Reprint from the Tris M cCall report

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Reprint from the Tris M cCall report

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Posted by Will Downtown go Downhill? on May 12, 2005 at 00:05:33:

Last night, a decent man got duked out of public office by a well-oiled smear campaign.

I believe Junior Maldonado would have lost anyway, and I'll get into the reasons why he would have lost (hint: they're not complicated) in the second part of today's post. But the lead of today's story is the kind of campaign his opponent ran: a campaign that everybody in Downtown Jersey City ought to be ashamed about.

I should know -- I was an inadvertent, and unwilling, participant in that smear campaign. Steve Fulop lifted a picture off of this site, manipulated it and decontextualized it, and used it in the inane attack ads that he flooded the streets with.

I didn't give Steve Fulop authorization to use that picture, so his act was, technically, illegal. I'm not a cop, though. I'm much less interested in the legality of his actions than I am in what they tell me about the sort of guy Steve Fulop turned out to be. The challenger's violation of the trust I put in him was only one small part of a much wider effort to slime Junior Maldonado's reputation. But it made this a very personal story for me, and it's a story I'd now like to tell.

As you probably know by now, I did a series of interviews with political candidates in Jersey City for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity, and to share what I found with others. I spent a long time piecing those interviews together -- trying to be fair to everybody I talked to. It's one of the few things I've ever done that I can honestly say was motivated by pure public-spiritedness. I mean, who cares what the outgoing President of ProArts has to say? Who cares about the views of some small-time political aspirant?

Well, I made some people care. I ran the Fulop interview first, again in the name of fairness. The interview got a great reponse: I received loads of e-mail praising the challenger, calling him a breath of fresh air, and so on. So far, so good. I kidded myself into thinking that I'd helped elevate the tone of municipal campaigns around here.

Instead, I got dragged into the gutter. In exchange for the free publicity, Steve Fulop perverted my intentions and made me feel like all my efforts to facilitate public debate and genuine exchange were pointless. I'd run a picture of Junior Maldonado that I'd snapped myself (my first naive mistake). It sure wasn't a typical political photograph, but I thought it was aesthetically interesting, and that it added some instructive depth to his public image. The Fulop people took it, removed the background, flipped it into greyscale, and made the Councilman look like a walking-undead politician. You're laughing now, probably, but when I saw it reproduced in Fulop's insulting, reductive circulars, I sure didn't find it funny. It showed me that Steve Fulop had no respect whatsoever for my efforts to stimulate discourse, no interest in fair exchange, and no gratitude for the platform I'd given him.

I expect I will feel terrible about the part I unwittingly played in Steve Fulop's smear campaign for the rest of my life. But what I remind myself on the morning after the ugliest campaign I've ever been privy to -- and I've been involved in some horrible ones, trust me -- is that I mustn't punish all local public servants for Fulop's behavior, or draw conclusions about my own public utility from Fulop's disrespect of it. Everybody else I've met in this town has been consistently courteous and open. Just because this one guy turned out to be incivil and unethical does not mean that it follows that all his colleagues are, too.

Nonetheless, I've learned some hard lessons here. Next time (and yes, there will be a next time) I am not going to be so easily manipulated. If it was Steve Fulop's intention to play me for a stooge, he succeeded -- but only because he blindsided me, and because I was willing to trust him to do the right thing. Now that I know what to expect from him, I'm going to be prepared.

Ward E

The most dispiriting thing about Steve Fulop's relentlessly negative campaigning is that he so obviously didn't need to do it in order to win. Take a look at Grove Street at 5PM tomorrow, and ask yourself: are these Steve Fulop voters or Junior Maldonado voters? The demographics of the Downtown have changed radically over the past four years. It was inevitable that we were going to elect a Councilperson who reflected those changes.

My hope was that when that change came, it could happen with consummate respect for the people and places who were getting supplanted. And, in fact, it could easily have occurred that way -- the new generation of waterfront residents could have taken the reins with courtesy and gratitude for the work done by people like Junior Maldonado and the coalition of veteran neighborhood activists who supported him.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. When a tap on the shoulder would have sufficed, Steve Fulop instead elbowed Maldonado in the ribs as hard as he could, pushed him out of the car window, and seized the wheel. It was overkill; utterly unnecessary. What it means is that instead of an orderly, pleasant transition, you're going to have wounds that don't stitch up easily. I guarantee you that I am not the only person Downtown who is angry at Steven Fulop.

So what sort of a Councilman will Fulop be? As I wrote yesterday, he seems to me to be much more interested in playing ball and furthering his own ambitions than he is in rocking the boat. I am also worried that we've just elected a guy with no moral compass whatsoever. It may turn out that he simply has no personal conscience, and that his public conscience is impeccable. That wouldn't be unprecedented in the world of big-city politics. But it would be pretty unusual. And Steve Fulop is all too usual.

