First of all, I want to say thanks to Jared for his uplifting take about a debate “where the trodden floors squeak and support the boots that been hustling the streets and pounding the pavement for years and decades to put sincere representatives in office to address the poor social conditions of their neighborhoods.” It’s wonderful having a new voice regularly here, in part because Jared was uplifted by sweaty democracy at the same moment that I found myself overwhelmed by the uphill climb in front of these candidates. 

Quite simply, while the City Council candidates opposing the Camden County Democratic Party slate showed glimmers of being effective campaigners and running effective campaigns, their shortcomings were evident, and for candidates facing structural challenges to relevancy (largely, the organizing necessary to engage enough Camden residents to compete with the line) there is much work left to be done. 

I’m taking a little different approach with this debate (full video here). I want to spend a little more time talking about the candidates, and a little less discussion of the horserace. But much of what I wrote about the mayoral race holds true for council; in Camden, running in the Democratic primary against the local party is an organizational challenge as much as it is one of changing hearts and minds. It’s about reaching those who are disengaged, who rarely vote, or vote for the party line without thinking, and making sure they know you are running and they turn out to vote. The horse race analysis of this race is simple: Ray Lamboy and his slate of candidates (Tracey Hall Cooper, Namibia El, Quinzelle Bethea) have shown the most organizational pull. They once again won the straw poll (likely by bringing supporters to the event), they’ve clearly organized a coherent strategy and outlined basic campaign talking points. Those things are not enough to win, but they’re signs that the slate can be competitive and can do other things necessary to compete. To the extent that I’m optimistic about the other candidate’s chances (Falio Leyba Martinez, April Saul and Kadeem Pratt — Kadeem is one of my students, and also did not show to the debate) it is because they’ve shown (or not shown) these same characteristics. 

But I also believe that part of a healthy democracy is having information on candidates that can both inform residents’ decisions on candidates, and give feedback to candidates in the same way that a thriving local press in a larger city might. And, while I think it’s important to critique the candidates who did show (in part so they can improve), it’s important to remember that Curtis Jenkins, Angel Fuentes and Sheila Davis — the slate running with City Council President Frank Moran — don’t think they need to go to public forums. Violating that democratic norm deserves a healthy bit of criticism; Camden is already disenfranchised badly enough, it’s a shame its City Council residents don’t respect residents enough to answer their questions publicly.

But back to the forum (and I’ll try to be careful to distinguish between places where I found an answer effective or lacking v. the mood in the room). 

I’ll start here with Tracey Hall Cooper, in part because she won the most votes (48), in part because she probably turned in the most impressive performance, and in part because she’s the best example of the strengths of this field. 

Cooper was probably the closest to a polished candidate at the table. She hewed closely to the central message of the Lamboy slate: that of bringing democracy and local control back to Camden. She did so in a way that was authentic. Perhaps even more importantly, she was effective in talking about how losing local control affected her own life. As a former Camden City police officer, Cooper was at her best when she talked about how she protected Camden and her neighborhood as an officer, then once she lost her job during the transition to the County force, continued to protect and serve her neighborhood. It was an eloquent argument for local control, and her story is a powerful example of the benefits of local institutions. Cooper probably submitted the strongest beginning-to-end performance, she escaped without a major gaffe, and was relatively comfortable speaking in front of the crowd. As was a theme throughout the night with all of the candidates, her answers were most often positions rather than solutions — and the few solutions she did propose that seemed connected to the legislature’s power (such as funding for grassroots organizations) came across as somewhat unrealistic. It’s not as if there are a lot of dollars floating around the city’s budget. But it is early in the campaign, and no candidate at the forum cleared the bar of presenting clear and possible plans on important issues. 

I’m going to bounce around here (alternating candidates on and off the Lamboy slate), so I’ll move to Falio Leyba Martinez, who is not running with any slate, next. Martinez, who I once had for class at Rutgers, was most effective when talking about his own experiences as a small business owner and working in a corner store growing up. When I squinted, I could see the outline of an organized campaign — Martinez had a “staffer” of some sort with him at the event, and had at least one talking point about Camden focusing on its “front yard, not its backyard” that felt like it was developed by a consultant or someone inside politics. His performance showed potential. 

But his performance was littered with gaffes and relatively poor answers that marred the overall effort. His answer for a question about his experience working for City Council President (and now mayoral candidate) Frank Moran came across as simultaneously dismissive (as if residents shouldn’t ask) and overconfident (he talked about always coming through for residents, but struggled to convey those situations to the audience). He ran into a similar problem in talking about tax subsidies (clip starts at 4:52):

Everyone at the forum held a similar view about corporations doing tax subsidies — one of the downsides of the Camden County slate skipping the debate was the uniformity of positions. But Martinez delivered little realistic discussion of the levers needed to work with companies to ensure community benefits. Martinez’s idea of asking corporations to “adopt two streets” or a neighborhood does little to address the systemic issues here (policy that leaves little leverage for communities, and little reason for corporations to negotiate with them). 

