Rick
Dollinger takes over the Monroe Democratic Party at a tough time. It has the
reputation of being both weak and fractious. Republicans control county
government and nearly every suburban town. In the County Legislature,
Republicans repeatedly ignore Democratic initiatives, sometimes even ignoring
their requests for public documents. Republicans vastly outperform the
Democrats in fundraising.
Dollinger’s
predecessor, Molly Clifford, was respected by many party activists, but under
her leadership the Democrats were able to make little headway in winning local
offices. And they’ve had a fairly high turnover rate of party chairs.
Worse,
the Democrats often seem to be fighting one another more than they are the
Republicans. Fights among strong personalities within the party, in fact, led
Clifford to resign suddenly on January 31.
The
infighting may get worse; there’ll be a Democratic primary for mayor in
September, and there’s already open hostility among supporters of some of the
candidates.
The
53-year-old Dollinger, who’ll serve in the job part-time and will hire an
executive director, says he had “no dying ambition” to become party chair. His
law practice was doing well, he says, and he was reluctant both to take the cut
in salary and to sacrifice the time at work and with his family that the job
will require.
But,
he says: “I honestly feel that at some point, you have to put your money and
your mouth where your principles are. I can’t walk around and say I believe in
the Democratic Party and its message and its history, and have somebody come to
me and say, ‘Would you like to put that into action?’ and say, ‘Well, I’m kind
of old and tired and really want to go into retirement.'”
“There
are too many people sitting on the sidelines complaining,” he says. “I’m not
going to do that.”
Dollinger
is a familiar figure in local politics. He served in the County Legislature
from 1987 to 1992, then served in the State Senate for 10 years. He lost an
ugly race for County Court judge in 2002, but has stayed involved in Democratic
politics.
While
he may have not sought out the post, he clearly relishes the challenge. And he
insists that he’ll be able to keep Democrats in line throughout what will be a
hard-fought primary for mayor — and at the same time raise money and help put
together a slate for the County Legislature. Every seat in the legislature will
be on the ballot in November, and many long-time Democratic incumbents have
reached their term limit and can’t run again.
Republicans
were facing the same challenge, but they’ve already begun moving their most
senior legislators into other positions — and appointing people to take their
place. In several districts, brand-new Democratic candidates will be facing
incumbents in what would have been open, perhaps more competitive races.
In
a recent interview, Dollinger insisted that neither the warring nor the
weakness images are entirely accurate. “There have been some personality rifts
between public officials,” he said, “and those have been blown up by our
opponents to suggest that we’re incapacitated by division. I don’t believe that
to be the case. I think that’s more or less the gospel according to the
Republicans: Keep saying Democrats are fractious, and it’ll turn people away
from asking the tough questions about what’s going on in county government.”
He’ll
hold the warring factions together “using the strength of my personality and
the basis of my friendship,” he said. “I’m not going to let sandbox
sensibilities drive the mayor’s race.”
And
as for the local party being weak: “The numbers belie that,” said Dollinger.
“John Kerry won here. Hillary Clinton won here. Chuck Schumer won here. We’ve
been able to win on the national level if we have the right message.”
“I
would add,” he said, “this is still a bellwether county. This is a county that
is almost evenly split, based on voting patterns, between Democrats and
Republicans.”
“We
have to find quality candidates and come up with a quality message that works
in the suburbs,” he said. He points to Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk
Counties, traditionally Republican areas that have been electing Democrats. “My
intention,” he said, “is to bring people from those communities here to tell us
how they did it.”
Another reason
for Dollinger’s optimism: his conviction that Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic
attorney general, will be elected governor in 2006 and Democrats will again be
in charge in Albany.
“The
Democratic Party in Monroe County has been in an unusual posture in the last 10
years,” said Dollinger. “We live in the bluest state in America, and we don’t
have access to the political power that comes with having a Democratic
governor. That power is helpful on the local level. It assists fundraising. It
assists the ability to reward people who work for the party, quality people who
should be working for state government, handling state agencies.”
“We’ve
been shut out of that for 10 years, and we’ll be shut out for two more years,”
said Dollinger. “That has made it very difficult for a succession of chairs to
build the party infrastructure.”
So
it was a Republican governor who built the Monroe County Republican Party into
a powerhouse? Many people think it was local Party Chair Steve Minarik, with
his uncanny ability to raise money — and the clout that money gives him to
keep local Republicans in line.
“Where
do you think he gets that power?” said Dollinger. “Steve Minarik can go into a
room and say: ‘You guys are all contractors for Monroe County. You all want to
be contractors for the State of New York. You would like to think that at some
point if you need a favor, one of us could pick up the phone and call the
governor and something would happen.’ Steve Minarik has had that power. He has
had that at the governor’s level. He’s had it at the presidential level for the
past four, five years. And he’s had it at the local level.”
Monroe
County Democrats were in a similar position, said Dollinger, in the 1980s,
when, at one point, Democrats controlled not only City Hall but also the County
Legislature, the county executive’s office, and the county clerk’s office.