Follow Ups:

Re: Reprint from the Tris M cCall report Stop your whining.... 09:36:39 05/12/05 (0)

Re: Reprint from the Tris M cCall report More from the report.... 00:23:28 05/12/05 (0)

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: Last night, a decent man got duked out of public office by a well-oiled smear campaign. 

: I believe Junior Maldonado would have lost anyway, and I'll get into the reasons why he would have lost (hint: they're not complicated) in the second part of today's post. But the lead of today's story is the kind of campaign his opponent ran: a campaign that everybody in Downtown Jersey City ought to be ashamed about. 

: I should know -- I was an inadvertent, and unwilling, participant in that smear campaign. Steve Fulop lifted a picture off of this site, manipulated it and decontextualized it, and used it in the inane attack ads that he flooded the streets with. 

: I didn't give Steve Fulop authorization to use that picture, so his act was, technically, illegal. I'm not a cop, though. I'm much less interested in the legality of his actions than I am in what they tell me about the sort of guy Steve Fulop turned out to be. The challenger's violation of the trust I put in him was only one small part of a much wider effort to slime Junior Maldonado's reputation. But it made this a very personal story for me, and it's a story I'd now like to tell.

: As you probably know by now, I did a series of interviews with political candidates in Jersey City for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity, and to share what I found with others. I spent a long time piecing those interviews together -- trying to be fair to everybody I talked to. It's one of the few things I've ever done that I can honestly say was motivated by pure public-spiritedness. I mean, who cares what the outgoing President of ProArts has to say? Who cares about the views of some small-time political aspirant?

: Well, I made some people care. I ran the Fulop interview first, again in the name of fairness. The interview got a great reponse: I received loads of e-mail praising the challenger, calling him a breath of fresh air, and so on. So far, so good. I kidded myself into thinking that I'd helped elevate the tone of municipal campaigns around here.

: Instead, I got dragged into the gutter. In exchange for the free publicity, Steve Fulop perverted my intentions and made me feel like all my efforts to facilitate public debate and genuine exchange were pointless. I'd run a picture of Junior Maldonado that I'd snapped myself (my first naive mistake). It sure wasn't a typical political photograph, but I thought it was aesthetically interesting, and that it added some instructive depth to his public image. The Fulop people took it, removed the background, flipped it into greyscale, and made the Councilman look like a walking-undead politician. You're laughing now, probably, but when I saw it reproduced in Fulop's insulting, reductive circulars, I sure didn't find it funny. It showed me that Steve Fulop had no respect whatsoever for my efforts to stimulate discourse, no interest in fair exchange, and no gratitude for the platform I'd given him.

: I expect I will feel terrible about the part I unwittingly played in Steve Fulop's smear campaign for the rest of my life. But what I remind myself on the morning after the ugliest campaign I've ever been privy to -- and I've been involved in some horrible ones, trust me -- is that I mustn't punish all local public servants for Fulop's behavior, or draw conclusions about my own public utility from Fulop's disrespect of it. Everybody else I've met in this town has been consistently courteous and open. Just because this one guy turned out to be incivil and unethical does not mean that it follows that all his colleagues are, too. 

: Nonetheless, I've learned some hard lessons here. Next time (and yes, there will be a next time) I am not going to be so easily manipulated. If it was Steve Fulop's intention to play me for a stooge, he succeeded -- but only because he blindsided me, and because I was willing to trust him to do the right thing. Now that I know what to expect from him, I'm going to be prepared. 

: 
:  

: Ward E

: The most dispiriting thing about Steve Fulop's relentlessly negative campaigning is that he so obviously didn't need to do it in order to win. Take a look at Grove Street at 5PM tomorrow, and ask yourself: are these Steve Fulop voters or Junior Maldonado voters? The demographics of the Downtown have changed radically over the past four years. It was inevitable that we were going to elect a Councilperson who reflected those changes.

: My hope was that when that change came, it could happen with consummate respect for the people and places who were getting supplanted. And, in fact, it could easily have occurred that way -- the new generation of waterfront residents could have taken the reins with courtesy and gratitude for the work done by people like Junior Maldonado and the coalition of veteran neighborhood activists who supported him. 

: Unfortunately, that's not what happened. When a tap on the shoulder would have sufficed, Steve Fulop instead elbowed Maldonado in the ribs as hard as he could, pushed him out of the car window, and seized the wheel. It was overkill; utterly unnecessary. What it means is that instead of an orderly, pleasant transition, you're going to have wounds that don't stitch up easily. I guarantee you that I am not the only person Downtown who is angry at Steven Fulop.

: So what sort of a Councilman will Fulop be? As I wrote yesterday, he seems to me to be much more interested in playing ball and furthering his own ambitions than he is in rocking the boat. I am also worried that we've just elected a guy with no moral compass whatsoever. It may turn out that he simply has no personal conscience, and that his public conscience is impeccable. That wouldn't be unprecedented in the world of big-city politics. But it would be pretty unusual. And Steve Fulop is all too usual. 


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