– A version of this story previously appeared at democracywise.syr.edu.

Three candidates are vying for New York’s 25th U.S. Congressional district seat in the election Tuesday.

Democrat Dan Maffei, Republican Dale Sweetland and Green Populist Howie Hawkins are all competing for the spot Republican incumbent Jim Walsh will leave vacant after 20 years of service. Walsh announced his retirement in January.This is Maffei’s second run for office. He ran against Walsh in 2006 and lost by fewer than 3,500 votes.

The 25th District encompasses all of Onondaga and Wayne counties, the northern portion of Cayuga County and a few towns in Monroe County.

Howie Hawkins

For Howie Hawkins, the political glass ceiling is showing some cracks.

‘I have a chance to win,’ said Hawkins, the enduring Green Populist candidate for elected office in the Syracuse area.Hawkins earns his living as a night-shift worker for United Parcel Service. Since 1993, he has run for elected office 13 times. He has lost 13 times.

This year, Hawkins faces familiar obstacles. An Onondaga County Democratic official protested his candidacy. His fundraising is dwarfed by his opponents.

But the cracks in the glass ceiling are still visible for Hawkins, a committed lifelong advocate of third-party politics. Hawkins has spent the fall campaign season on the same platform as his opponents. He is quoted in nearly every article written in The Post-Standard about the 25th U.S. Congressional District election.

More voters support him than before, according to recent polls. Hawkins received 6 percent support in an Oct. 9 poll, according to The Post-Standard. Maffei, who lost to 20-year incumbent Jim Walsh by 2 percent of the vote in 2006, led with 49 percent.

Despite the deficit, that’s progress for Hawkins. In 2005, he took 4.6 percent of the vote in Syracuse’s mayoral election, according to The Post-Standard. In 2006, he took 1.2 percent of the votes in the U.S. Senatorial election, when Democrat Hillary Clinton cruised to re-election.

Hawkins is getting more attention partly because of this year’s unusual election atmosphere, suggests Danny Hayes, a political science professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. With the country facing a financial crisis and ongoing war, voters might be more willing to listen to Hawkins’ ideas, he said.

‘He’s arguing that things need to be done very differently than they’ve been done before,’ Hayes said. ‘And for people who are dissatisfied with the country, that may be more powerful. Despite the fact that he certainly doesn’t seem likely to have a chance to win the election, he may be garnering more support from people this time in part because his message.’

Regarding national defense, Hawkins supports an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.On his campaign Web site, Hawkins writes about taxes, ‘Make the super-rich and the giant corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Tax speculation and pollution. Reduce taxes on wages.’

For health care, Hawkins wants a single-payer national health care system. Canada uses a similar system, in which the government collects taxes to pay for health care and acts as the country’s single insurance provider. Hawkins’ plan for the United States would also be publicly financed.

Hawkins has spoken in almost all the debates this campaign season. The Syracuse Chamber of Commerce barred him from a midday debate Oct. 10.

Hawkins went, anyway. He distributed campaign literature, according to a Post-Standard report.

Hawkins, 55, grew up in San Mateo, Calif. He became interested in third-party politics as a teenager in the San Francisco Bay area, protesting the Vietnam War in Oakland and registering voters for the Peace and Freedom Party. He left Dartmouth in 1976 without a degree – a language requirement short of graduating – and founded the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance. Hawkins helped found the national Green Party in 1984. He moved to Syracuse in 1991 and met with the Onondaga Greens soon after.

Political observers have noticed his commitment. He works at night, unloading trucks at UPS from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. He campaigns by day.

One of the glass ceiling cracks for Hawkins was a candidate forum Oct. 15 at SU’s Maxwell school. In the forum, all three candidates spoke individually with co-moderators Robert McClure, an SU political science professor, and Donna Adamo, a reporter for WTVH television.

McClure downplayed Hawkins’ election chances but took note of Hawkins’ dedication to his causes.

‘Mr. Hawkins is a committed ideologue and evangelist,’ McClure said. ‘His purpose is to spread the Gospel, not to win.’Hawkins’ candidacy was challenged in August by Dustin Czarny, an Onondaga County Democratic ward chairman. Czarny questioned the petition signatures Hawkins obtained to get on the ballot. Czarny declined to be interviewed for this story.

But state election officials rejected the challenge, and Hawkins was allowed to run for the 25th U.S. Congressional District – again.

Among his campaigns: U.S Congress in 2000 and 2004. Common councilor. State comptroller. County executive. Mayor of Syracuse in 2005. U.S. Senate in 2006. Councilor-at-large in 2007.

Losses across the board.

Hawkins dismisses the losses, portraying himself as in good company with the other 25th U.S. Congressional District candidates. Democrat Maffei lost his 2006 campaign to unseat incumbent Walsh, reminded Hawkins. And Republican Sweetland lost the last year’s Republican primary for Onondaga County Executive to eventual winner Joanie Mahoney.

‘We all lost our last election,’ Hawkins said. ‘So you’re choosing between three losers. So you better choose on the basis of issues, and listen to what I’m saying about the issues.’

ramccull@syr.edu

Published on November 2, 2008 at 12:00 pm