Well, we know what really happened in New York's mayoral race. Here's what was happening in a corner of New York.... (No link because I wrote it, and not for a newspaper.)
The chant, repeated and embellished, filled St. Nicholas Avenue and 181st Street in Washington Heights
.
"We want Freddy!".
"Cuando?" a deep baritone intoned through a bullhorn.
"Ahora!"
"Cuando?"
"Ahora!"
Storekeepers
and customers peered out their windows to wave at the candidate, even
when not urged by the bass voice crying out: "Ferrer aqui! Ferrer
acqui!"
A
grandmother dropped her grandchild's hand and ran into the middle of
the street, braving a near-miss with the M4 bus to hug the slight,
white-shirted candidate.
Copies of The Ferrer Express, handed out at every corner: an alternative, perhaps, to all those newspapers that muttered all week what the
New York Post finally screamed: IT'S OVER.
Welcome to Planet Ferrer, where victory is imminent for the longtime Democratic underdog.
Fernando
Ferrer spent Election Day entirely among supporters, in his home
districts in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, where he was treated like
the celebrity he is. All around him, Democratic candidates new and old
put themselves quietly on display for Ferrer, while they lined up their
chips for the next round of the game.
At
his campaign breakfast at La Nueva Caridad, a Washington Heights diner,
Ferrer was relaxed, un-anxious. He showed off his little grandsons,
Jalen and Brendan. He looked, not just like the winner, but already the
mayor. Those polls that had Mayor Bloomberg leading by over 30 percent – they didn't exist.
"The only polls that count are happening right now," said volunteer Jeannette Acosta, 32, a Kingsbridge resident and student at
Monroe College.
"I
talk to my friends, and Democrats that I know – and they are all
like,'Nobody talked to me'. The people that are voting weren't polled."
Acosta, a mother of two, said she became interested in Ferrer after she became sick of Mayor Bloomberg's claims on education.
"I spent $200 on school supplies last month," she said,
"including napkins, so they can go to the bathroom. Including soap, so
they can wash their hands."
In Ferrer, Acosta saw a chance for a new start – and something more.
"We
will make history today. We will elect the first Latino mayor of New
York," said Acosta with a heartfelt smile. The sentiment seemed less a
party line than a steadfastly maintained article of faith, spoken by
nearly everyone willing to comment for this story.
At
the breakfast, Ferrer and Luis Moranda, co-chair of the campaign, held
court with most of Upper Manhattan
's Democratic power structure. Though former Manhattan Borough
President Virginia Fields was the official guest; by the time it broke
up, respects
had been paid by City Councilman Miguel Martinez, Assembly members Eric
Schneiderman and Robert Jackson, and even Carol Bellamy, former borough
president and head of UNICEF. All the talk was of victory; Ferrer's
wife, Araminta, commented to Fields that "when people see Freddy, they
wake up!"'
The
loyal volunteers agreed; the shock troops of Planet Ferrer were ready
to march. Including Kenny Agosto, the man with the bullhorn.
Agosto,
35, is a Bronx native who's worked on three previous Ferrer campaigns.
"You might call me a Ferrerista," he said, laughing. Then he turned and
waved his volunteers to the sidewalk.
"To Fort Washington!" he cried, as if the general for which the street was named.
St. Nicholas Avenue,
an already busy shopping street, now swelled again with volunteers
waving blue Ferrer signs, campaign operatives in uneasy pinstripes, and
Ferrer's wife, daughter and son-in-law, as well as his bouncy grandson
taking turns on the bullhorn.
Once the group had taken its pre-victory parade up the hill at 181st
Street to Fort Washington
, they took themselves into vans and cars and went across the bridge to
the Bronx, to Ferrer's original home base at Jerome Avenue and Fordham
Road.
Here,
the crowds were thicker and the event more overlaid with local
officials. Here, the Spanish chants developed more beats, and a line
emerged that would continue throughout the day, in reference to
Bloomberg's millions.
"Los votos no se venden!"
Our votes are not for sale.
At
noon the media presence tripled. Univision competed with RNN, and the
pinstriped campaign staff tried to flatten themselves out of sight of
the shouting volunteers. Planet Ferrer is not about pinstripes, on the
surface.
A
more appropriate image was presented by Victor Thompson, a long-time
activist with the Service Employees International Union, with his
cold-hardened skin,
his baseball cap, his 25-year track record as an organizer.
"I worked on the Kerry campaign, and for Dinkins," he said.
Asked if he thought Ferrer could win, he said, "If I didn't, I wouldn't be here."
Planet Ferrer, it seems, is as much about party loyalty as about the injustices its inhabitants want to address.
As evidenced by the arrival of the next special guest:
Rev. Al Sharpton, who seemed a bit disoriented by the sheer volume of
pure Spanish with which he was surrounded when he got out of his van.
It
wasn't until the group marched east on Fordham, to Creston Avenue, that
Sharpton made some semblance of an actual speech. "Mayor Bloomberg will
see even his $100 million couldn't buy our votes," he started, going on
to his usual talking points about the West Side stadium and affordable
housing.
The
campaign's last official stop, as the sun set, was in Parkchester, in
the southeast Bronx, yet another home base for Ferrer. And there was
yet another set of local and state politicians, all standing in a line
to shake the hands of commuters, like a receiving line at a wedding. Kenny Agosto's bullhorn voice was hoarse as he bellowed to the growing crowd: "Make room!"
This
time, the lineup featured Comptroller William Thompson, who's often
spoken of as a potential Democratic nominee should Ferrer lose. Now, he
grinned when commuters approached him instead of the candidate. "I'm
not Freddy!" he kept saying, over and over. The subtext to Planet
Ferrer, then, may be a Democratic organization pulling together, and
preparing for the next step.
The
volunteers kept saying "It's looking good!" And the supporters who
turned up, though less certain, still refused to believe it was a lost
cause. A Queens police officer facing retirement said simply: "If he wins, the last five years of my career will be hell."
The
officer asked his name not be used, because "I'd be talking against my
boss, right? I work for the Mayor." Like most of the inhabitants of
Planet Ferrer, he thought the city had been too often run for the glory
of Bloomberg. "That stadium project – like he thought it would be his
legacy or something,"
He
sighed. "Do the math. $200 million of his personal fortune into this
campaign, if you count all those charitable contributions – and he
won't even feel it. Yeah, I feel more like Freddy's my kind of people."
As
the meet and greet wore down, the manager of the station's convenience
store, Rose Bengal, quietly offered a whisper from the reality-based
community. Asked if he had met the candidate, he said "Yes." Did he
support him? "No."
Did he vote? "Yes."
Then
he turned away, went back to selling lottery tickets and Coca-Cola, and
let the Democratic procession continue unchecked outside his door.