What Jim Buhrmaster Has to Do to Beat Paul Tonko in New York State's 21st Congressional District Race

If Jim Buhrmaster is going to take Mike McNulty's place as congressman in New York state's 21st Congressional District, he is going to have to out-Tonko Paul Tonko. In spite of everything negative I said about Paul Tonko in an op-ed piece back in April for The Sunday Gazette (Schenectady, NY), there is one thing neither I nor anyone else can take away from him--he is a master politician.

We saw that during the Democratic primary. While Phil Steck and Tracey Brooks outspent Paul Tonko 3-1 and made better use of the media, especially the internet, Tonko still won.

On the day after the primary, Paul Tonko called WVTL in Amsterdam, New York to thank people for supporting him. During the call, he also gave away his winning strategy. He said he went to as many public and social events as possible in order to meet the people. He also went door-to-door for the same reason.

Paul Tonko understands what a lot of people have forgotten in this high tech age--low tech campaigning such as hugging the women, slapping the men on the back and kissing the babies still wins elections. It's not that Facebook, MySpace, e-mails, faxes and websites aren't important; they just aren't enough and cannot replace an actual face to face encounter.

Sam Stratton, the man Mike McNulty replaced, had this to say about campaigning in his biography by Wilbur Cross, "Issues are always important...but so are other things the textbooks don't stress as much. Like meeting the voters face to face, for example. You'd be surprised how many voters have never actually seen a candidate in the flesh. Sometimes the experience can even jolt them into crossing party lines for you on Election Day."

During the primary, Paul Tonko didn't just go out to meet his supporters. He went out to meet people who didn't know him and to convince people who might be opposed to him to change their minds. That meant going into Albany County where he wasn't as well known. There was little point in focusing on Montgomery County where nine out of ten Democrats already supported him.

In a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1, Jim Buhrmaster can't win unless he convinces enough Democrats to vote for him. Can he do it? Conventional wisdom says that Paul Tonko has already won because whoever won the Democratic primary in the 21st Congressional District for the past 50 years also won the general election.

But there are differences this year. Paul Tonko is not an incumbent, which Mike McNulty has been for the last umpteen elections. Furthermore, there is a large number of Independents in the district, as many as 100,000. Even more important is that while the seat has been held by a Democrat for a half-century, it has been held by a conservative Democrat. You can call Sam Stratton and Mike McNulty a lot of things, but you can't call them liberals. Moderates maybe.

Paul Tonko is much more liberal than Mike McNulty, and while demographics may have changed enough in the district that a liberal Democrat can get elected, the possibility exists that there are enough conservative Democrats and Independents in the district willing to cross over and vote for Jim Buhrmaster, whose political views may actually be closer to McNulty's than Paul Tonko's are.

But Jim Buhrmaster will never get those votes unless he hits the campaign trail hard during the next several weeks--taking a page from Paul Tonko's campaign book--goes into "enemy" territory and convinces Democrats and Independents that he would best serve their interests.

Time might be Jim Buhrmaster's greatest problem. As a bachelor and no longer having to run a state agency, Paul Tonko appears to have more time than Buhrmaster to campaign. If Jim Buhrmaster doesn't take a sabbatical from his many responsibilities and campaign day and night, he may have difficulty winning.

The Democratic primary in the 21st Congressional District proved that working smarter doesn't eliminate the need to work harder. Nobody worked smarter than Tracey Brooks. Of all the candidates she made the best use of the internet and other media to get her message out. She raised the most money. (And she worked hard as well.) But she lost.

If you want to win in a congressional district, you have to be the equivalent of a political Fuller Brush man, Avon lady, or Jehovah's Witness. You have to take your message directly to the people. The newer methods of reaching voters via the internet are especially helpful in reaching young people, but it's the middle-aged and elderly who get out and vote. And even the young people enjoy meeting a candidate face to face.

For the first time in the thirty years I have been voting, I believe the Republicans have a candidate who has a chance of taking the 21st Congressional District seat back from the Democrats. But Jim Buhrmaster has an uphill battle and only he can win it. Before one can be a good congressman, one has to be a good campaigner. I have no doubt that Jim Buhrmaster would make a competent congressman, but if he doesn't out campaign Paul Tonko, who is a master at campaigning, he will never have the chance to serve as congressman.