During
the same period, Democrat Louise Slaughter defeated Republican incumbent
Congressman Fred Eckert. “Why does Fred Eckert lose? Because Mario Cuomo has
got power,” said Dollinger. “The party is able to raise money because they have
a governor who’s a Democrat. The first time I got elected to the County
Legislature, I got my picture taken with Mario Cuomo with a Rick Dollinger
button on his lapel. I put it on the back of my last flyer; it was my last
endorsement.
“Cuomo
talked on behalf of Tom Frey in a television commercial: Mario Cuomo, in his
own inimitable style, saying, ‘Here’s the guy you need to elect as county
executive. Elect Tom Frey.’ Cuomo was coming off of a massive re-election
victory in 1986. That’s how the party grew and developed.”
With
Pataki’s defeat of Cuomo, that all changed, said Dollinger. But, he predicts,
“Steve Minarik has ridden this bull as far as he can take it.”
Still,
it will take money for the Democrats to make inroads in suburban and rural
Monroe County. The governor’s race is nearly two years away; the county
legislature race is this year. And Steve Minarik has a firm grip on political
contributions.
“I’m
going to go to people and tell them that this is a two-party town,” said
Dollinger. “I’m going to remind them that Democrats, national and state
Democrats, have been winning here. I’m going to remind them that we’re not far
from the time when all of the constitutional officers of the state of New York
will be Democrats, and that Steve Minarik’s ability to deliver or be
influential at the state level will be gone. It will be history.”
Raising money
will be only one of Dollinger’s jobs. He must also strengthen the party and find strong
candidates for suburban races. And here, the primary for mayor intersects.
That
race, he said, “is really an interesting chance — as it was in 1993 [when
Bill Johnson was first elected Rochester mayor] — for the Democrats of this
community to define both the future of the party and the future course of the
city. And my view is that you can’t do one without the other, that they’ll be
linked together.”
The
next mayor, he said, must be committed to helping strengthen the party and form
coalitions with suburban Democrats. The strength of the party may not be an
issue to the average voter who values the independence of an outsider. But the
party and party loyalty is important to Democratic insiders.
“The
party does have value,” he said, “especially in this community, because the
city can not go it alone. The message of the party has to be reaching out to
the suburbs and making everybody aware of the fact that the community’s
vitality is dependent upon the quality of life of the city.”
“To
be blunt,” said Dollinger, “the next mayor is not going to have the resources
to do that all by himself. He’s going to need political power in Albany to do
it. He’s going to need a broader debate about how you fund communities that are
struck by the scourge of concentrated poverty. And he’s going to have to
convert people into understanding that problem and coming to grips with it. In
Albany, you’re going to have to convince a Republican Senate and even some
suburban members in the Assembly that the vitality of cities is important for
the overall growth of the state.”
Bill
Johnson nearly exhausted himself taking the message of the city’s importance
into the suburbs — “a tough-love message,” said Dollinger — and it cost him
the county-executive seat. Democrats, said Dollinger, have to find a way to
talk about the county’s challenges in a way that resonates with suburban
residents.
Planning,
fiscal restraints, land use, open space, the cost of police and fire services,
the savings offered by service consolidations: All, he said, are issues that
Democrats should be talking about all the time. Democrats may not be able to get
measures passed in the County Legislature, but Dollinger wants them selling
their ideas “at press conferences, at School Board meetings, at VFW meetings,
at neighborhood meetings, at sporting events.”
“I
think a bunch of the private-sector contracts, the golf courses and some other
things where the county’s searching for revenue, ought to be re-examined,” said
Dollinger. “The fact that the county’s owed about $12 million by the Outdoor
Sports Facilities Corporation for Frontier Field while the Rochester Red Wings
have continued to make a lot of money is something that ought to be
re-examined.”
The
Democrats’ message “has to be about making tough choices about government,”
said Dollinger. “Do we need a communications office in the County of Monroe? Do
you need to have a multiperson department that does nothing more than try to
get the county executive on the evening news? I’m not convinced of that.”
“I
also think that there are consolidations of government that may have some
value,” he said. There is already talk of consolidating some suburban fire
districts, he noted — and then he veered into hotter territory: regional
planning.
“I
know that’s a controversial issue,” said Dollinger, “but I think planning is
what you need: a countywide development plan for where our office parks are
going to be built, where our Empire Zones are going to go. The Republican
Party, which wants to encourage speculation, and the developers win if they
speculate correctly — that can be defeated by good planning. My hope is that
we can convince communities that to preserve their quality of life, [countywide
planning] is the best thing to do.”
Buffalo and
Erie County, facing major fiscal problems, are now considering
consolidating. So, the Wall Street
Journal noted last week, are Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and 10 other
metropolitan areas. But Johnson’s defeat in 2003 showed how difficult it is to
sell the message in the suburbs — and how effectively opponents can use
advertising to overwhelm it.
Critics
portray consolidation and regional planning as a liberal idea, and Democrats
have been running away from liberalism. Not Dollinger. “I’ve never been afraid
of the word ‘liberal,'” he said. “I’m a liberal Democrat like Franklin
Roosevelt and John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, Mario Cuomo. I
believe there are things that government can do to change and improve people’s
lives. There’s a long history of doing it in this state.”
