Two weeks ago, voters rendered their verdict, and the somewhat Quixotic campaign of John Burnett for city comptroller came to a quiet end. In a Democratic wave that saw the top of the ticket blown out by 50 points, the Republican rookie pol and Wall Street veteran had little chance.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some valuable insights — personal and institutional — that can’t be gleaned from Burnett’s loss.
In New York, to get supporters to the polls to vote, you need lots of money: to organize, print campaign literature, get signs posted and — especially in a citywide campaign — run ads for television and radio. Burnett was at a serious disadvantage, particularly as a Republican.
“The GOP support was dismal,” Burnett notes. “The mindset is that, they look at the opposition more than they look at their candidates. . . [Ironically], if Spitzer would have won [the primary], I would have had more money.”
He’s right. One week before Election Day, on a visit to Washington, DC, I had a conversation with a high-ranking Republican National Committee official. He essentially confirmed that the RNC’s role, or lack thereof, in New York’s comptroller race was determined after the Democratic primary.
The RNC was preparing an ad that, in the event of an Eliot Spitzer victory, would have shown side-by-side pictures of Spitzer and Burnett with a voiceover saying, “Who would you trust running the city’s pension funds? This man [Burnett]? Or this man [Spitzer]?” The contrast would have been powerful: An African-American Wall Street veteran with his own Horatio Alger success story versus the disgraced hooker-happy ex-governor? In heavily Democratic New York, Burnett would still have started from behind, but the narrative would have generated national headlines and, more significantly, donor attention.
Alas, as soon as union-backed Scott Stringer upset Spitzer, the RNC determined the race wasn’t worth contesting — rather than seeing the importance of continuing to promote and support a promising young candidate to whom the party might want to seek out for future races.
The lack of party support was a burden Burnett couldn’t overcome even with the city’s public-financing matching-funds system.
Ironically, Burnett had difficulty raising funds, despite the fact that he was from the finance industry. That’s no accident: A 2006 law put greater restrictions on groups and individuals that do business with the city, and many of Burnett’s possible donors likely fell into that category. Such individuals, for example, can only contribute a maximum of $400.
Of course, unions and their members are exempt — giving a huge edge to Stringer.
On top of that, many firms, fearing political backlash after the 2008 market collapse, place even stricter internal limits on employee giving. Burnett found that mid-level employees had to have contributions cleared by their bosses, a regulation that had its own chilling effect on donations.
In short, that puts pro-business, pro-finance industry candidates at a disadvantage in a city where pro-labor candidates merely just have to show up for donations to start flowing their way. Of course, after seeing DC’s shakedown of JP Morgan, Wall Street may not be so reluctant to remain on the sidelines in the future.
Burnett regrets that the GOP doesn’t take lessons from the economic part of its base. “Great business minds in the Republican Party — but they lack political investment vision. Sometimes a business doesn’t break even until the third year, but you gotta start the investment early on. Not just giving the nomination to qualified individuals, but [giving] the dollars to those individuals, too.” In other words, long-term investment can help build seeds for future victories. That’s a lesson Democrats learned long ago.
While disappointed, Burnett doesn’t regret his effort in a special year: “Fifty years after the March on Washington,” he notes, there’s an unfinished agenda in the black community. “We still have issues with education, economic opportunity and a high incarceration rate. Martin and Malcolm would not be proud.”
Does that suggest another campaign?
“I’ll run if there are no other qualified candidates who can get the job done. But what I do want to do is start really showing people how to get actively involved in what’s really important.”
Sounds like a voice of reason — and vision — that Republicans could use in Albany or Washington. Will the Grand Old Party be smart enough to keep John Burnett close by? Let’s hope so.
Robert A. George is a member of The Post’s editorial board.