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What were the odds? My first night of door-knocking

What were the odds? My first night of door-knocking

Posted March 22nd, 2009 by brad On Wednesday, I went out on my first night of door-knocking in Cobble Hill.  Over the years, I've talked to a lot of people about issues -- encouraging them to get involved in campaigns for affordable housing, or to strengthen tenant protections, or help create new jobs, or to push for rezonings to preserve neighborhood quality-of-life.  And I've knocked on door for the Obama campaign, and for progressive local candidates here in New York City.

But I've never knocked on doors to ask people to vote for me ... so in some ways it was a new and strange experience.  Lots of people (understandably) don't want to talk at all, so they don't answer the doorbell, or they explain that they are in the middle of making dinner or giving their kid a bath.  Others make a minute to talk, and I learned about some of what matters to a few folks on Warren Street -- improving the environment and addressing climate change, saving Long Island College Hospital, helping small businesses cope with the economic downturn.

At one door, I rang the bell downstairs, under the stoop, and then a man came out from the upstairs door onto his stoop, polite, but eyeing me a bit skeptically.  As I walked slowly up a stair or two, his wife came out behind him.  I introduced myself: "Hi, I'm Brad Lander.  I'm running for City Council, and I'd love a minute to talk about the issues that matter to you."  She looked at me, and said: "Are you David Lander's son?"

Now, my parents have lived in St. Louis, Missouri all their lives.  They love to visit Brooklyn, but it is still pretty rare that I run into someone here that knows them, that I've never met.  

But it turns out that Fran Mendlow (nee Seltzer) graduated University City High School with both my parents (my folks met in kindergarten, and when through University City public schools together), and was friends with them more than 40 years ago in St. Louis.

I've been hoping that my record of results at the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center for Community Development -- on affordable housing, creating jobs, strengthening neighborhood quality-of-life, and fighting for a more sustainable city -- would resonate as I talk to new people.  And I even imagined that my family ties might help a bit.  Between connections at at P.S. 107 (where our kids go to school and Meg's on the School Leadership Team), little league baseball, basketball, and soccer, swimming and art classes, Meg's work at the Brennan Center for Justice, etc. there are many chances to meet someone in the neighborhood who knows Meg, Marek, or Rosa.

But what were the odds of meeting new voters who know and like my parents from high school in St. Louis?  (I wish they were larger, because my folks are great people, and anyone who knows them would indeed by much more likely to vote for me).  Their class was just a few hundred people, forty years ago, half-a-continent away.

I don't know if the right word is bashert, or kismet, or just dumb luck.  But I'm taking it as a good sign.

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