Take housing policy, for instance. Over the last 20 years, thousands of tenants and homesteaders have used their smarts, nerve and hard work to turn abandoned buildings into a network of cooperatives and mutual housing associations. Today, there are thousands of owner-occupants of these buildings a fairly sophisticated constituency that progressives should be organizing. Clearly, we ve got a lot of organizing to do. In African-American, Caribbean and Latino neighborhoods, where many people feel like they ve been let down and left behind by the Giuliani administration, the task will be tough.
Most people express their alienation by simply avoiding the whole process.
Typically, while knocking on doors, I encountered people who would blast me simply because I was a politician. One retired school teacher gave me a 30-minute lecture about the failings of the public housing authority, the Board of Education and the elected officials who never show their faces in their districts between elections. I m sure I got his vote too. Nonetheless, this is where I believe progressive political candidates will find their biggest chance to get back into power. As many an organizer has discovered, the orneriest people can often be converted into the most dedicated volunteers.