Run Against the Machine

BRADY CRUNCH: Chris Randolph, an independent candidate challenging the city's Democratic Party boss, had to fight his way onto the ballot. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

A Penn grad faces big hurdles in his quest to unseat Bob Brady.

by Trey Popp

When Chris Randolph decided in March to run for the 1st District U.S. Congress seat as an Independent, he knew he was in for a challenge.

Bob Brady's district, a splendid piece of gerrymandering that resembles a capital J, hasn't been competitive for ages. In that area dominated by the Democratic city machine, Republicans routinely fail to muster 15 percent of the vote. And for Independents, it's an even steeper battle, considering that the state has some of the nation's most stringent ballot-access requirements.

Still, the 33-year-old lifelong Philadelphian who used the Mayor's Scholarship to become the first in his family to attend college never dreamed he'd have to drag the state into court just to get his name on the punch cards.

Randolph, who earned a political science degree from the University of Pennsylvania, got his first taste of difficulties to come less than two weeks into his quest, when the state Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation managed to send some of his paperwork to the wrong address under a name misspelled in two places. Tracking down that piece of mail was fairly easy compared with what came next.

To qualify for the general election Congressional candidates need 2,412 constituent signatures. Each must be affixed to an official state form, which election officials declined to send Randolph in sufficient quantity. "We're rationing them," Randolph says he was told. "Xerox them like everyone else."

Doing so proved nearly impossible, however, since the form had been designed on irregularly-sized paper that couldn't be duplicated without an offset press. Photocopying each side of the form separately on the required yellow paper and stapling them together, Randolph pressed on. He developed a political platform, a website (which is more than the Republicans have done for candidate Deborah Williams) and started seeking endorsements. His most significant to date is from the Green Party of Philadelphia.

After spending six months collecting signatures rather than campaigning, Randolph traveled to Harrisburg on Aug. 2 to file his papers. His application, however, was rejected on the grounds that some of his forms were stapled facsimiles rather than the originals he had unsuccessfully requested.

Green Party Attorney General candidate Marakay Rogers happened to be there that day.

"It seemed quite bizarre," she recalls. "I could understand what they were saying because I am a lawyer and because I've also done notary work, that they would like all the petitions neatly together. ... I could not understand why the circulators of the petition could not re-notarize the pages that were separated. That made no sense at all. I offered to do it right then and there."

Still, the steadfast election officials turned Randolph away.

Bureau Commissioner Monna Accurti told him she would not accept the forms without a court order—the procurement of which would cause Randolph to miss the filing deadline. (Responds Accurti, "We give the same number of nomination papers to every candidate running enough for the candidate to more than double the signature requirement. Our staff that reviews and is knowledgeable on the nomination papers would never tell anyone to photocopy the nomination papers.")

For the second time in two weeks Randolph called the American Civil Liberties Union's Philadelphia chapter. Again, he failed to gain anyone's ear.

Acting on the theory that the organization's Harrisburg chapter was less busy, Randolph placed a call. "If you think your rights may have been violated, please leave a message and we will return your call," he remembers hearing.

Randolph, however, could not leave a message.

The mailbox was full.

After a fruitless search for legal representation in Philadelphia, Randolph turned to Samuel Stretton, a West Chester-based attorney. Every election cycle Stretton represents several Independent and third-party candidates whose campaigns run afoul of the two-party cartel.

"Independent … and third-party candidacies are an important aspect of the democratic process," says Stretton, who recently quit his post representing Ralph Nader before the state Supreme Court. "When Chris Randolph came to me, I thought that he was a fine young person, he had some very good ideas, and I thought his candidacy would bring value to the political debate."

Shortly after Randolph filed suit, it became apparent that the elections Bureau didn't want the matter to reach a hearing. "The case was settled and sealed by the court as a result of them immediately backing down when they saw that we were serious," Randolph says.

Stretton says the elections Bureau generally acts in good faith. Randolph's case, he says, "was just one of those flukes where someone [in the Bureau] gave him bad advice."

On Aug. 23, Randolph officially gained a ballot space.

Randolph is an anomaly in a pay-to-play political city. Running against Brady, an accomplished fundraiser with more than $1 million on hand, Randolph refuses to accept PAC money. In place of a paid staff he has a committed brigade of about three dozen friends and volunteers who collect signatures, brainstorm campaign tactics and manage his website content.

It's just as well that he can't afford professional political consultants. Randolph's long-winded rhetorical style and aversion to sound bites would drive them crazy. For example:

"Philadelphia, like a lot of cities that are home cities, where people grew up and were educated and so forth, are victims of their own success in a way. The education system and the economic engine functions so that people become successful enough to leave. Combine that with the way we tax for the educational system here, which is local taxation going to local schools—you cross a county boundary and all of a sudden your taxes are going to a different school system—and you reward people for leaving. The way we do taxation in America, I think a city like Philadelphia needs federal assistance, which we're not set up to provide right now. We talk about attaching federal money to school systems for things like testing standards all the time, without blinking. I wouldn't mind the federal government attaching money to states based upon the fairness with which they dole out tax monies collected for educational purposes. We either have a commitment to spend money equitably in this country or we don't. I'd like to see us do that. The federal level is the only place where we have the money to address it."

Randolph also faces a name-recognition problem. Of 28 media outlets invited to an Aug. 28 rally in Kahn Park marking his court victory and the official announcement of his candidacy, not one sent a reporter.

"I had media kits prepared, the whole nine yards," Randolph remembers. "It was very disappointing. If you have grassroots participation in democracy like that, and the media doesn't cover it, it may as well have never happened. There are only so many people I can walk up to and tell about the campaign."

As a result, he's delivered speeches wherever he can find a podium, from a self-organized fundraising concert at the Ukrainian Club to a recent Nader rally.

A veteran of such varied jobs as monitoring elections in Bosnia and teaching English in Qatar, Randolph comes across as having a nuanced understanding of global affairs and a knowledge of Philadelphia politics that borders on the obsessive.

He reels off the names of City Council members the way baseball fanatics tick through the Phillies' batting order. But where most aspiring politicians begin their careers with their sights set lower, like on municipal offices, Randolph says his experience and progressive politics are better suited to the federal level.

"The reason I'm running for federal office," he says, "is that cities like Philadelphia don't have a prayer of fixing their problems internally."

Ellen Foley, a University of Pennsylvania anthropologist, is the closest thing Randolph has to a campaign manager.

"The kinds of things that would help the citizens of the 1st District, which is the poorest district in Pennsylvania, are basic economic changes," she says. "Things like guaranteed access to health care, guaranteed living wages, better investment in education so that people actually have a fair shot at gainful employment. Those kinds of issues Brady won't even touch … because the Democrats have this machine in Philadelphia, many of these issues never even have to get addressed. So [a debate about] some of these things that are never talked about is one of the things we'd like to push."

Randolph's push for a tête-à-tête with Brady is unlikely to bear fruit.

"It won't happen," Brady says. "The voters won't sponsor a congressional debate when there's not a really [heated] contest.

"After this is over, if [Randolph] doesn't win, I'd like to include him and make him a Democrat instead of an Independent."

In the meantime, Randolph shows no signs of buckling under.

He's moving on to the next phase of his candidacy, trying to win press attention and the opportunity to debate his opponents. He's on the cusp of his first media buy, a series of cable television advertisements. Fully aware of the long odds against him, this doggedly persistent outsider nevertheless rejects the role of David wielding a slingshot against the two-party Goliath.

"If anyone's the quixotic candidate in this race," he insists, "it's the Republican."