But Martinez’s worst answer of the night was clearly when asked about fighting discrimination. The answer was flawed in a number of ways. First, his first instinct was to go back to telling stories about high school baseball. It was, excuse the pun, a junior varsity moment that made it feel like he had a very thin record — the question was about fighting discrimination, not experiencing it during a sports benching a decade ago. To make matters worse, Martinez continued to explain that, “growing up in Centerville, a lot of people don’t know that I’m Latino. So, for me, I’m the same as an African-American.” It was an answer that left black community leaders shaking their head — an important constituency if Martinez is going to move beyond his base in the Latino community. It also showed a remarkable lack of nuance or understanding about racial issues (this was a theme throughout the night), one that breezed past distinct racial experiences in the city in a surface-appeal for solidarity. It was bad politics, but it also papered over the history and challenges the city faces that are linked to its cultural heritage. 

Quinzelle Bethea, like Martinez, struggled with racial issues, and Bethea had by far the most up and down performance of any candidate. At his best, he confidently made the case that his own life story helped him connect to youth in the city, highlighted by a chilling story about being punched by a police officer. The audience was clearly energized by the Camden redemption story. He also regularly returned to at least one concrete policy idea, community schools, that was well-received. Those were the “ups”. But there were a few downs: he had to explain a strange situation regarding his voter registration and made an unforced gaffe regarding “Jews from Brooklyn” that would likely have made news if Camden was a bigger media market. 

The question about Bethea’s voter registration was one of the more interesting of the night. Not necessarily because of the spat over voter registration (as I understand it, Bethea was incorrectly removed from registration after the excessive force incident above, and reregistered as he turned in his petitions), but because he turned that into a story of redemption that clearly received a positive response in the room, one of the loudest of the night. It speaks to the way that residents feel marginalized; a story of overcoming marginalization turned a negative personal question into one of the highlights of the debate.

But Bethea also significantly underperformed the others on his slate (he received just 37 votes, while they tallied 48 and 47). Part of that may be due to an amateurish gaffe at the end of this video (8:45), where he says “we can sell these city properties to first and foremost, city residents, not Jews from Brooklyn coming here with 10 million dollars.” 

I offered Bethea the opportunity to explain himself in writing (and will post if he does so note: his response and apology is included at the end of the post), but it was a discriminatory statement that caricatured an entire group of people in an ugly and stereotypical way. This gaffe distracts from his message, does genuine harm by perpetuating a nasty stereotype, and shows how far Bethea is from being a polished candidate. 

April Saul, at her best, had some similarities to the other candidates in the field — she talked compellingly about feeling like she needed to leave behind the constraints of journalism and do more in a city she came to genuinely care for. Both in the room and in her rhetoric, it’s clear that Saul has built quality relationships in Camden. Her populist platform, with a big focus on Camden High, reflects those relationships. And while she, like others, at times struggled to transition from positions (i.e. will not demolish Camden High, or opposing companies receiving tax subsidies) to plans for what a City Council person can do, that was a common struggle for candidates all still finding their feet early in the race. 

The wider issues for Saul swirl around what she calls the “elephant in the room;” her status both as an outsider and a new, white resident. Here is Saul talking the issue head-on during a question of whether her photography of funerals was ethical: 

It’s hard to tell if this answer was effective in the room — you can audibly hear one woman agreeing that its “terrible” when people told her not to run because she’s white, and conversely, the question itself was clearly from a detractor. There was also a more general uneasiness in the room at times during her answers. I share that uneasiness, and mine stems from wider issues around who has power in the city. Though Saul has admirably built relationships over the past few years in Camden, I’m skeptical that she (or any other newcomer to the city, particularly one who shares neither background nor culture with the majority of residents) should be running for office here. In Saul’s opening statement she says “maybe I can help more people this way.” Quite frankly, Camden has a rocky history with well-intentioned people who come to Camden to “help”, but end up deciding that the way to do so is by pursuing power for themselves. Over time, the effect of newcomers to the city seeking power is to deprive longtime residents from building the skills to occupy these positions.

