Dear Friend,
John Liu treats campaigning like an extreme endurance sport.
"I’ve seen him in action a couple of times this cycle and it’s just astounding," said a longtime city politics observer. "He never stops — it’s truly unbelievable. I would probably say unprecedented."
Because we've got an election to win and #OneCity to change!
NEW YORK MAGAZINE: "A (Very, Very Long) Day on the Campaign Trail With John Liu" - 8/1/2013
EXCERPTS - Daily Intelligencer wanted to see how a full day on the trail looks and feels for a man who stakes a claim to being the hardest-working campaigner in the history of New York.
And as much as it yields a lesson in tenacity, a day spent with Liu also offers a ticket into a New York City often overlooked by trend pieces and tourists — outer borough neighborhoods where Mandarin, Spanish, or Hindi are spoken as much as English — and where a remarkable number of people seem improbably stirred by a fellow immigrant making a serious run for Gracie Mansion.
We are doing some Monday morning quarterbacking of his performance at the Schomberg debate. Liu seemed to lose the crowd when he veered into math-geek talk — Liu is a physics major and a trained actuary — about statistical correlations and stop-and-frisk. He leans back in his bucket seat and aims that beaming campaign-trail smile at Daily Intelligencer. "I try to fight these Asian stereotypes," he says and laughs.
When Daily Intelligencer asks about his breakneck pace, Liu quibbles with our use of the word run. "We have run sometimes," he tells us. "That was just fast walking."
"Juan Liu, as we say in El Barrio," Pena said, laughing. Pena said it wasn’t where Liu immigrated from that counted, it was the fact that he had: "It’s a matter of him going through what we’re going through. And he made good!"
Every so often — enough times during the stop that it surprises us — somebody sees Liu and totally lights up. Like the twentysomething guy in a crisp new Yankees cap, billowing white T-shirt, and aqua Nikes who shouts when he sees the comptroller and pulls him in for a soul-shake. "Crazy!" The guy signs Liu’s petition, whips his phone out, and shoots a quick video selfie, which he says is for YouTube. "Yo! I’m right here with John Liu!" he shouts to his viewers. "I’m a Democrat and I’m out!"
Liu is irritated. The night was scheduled to end before 9 p.m., which is apparently a waste of valuable post-dusk campaigning time. But calls are made and soon the Suburban is pulling to a stop in the heart of Flushing Chinatown on 39th Avenue. When Liu rolls into the room, everyone, guest of honor included, snaps to their feet. They pat his back or touch his shoulder. Half a dozen cell phones appear, recording his progress across the room with video and stills. The display leaves Liu a little self-conscious. "You guys. Really, please, sit down," he says.
Liu takes the microphone. There is something different in his manner here. He now speaks with a high-volume, flushed fervor. "It’s going to be a very difficult path," Liu says. "I will be out there fighting my hardest and I know you will be fighting!" Hands already clapping in the audience were joined by more. "Nobody ever said it would be easy," Liu says over the noise. "But nothing you have achieved in America has ever been easy!" The applause sounds like a thunderstorm now.
Our long day campaigning suggested there are segments of the population where people don’t care about the polls or the campaign finance stories and have decided to take Liu at his word — New Yorkers who look at him and think, Hey, that guy could be me.