“There
was a time when New York State was the progressive engine that drove America,”
said Dollinger. “We came with workers-compensation laws, unemployment-insurance
laws. We improved the quality of life for workers. I would ask people to peel
back the labels and take a good look at the programs.”
Dollinger
clipped off a quote from FDR’s “Rendezvous with Destiny Speech,” something he
said is his “favorite line”: “Better the occasional faults of government that
lives in the spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of government
frozen in the ice of indifference.”
When
he was named party chair last week, “I promised people that I would not be
indifferent to what’s going on,” he said. “We will be a strong voice in the
face of what goes on. And from my point of view, there’s no better definition
of the difference between Democrats and Republicans: the spirit of charity,
trying to help people, trying to make government work for people, or the
indifference that says, ‘I’ve got mine, you’ve got to go get yours.'”
Are
voters, particularly suburban voters in this increasingly segregated county,
ready for that kind of message?
“I
want Monroe County to be a test tube for the Democratic Party,” said Dollinger.
“If you look at the party nationally, and you look at the party locally, you
could draw a relatively close parallel. There are the same kinds of issues that
we face, which is that wealth is not located among the traditional Democratic
base. The suburbs are generally prosperous and virtually problem free.
[Democrats in] the urban core, where the upwardly mobile populations are, are
looking to expand their influence and are looking for a message they can carry
to the suburbs.”
“If
we can brew in the test tube a winning model for uniting parts of the
Democratic coalition,” said Dollinger, “attracting independents and convincing
them there’s a better way to govern, we have the possibility of sending a
message nationally. That’s why I take the challenge. I don’t have any bones
about it being easy. I don’t know that I can accomplish it this year. I don’t
know that I can accomplish it in two years. But I do believe that this is the
big fight worth having, and I believe it might as well start here.”
SIDEBAR
1
Primary
forecast
The
Democrats’ mayoral primary in September will be at least a three-way race. And
that primary may be more important than the November general election. Because
the vast majority of city voters are Democrats, the winner of the primary
almost always wins the general election.
The
race already has echoes of the 1993 race. That year Bill Johnson, the president
of the Urban League, was a political outsider running against seven longtime
Democratic pols. This year another outsider, Police Chief Bob Duffy, is
expected to run, challenging longtime City Councilmembers Wade Norwood and Tim
Mains.
Norwood
and Mains, notes Democratic Party chair Richard Dollinger, have “high profiles
in the party.” Duffy has a high profile in the community — higher than
Norwood and Mains — but he’s not as well known, on a personal basis, within
the party. He has not, for example, come up through party ranks, working on
campaigns or running for office.
Norwood,
who has had his eye on the mayor’s office for years, has support among many
Democratic elected officials. His campaign co-chairs are David Gantt and Joe
Morelle, state Assemblymembers who are often at odds with one another. Norwood
is expected to get the party’s designation at its convention in May, but Mains
has already said he’ll run in a primary, and Duffy is expected to do the same.
That
will set off what’s certain to be an intensive, and exceptionally interesting,
campaign. The key Democratic voters are what are called “Prime Dems,” those who
vote in nearly every primary. Dollinger estimates that there are about 17,500
Prime Dems in the city. “If you can identify 8,000 votes,” says Dollinger, “you
win.”
But
other factors may be at play this year. First, it’s likely to be a high-profile
campaign, which in itself may draw a high turnout. Second, Norwood, an African
American who is popular in the black community, may attract voters who don’t
ordinarily vote in primaries. In addition, there are many new Democrats —
particularly African Americans and Dean supporters — who registered prior to
last year’s presidential election.
“It’s
going to be good, old-fashioned politics,” Dollinger says of the campaign.
“It’s going to be telephone calls, mail, direct contact, pitching issues. The
person who wins the race will be doing this on a very retail basis.”
SIDEBAR
2
Hillary?
No
It
may be too early for them to have much meaning, but polls are already calling
Senator Hillary Clinton the front-runner for the Democrats’ presidential
nomination three years from now. As a local chairperson in Clinton’s state,
Richard Dollinger’s opinion will matter. And right now, he’s not enthusiastic.
In
the last year’s Democratic primary season, Dollinger supported North Carolina
Senator John Edwards. “I honestly believed that electing a senator from
Massachusetts was impossible,” he says.
Then
is electing a senator from New York impossible four years from now?
“I
believe that given the current contours of the country,” he says, “the answer
to that question is yes. I think it’s very, very difficult to do.”
And,
he says, things aren’t likely to change much between now and then — “not
unless the Democratic Party starts talking about economic opportunity and
upward mobility.”
“If
Hillary Clinton wants to run for president,” says Dollinger, “she’s entitled to
do that. My personal opinion is that the Democratic Party needs to reach out
beyond the confines of New York and Massachusetts. I would strongly suggest
that a John Edwards, an Evan Bayh [senator from Indiana] — no one else jumps
off the page right now — but I think there’s space for a new Democrat and new
ideas.”
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2005.