We see this all the time in the nonprofit sector, where professionalized (and yes, white) nonprofits are seen as most effective, and grassroots Camden nonprofits are 1) locked out of funding opportunities from foundations that are not patient with young, developing grassroots nonprofits and 2) struggling to build the capacity necessary to compete for those resources over time because there is always an easier (outsider) option to fund and those larger nonprofits reap the benefits of building capacity from repeated grants. It’s a cycle. We saw in similar dynamic in the last Congressional Democratic Primary when Alex Law focused on “simplifying the message” of activists in the city, and saw the best place to do that as his campaign. Privilege led to resources and attention — I’m your best shot — and both residents and grassroots nonprofits ultimately suffer because they cannot capture the benefits of those experiences. 

Saul’s argument that she is not bought because she can fund her own campaign is appealing in the individual case, but systemically, it’s a leveraging of privilege that is not accessible to the vast majority of Camden residents. It is a short-term solution that ultimately impedes the sustainable growth of leaders and political candidates here in the city by instead depending on those with privilege to “help”. While its clear Saul connected with some of the residents in attendance Monday night and that her photography has an honest following in the city, I came away nervous about the wider implications of her candidacy, and am personally hesitant to support a newcomer to the city who wants to “help” a city by seeking power within it.

The final candidate was Namibia El. El is a tricky candidate to evaluate. She’s less of a lightening rod than other candidates. Her themes of voice and youth were powerful, and her links between representing resident voice and not corporate voice were vaguely reminiscent of some of the progressive language we here from national Democrats, an important characteristic for a member of the wider Lamboy slate that is explicitly targeting the city’s young population (I am a bit suspicious of this strategy — it’s not clear that Camden’s youth translates into a Bernie-style progressive politics — but it may be a way to activate young, educated volunteers for the campaign, and it may be the way these subtle reframings of progressivism really do have potential to reach residents in ways Bernie Sanders himself may have struggled to do): 

While I don’t believe the use of “machine” language as a critique of local officials is a powerful election tool, Namibia El did so throughout the night in a way that seemed to connect with this particular audience (itself quite an activist group). Part of that is that she brings an important structural component to the slate. As a leader at the Unity Community Center, she not only has relevant experience with youth, but she is an important part of the Lamboy coalition — the community center has a following that can serve as both a source of volunteers and votes. 

And that brings us back to the fundamentals of the race, which are about coalitions, resources and organizing — not debate performances. Part of what made this debate tricky to write about was that Sheila Davis, Angel Fuentes and Curtis Jenkins did not show up. If and when they do, the forum becomes a referendum on the city’s recent policy changes. Without it, there were few policy differences between the candidates. 

Until the establishment candidates feel threatened enough to show up to forums, these forums are essentially a chance to get to know the candidates, for the candidates to sharpen their campaigning skills, and for the campaigns to recruit volunteers (who are, at this point, probably more important than votes). That’s the day-to-day grind of being a candidate; ensuring the collection of enough emails, phone numbers and volunteers that the campaign can knock on doors and activate Camden residents. That’s the work of candidates with an uphill climb in front of them.

 

_____________

Bethea’s response and apology: 

I humbly and sincerely apologize for y how I delivered my views on who owns and who is first to be allowed to purchase properties in our great city. What I intended to do was elaborate on was the marginalization and disenfranchisement felt by Camden residents for over 30 years.

For many residents, including myself, there is a lot of frustration at not seeing enough Camden residents benefit from the educational and economic opportunities that many non-Camden residents appear to receive. In my overzealousness to authentically voice these often ignored perspectives, I inadvertently uttered a generalization that recalls historical and existing anti-Semitic stereotypes that are used to hurt and divide allegiances. My passion got the best of me at that moment, and conveyed a perception of who I am that is not reflective of my way of thinking nor is it reflective of  the commitment that I have to diversity and cultural respect. In that brief moment, I realize that I not only embarrassed myself, I also potentially gave traction to those who would like to see me and my perspective absent from the race.

These are the same people who would question my eligibility to vote and run for office. But make no mistake: I am a qualified, legally certified, resident proud voter and candidate for City Council. My name is present on the mail-in ballot and will be listed in the voting booth Tuesday, June 6th, along with Ray Lamboy, Namibia El and Tracey Hall Cooper. Any true inquiries regarding my eligibility should be brought to the attention of the Municipal Clerk’s office.

My past personal and professional experiences uniquely prepare me for serving my community as a member of the City Council, Yet, let me be the first to admit the obvious. I am still fairly new to the political arena. I learned a great deal being in attendance at the first forum for public office last week and intend to continue to learn from my elders, community and team for the benefit of us all.

To conclude, with less than 50 days left in this election, I look forward to spending more time discussing policies and issues that Camden residents feel need to be thoroughly addressed and remedied. Thank you Dr. Danley for your analytical insight and constructive review of the political city council forum. Your perspective is duly appreciated.

 

Respectfully and humbly submitted,

Future City Council Member,

Quinzelle Bethea