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Wanted: Candidates Willing to Lose

The blame always falls on the system.

Lack of public financing and strangely drawn districts are easy scapegoats for people who resist running for office statewide or in the state legislature, and for those who say there are not enough good, fresh candidates around.

There are institutional changes necessary, clearly. Given how lively the open races for Council and borough president were last year in Manhattan, we think the city model of public financing and term limits is probably not a bad one to copy.

But another, equally huge part of the problem, we think, stems from an odd mentality which seems to have prevented many candidates of both major parties in New York from running: a fear of losing. Potential candidates for three of the incumbent-free races for statewide constitutional office shied off, for reasons they say have little to do with waning confidence in their convictions and much more to do with the fear of having to deliver a concession speech on election night.

Andrew Cuomo has said it was a mistake to run for governor in 2002, seeing as he lost that race. Charlie King made essentially the same statement about his own run for attorney general this year by ending it just a week before the primary polls opened. (Ironically, when the votes were counted, his percentage was higher than in any of the polls.)

This is ridiculous logic. If it held, Republicans nationwide would say that Ronald Reagan should never have run for president in 1976, though this laid the critical groundwork for his 1980 success and the Reagan Revolution which ensued.

There are certainly candidates who should never have run—Gary Bauer, for example. That they eventually lost their respective races was a consequence of the various reasons these particular people should not have been running in the first place.

Sean Maloney did not crack 10 percent in his primary run for attorney general this year. But he is on our list of Rising Stars because we think he has something significant to contribute, and that his future looks promising. He deserves significant attention and credit for being the only man left standing against warhorses Cuomo and Mark Green.

Ask Maloney about it, and he will probably admit that he knew all along he was not going to win. But he ran anyway, unafraid to lose, determined to contribute his perspective to the mix, and eager to increase the possibility (probability) that he will be a successful candidate in the years to come.

For proof, Maloney need look no further than his likely new representative in the Assembly, Brian Kavanagh, also on our Rising Stars list. Last year, Kavanagh ran for Council against Rosie Mendez. With local elected officials and political clubs arrayed against him, he got half as many votes as she did. Weeks later, Steve Sanders announced he was resigning from the Assembly, and though Kavanagh did not try for the Feb. 28 special election, he started campaigning for the September primary on Feb. 9.

He gained some traction in political circles, but not much. The political forces largely coalesced against him again. Kavanagh fought on regardless. He did not win by much on Primary Day—374 votes, according to the unofficial results—but he did win, even against another Maloney’s (that is, Rep. Carolyn) formidable political force.

There is everything right with ambition in politics. We wish that more often it would come mixed with courage, and an abject refusal to defer just because others have been around longer, or because there is a chance it might lead to defeat.

Whatever happens, we hope Maloney, Kavanagh and our other Rising Stars will have the courage to be ready to lose, if that is what it takes. Because after all, if you are not the type of person who is ready to lose, you almost certainly are not the type of person whom anyone should like to see win.