them. Even in the case of contested primaries, unfortunately there's rarely a contest -- the deck is stacked toward the status quo insiders.
Pilgrim-Hunter is doing what community leaders do best -- bucking the conventional wisdom to upend the status quo. Without Pilgrim-Hunter and other leaders with the same spirit to triumph in the face of adversity, the Bronx and District 33 would have been left for dead decades ago, written off by a city that generally cared more about Manhattan, and more about Wall Street in specific. But just as the residents of the Bronx bravely persevere through recessions and crime and neglect from the city and state, Pilgrim-Hunter is bravely persevering to run against Espada and against the insider party machinery.
Pilgrim-Hunter's candidacy is a glimmer of hope for the Bronx, New York. But the challenges she faces are a glaring warning sign for the state of our democracy nationwide.
Follow Sally Kohn on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sallykohn
http://boogiedowner.blogspot.com/2010/06/pilgrim-hunter-unable-to-work-but-able.html
Thanks for your time, Saynotoespada
Rivera is the best candidate not because of his deep roots in the community - but because he has gained the experience, in a career that started running a true (but unfortunately unsuccessful) insurgent campaign. One only has to see the difference between what one hears in the ground about Rivera and the overwhelming media coverage the affluent Manhattan elite gives to Pilgrim-Hunter.
Rivera might be guilty of the apparent crime of having worked in the last years to help elect Barrack Obama as the first African-American president, and steer a previously right-centrist Junior Senator towards the progressive mainstream, but before that he was for many years dedicated to the task of connecting the people of the Bronx to Albany - work that he did long before Pilgrim-Hunter was on the scene. In fact, his only break from serving his community previous to the National work was to help elect and steer the first months of the first African-American elected in Yonkers to Albany.
If that is being a hack, we need more hacks of that kind, not less.
You and other other readers should know that Pilgrim-Hunter's campaign team is all people from the district or people who spent most of the lives living in the district. The team get's its energy and vision not only from the candidate but also from a group of young Latino organizers who grew up organizing together. They are ridiculosuly smart and skilled and they have integrity and commitment off the charts. As for the media that they have attracted to their candidate - their ability to do that is quite straight forward. Getting press is just one part of what they have done since they were in high school - some of them since they were in middle school. They always attracted media to support their efforts to improve the public schools they attended, the buildings they live in and the neighborhood as awhole.
I have to agree with you... sadly.
To Onthe6 - It is nasty & bad politics to attack Pilgrim-Hunter for being an immigrant. In the district there are thousdands of people who share this experience with Pilgrim-Hunter. They know about the long and difficult path in moving from a green card to being a citizen. The delays and red tape are hard; many people just give up. Pilgrim Hunter is proud that she is finally able to vote, after years of pursuing her citizenship. Quite the opposite of your assertion - this experience just reinforces how authentic a candidate she really is - it's another qualification to represent the West Bronx. Which was sort of Kohn's point - We need people like her to triumph in the face of adversity.
I think what is spot on in this article is the idea that we have a real chance a different kind of political leader -- someone who truly comes from the community, someone in touch with real community voices, someone who will use the office to support the growth of the community's voice in the halls of power.
To RealDealPat -- If Desiree wasn't eaten alive by Bloomberg and a powerful real estate developer -- hard to imagine a two-bit con-man like Espada getting the best of her. Desiree is no tea-baller (sic) she knows how to play with the big boys -- just ask Mayor Bloombucks!
Here are the facts about Rivera: Since his arrival from Puerto Rico, he's worked diligently to get progressive leaders in office. He’s worked for council members, senators and was one of the people responsible for getting Obama elected in Florida. He’s also an educator, winning Robert Jackson’s endorsement. And yet this is the man you vilify? A man who already HAS ALREADY BROUGHT CHANGE TO GOVERNMENT and will continue to do so?
Yes, we need Espada out but we don’t need more opportunists in Albany. We need people who know what they’re doing without needing to take a PoliSci 101 class on their first day. We need someone who understands the importance of education, has lived in a rent controlled apartment, knows unemployment stories from the people next door, etc. We need a candidate who can actually beat Pedro Espada, Jr. in the 33rd district.
Also these expressions "get the job done in Albany" - ugh !! - that sounds like the standard politico talking points that the neighorhood is just sick and tired of
From what I've heard in the Bronx people know and like Rivera and don't know or don't like Pilgrim-Hunter.
Espada would eat Pilgrim-Hunter alive. Rivera has the chops and know-how to take him out. Let's not send the tea baller to the majors.