Donald Trump is president, so throw everything you know about politics out the window. You’re qualified to run for local office – we’re here to help. — Run for Something.
Pennsylvania Senate candidate James Craig (D) is living proof we never really know somebody else’s story. Well-groomed and dressed in office casual, the 29-year-old attorney looks every bit the product of a leafy suburban upbringing.
In reality, Craig’s childhood and youth were marked by poverty, hunger and illness. Shelter was trailer parks, budget motels and relatives’ scant homes. Along the way Craig’s ironworker father was permanently disabled, and his mother and brother were lost to opiate overdoses.
Long story short, nothing in James Craig’s personal narrative would have him above ground for the long run, much less living a stable life and in the running for high office.
Yet through persistence, a love for learning and the kindness of others, he has beaten the odds: Craig is married, owns his own business, and assists (pro bono) veterans and first responders seeking to purchase homes.
But if Craig is to keep beating the odds, he’ll have to unseat the popular Republican incumbent who in 2014 became the first GOP candidate to represent the 46th District in almost four decades. Not an easy task.
While Craig’s story is unique, his decision to seek office relatively early in life is not. He’s but one of a growing number of progressive millennials filing for public office in the wake of Trump’s election — not altogether surprising given those who identify with a political party lean Democrat by 12 points. In Virginia alone, the 2017 state elections saw seven Democrats ages 28-36 win their races.
Sensing the moment, a handful of organizations have formed to equip young liberals ready to campaign. Prior to the 2018 national elections, Run for Something, one of the most comprehensive programs for politically minded millennials, endorsed and helped fund dozens of qualified first-time candidates. Of that number, all were between 19 and 39, half were women and 40% were persons of color.
Encouraging as these developments are in such times, there is cause for concern: predictions are young progressives will enter politics in smaller numbers than the previous three generations, creating a dearth of viable candidates that will in time reach all the way to the national level.
Shauna Shames, Rutgers educator and author of Out of the Running: Why Millennials Reject Political Careers and Why It Matters, gives an explanation for this indifference:
“They’re not stupid or selfish, as some of the worst millennial stereotypes suggest. They just don’t have a lot of faith and trust in politics, and have fairly low confidence that the organizations set up by their elders will work, often with good reason.”
If Shames is right, reversing this millennial aversion to the world of politics will not come easily; nor per the Run for Something model can it be done according to boomer or even Gen X standards.
What’s needed instead is a progressive coalition of generations in which focused but largely broke millennial organizations and candidates see to the grassroots, while the rest of us function as donors, encouragers and companions in the cause to resist.
And do what we can to clean up the mess we helped make.
Postscript: Check out Run for Something (runforsomething.net) but don’t forget our brother James (jamescraig.org) in his uphill effort to take back that Senate seat.
Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister and substance abuse counselor living in Pittsburgh, Pa. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2018
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