When I left off on the first part of this column (see Rock Hackshaw’s blogs/Room Eight), I had given you all the story of how Roger Green got his nickname (the Dodger) in 1986.
I also gave a brief history of his subsequent ride downhill. Well, that’s brings us to today, where as of this writing, Roger is still a candidate for Congress in the 10th Congressional District. He is facing both incumbent Ed Towns and insurgent challenger NYC Councilmember Charles Barron.
With four fortnights to the election, Green filed that he had raised around forty thousand dollars, spent all of it plus, owed another twenty thousand or so, and held about four thousand cash on hand. This has led to all kinds of speculation as to why he is even in this race. Everyone knows that to run a credible Assembly race one needs around sixty thousand dollars (and this is a low-ball figure); with that in mind, figure the cost of running a congressional race, where you are tackling about 5 times an Assembly district in size.
The main way to offset the money deficiency is to have an army of volunteers- and we all know how many people volunteer in political campaigns these days. Nowadays, most people who work on campaigns want to be paid. Running for office has become an expensive proposition indeed. The second significant way to offset the money deficiency is to attain the kind of popularity (and name–recognition) that Charles Barron brings to the table. Roger has neither of these. His volunteers are not energized, and he is not as widely known outside his district as Barron is known outside East New York; not even close here.
Although there are still a few other ways that candidates can be credible without buckets of cash, Roger Green has a big problem that won’t go away: his guilty plea to stealing state money. This makes it very difficult for him to entice the kind of idealistic volunteers needed to yield the grass root effort for success; especially in the era of Angel Rodriguez and Clarence Norman- not to mention Diane Gordon’s current problems. Last week on television I saw Roger talking about raising enough cash to do a credible run in the last fortnight of the election. WOW! A two-week campaign.
Recently I was informed that he was getting the endorsement of the Communications Workers Union; not surprising since they seem to have always endorsed him over the years I am told. I know for a fact that he has had the Health Workers Union (1199) on a holding pattern, while they have been waiting for him to get his act together in this race. He is probably going to blow that endorsement. They may stay neutral in this race.
All through last winter there was talk of three challengers to Towns (the other being Kevin Powell), and every political pundit that I knew then said that if they all run, Towns will be re-elected. Charles Barron publicly announced first, and since January he has been aggressively campaigning to unseat the incumbent. Powell flattered to deceive at first, and then common-sense got through to his politically-inexperienced brain, and he recently withdrew from the race. That was a wise move that Roger Green should have emulated. Why “the Dodger” remains in this race is still a mystery.
Many years ago(1992), when Ed Towns was challenged by former NYC councilmember Susan Alter for this very seat, Roger Green was a stand-in for Ed at the debates against Alter. I remember them well. I helped organize some in Fort Greene, when I was a member of the Board of Directors of Fort Greene’s Community Action Network; back in those days, Denise “Niger” Campbell, Eric Blackwell and a handful of others (including myself), used to whip up on Ed Towns for taking campaign contributions and other donations from the tobacco companies. We did this through a weekly newspaper Eric published. It was called Fort Greene News. All this took place whilst the district had a high asthma and crib-death rate. In fact, infant-mortality at that point, was as high in Fort Greene as it was in some third-world countries. We reported all this in the weekly. Today-along health lines- it seems that nothing much has changed in the past 14 years; although in fairness to Towns, I am told that he has stopped taking “tobacco money”. I don’t know that for a fact however.
When Barry Ford challenged Towns in 1998 and 2000, Roger Green did the same as he did in the 1998 race-he filled in for Ed at debates. Colin Moore also filled in for Towns a few times; however Roger seemed to be Ed’s main surrogate-Ed’s proxy of sorts. Maybe someone could look up Ed’s filings and see if Roger was paid for those numerous cameos. Many people still remember Roger asking Barry Ford (at a candidate’s forum), why he choose Congress as his first run for public office-bypassing school board, city council, assembly or state senate races. To this question Barry replied; “I am a Harvard graduate, sir”. Barry missed the point; Roger made his. We know who won both races. By no means is this meant to denigrate Barry who most of us believe is quite a nice guy, it’s just that he blew that answer big time, and some of us think it cost him dearly.
Maybe Roger is still helping Towns in this upcoming race, since polls have showed that with two opponents, Towns has a great chance of being re-elected. Added to this is the fact that despite the grass root energy of Barron’s campaign, Charles has failed miserably in fundraising-even though raising about three times more than Roger Green. Plus he has also been making countless tactical and logistical mistakes since January. Charles Barron is probably blowing a good shot at taking out Ed Towns. I am probably one of few who still believe that Barron will whip Towns in the black areas of the district. I base that on Barron’s immense popularity amongst blacks. With five weeks left, Ed is campaigning real hard; he is also postering like John Sampson did last year. Ed is working harder than Tina Turner folks. Is there something he knows that we don’t?
For a long time there was speculation that Roger Green was going to drop out of the congressional race. It was said that at the last minute, he was going to run for re-election, switching via” the committee of vacancies” route, with female district leader Freddy Hamilton (57th Assembly District) – who submitted petitions for both her seat and the assembly member position. Believe me folks (contrary to Azi Payabarah’s 51st State blog); my sources were both credible and incredible. I wonder what we would find out if we were to depose both Hamilton and Green under oath. Is either one (or both) willing to step forward now and deny that any such discussions ever took place? For her part, Hamilton has raised a little over five hundred-less than one thousand dollars- and has loaned her campaign about ten thousand dollars or more. Tell me, who is fooling who?
This whole set-up reeks. It is easy to suspect that “the Dodger” is up to his old tricks again. And while he continues to dodge real questions, he issues press releases to counter my columns and those of others who cover all this. For example, the same day that I wrote of his imminent withdrawal, he released a letter signed by Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover both pledging to raise funds for him; but when are they going to do this? In December?
Often people ask me what are Roger Green’s chances of winning this race; I tell them that Roger is as dead as a 200 year old penis without Viagra, Levitra and Cialis combined. And he should know this better than all of us. He is no fool. Why he continues to play these games, he alone knows. There are those who say that when it’s all said and done he will get a big job with Ratner; good for him. Maybe that’s his exit strategy from politics. But cushy job or not, he should still be called upon the carpet to explain all this. He owes us an explanation for his shenanigans. And yet, if you think about it, you can expect that in typical Roger Green style, he will dodge that too.
Happy anniversary “Dodger”; now send in the clowns.
Stay tuned-in folks.