Someone Else's Story (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

Voter Registration in Manhattan:
Democrats: 581,000
Republicans: 99,000

Last night, I went to the first meeting of the School of Applied Politics (S.O.A.P.)--a biweekly program for people interested in pursuing city council seats--at the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan. There were some great candidates, and I hope they run, but will they?

The media scrutiny is so intense and, often, ugly, that people who could viably overcome the background checks, by the press and the opposition, and make a successful candidacy--people without skeletons in their closets--are dull, and suffer from personality deficits. Those unexciting people run for citywide and national offices and, more often than not, they lose. Why? A couple of reasons. The most obvious is the six-to-one ratio of Democrats to Republicans in Manhattan. But, it is more than that. After all, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg won mayoral races on a Republican ticket, and Pataki won the State House. The perpetual losing streak of Republican candidates in many of the State Assembly and Congressional districts is because of the shortage of centrist, broadly-appealing and likable candidates to go up against the Democratic incumbents, with the deck already stacked against us demographically.

The local Republican Party designates our candidates, but the party has been actively pursuing strong candidates, and the vetting process is not the problem. The problem is that interesting people--even now, in the post-Clintonian Age--are afraid to run for public office, because they are afraid that their personal lives will be raped and pillaged, and that their privacy will be violated. And, sadly, it probably will be. That's why a lot of good potential candidates resign themselves to the idea of that old song "Someone Else's Story" from Chess, "I could take my chances further down the line."

What do we do about it? Well, someday--and it won't be long--a candidate with a lot of potential and a colorful past has to bite the bullet and run for a citywide office, on the Republican ticket, in New York City. He will hold a press conference, and neutralize all of his vulnerabilities by admitting them, the day that he announces his candidacy. Of course, fallibility is appalling, so he will fall dramatically behind in the polls, but voters will remember that he was honest about his humble past, and appreciate it, whether or not they return to his fold. Eventually, his campaign will hit its stride, a few months later, and his past will be old news. He will spend the rest of the campaign talking about the issues. The future. He will combine experience, good ideas, policy plans, and--most important to his ability to sell his policy plans and build a coalition--his charisma. Hopefully, it will remind us that politics is a game of chess--not an application for sainthood. Everybody has something to contribute, and everybody can, and should, play.