On Nov. 6, Wall Street media mogul, billionaire and Johns Hopkins alumnus Michael Bloomberg faces one of his most difficult endeavors: the election for mayor of New York City. Bloomberg is depending on the support of New York City voters to elect him mayor of the largest city in America, a city in the midst of a massive clean-up effort following the attacks on the World Trade Center. As the Republican nominee for mayor in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans five to one, Bloomberg has faced this uphill battle by running an energetic campaign that has helped him steadily rise in the polls against Democratic opponent Mark Green after a slow start in June.
However, few people know the Bloomberg campaign better than four Johns Hopkins undergraduates who devoted long hours and late nights working to get Michael Bloomberg on the ballot. This summer, Camille Fesche, Yonit Golub, Matt Trezza and Jarrod Bernstein headed to New York City for three months for what Fesche describes as "an amazing experience."
Fesche, a senior international relations major from Baltimore, served as a co-borough coordinator for the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx from June through August. In June she began organizing a massive effort to get thousands of signatures of endorsement from registered New York City Republicans in order to place Bloomberg on the ballot. Collecting almost three times more signatures than were needed, Fesche soon moved on to coordinating event appearances for Bloomberg and directing campaign volunteers.
"It was hectic and non-stop. It was very exciting because you never knew what was going to happen from day to day," Fesche says of her role in the campaign.
Trezza, a senior IR major from Chappaqua, N.Y, Yonit Golub, a sophomore IR major from New York City and Bernstein, a senior political science major, say they had similar, fun, fast-paced experiences.
"It was absolutely insane. On a good day, I left the office at 7 p.m., but most days it was more like 9 or 10 p.m. The amazing thing was that even with a seven-day work week, everyone was always excited and happy to be there," says Trezza.
Golub attributes the energy of the campaign to the loyalty of the staffers to Bloomberg. Many of the campaign staffers came from Bloomberg, L.P. offices in New York and Washington, D.C. According to Golub, in addition to several Bloomberg, L.P. employees who joined the campaign as full-time staffers, many employees at Bloomberg, L.P. would split their work day between the company and the campaign, and others would help out with the campaign after work. She estimates that 40 percent of the campaign staff had a connection to Bloomberg, L.P.
"People feel very loyal to Mike. It's really that they have a relationship with Mike, so when he decided to run for mayor, many of his employees decided that they wanted to help out with his campaign," says Golub, who helped coordinate operations between the Bloomberg campaign and Bloomberg, L.P.
Bloomberg's company, Bloomberg, L.P, a financial media giant, has played a significant role in the campaign. With no prior political experience, Bloomberg has highlighted the success of the company he created in 1982 and the management ability and financial know-how which have made him a wildly successful businessman. For a look at how Bloomberg might run New York City, these interns say to look at Bloomberg, L.P. and the Bloomberg campaign itself: the management philosophy is the same.
"Mike ran the campaign like he runs Bloomberg, L.P. There are no walls in the office, there are no titles, and everyone is on a first-name basis, including Mike. People who stopped by to visit the campaign headquarters were blown away. It was very impressive," says Trezza.
And yet, running a high-energy campaign and relying on qualifications that have made him a billionaire may not be enough for Bloomberg to win the election. The campaign has been seeking endorsements from individuals and groups since Bloomberg formally announced his candidacy on June 5.
"We did a lot of research on who might be interested in endorsing Mike. We obviously wanted to get as many people and organizations behind us as we could," says Fesche.
In addition to the important endorsements from the Citizens Union and the Latino Officers Association, Bloomberg received the ultimate prize last week, receiving endorsements from New York Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani.
Mayor Guiliani's endorsement could be particularly helpful to Bloomberg since Guiliani has enjoyed immense popularity among diverse groups in New York City for his tough approach to cleaning up the city and reducing crime during his eight-year term. However, with less than a week until the election, the endorsement came late in the game and may not provide the much-needed boost of support that Bloomberg needs right now. Bloomberg has also received some help from friend and U.S. Senator John McCain. McCain visited New York on Oct. 21 to campaign for Bloomberg first in Times Square and then at a street fair in Brooklyn.
As if the endorsements of political heavyweights aren't enough, Mr. Bloomberg has spent $40 million of his own fortune on the campaign, making it the most expensive mayoral race New York has ever seen. Fesche says that Bloomberg's wealth has been both an asset and a liability in the campaign, making it easier to get his name out to the masses but also distancing him from many of the average voters.
"Mike's fortune was an issue in the campaign. He's a billionaire, and what people don't realize is that he is self-made. Often we would be out on the streets campaigning for Mike and people would make comments to us that he should just buy himself the office. We would tell them that he's self-made, he grew up in a working class family in Boston and put himself through Johns Hopkins. Once people heard that, their perspective usually changed, but it was a struggle we constantly faced," says Fesche.
Trezza says that another obstacle the Bloomberg campaign faced was simply Bloomberg's name recognition among different groups in the city. While the business and financial communities knew who he was, many others were not familiar with his name. Taking the campaign to the streets, participating in parades and festivals and a running flood of commercials helped increase Bloomberg's presence in the city.
"Mike marched in the Gay Pride Parade, we did commercials in English and Spanish, and we had volunteers out on the streets all over the city," says Fesche, who was able to snag a spot in the "Open Mike" commercial that the campaign aired in July and August.
Polls conducted by the Quinnipiac Polling Institute in June and October show that New York City registered voters are reacting to Bloomberg's outreach to the community.
In a poll taken in early June, 20 percent of registered voters supported Bloomberg compared to 62 percent support for his opponent Mark Green. In an Oct. 24 poll, Bloomberg's support had risen to 35 percent and Mr. Green's had dropped to 51 percent.
With one week left to go before the election, these interns say that Mr. Bloomberg has a good shot at winning if he can stick to a coherent message.
"Mike is definitely not a politician. He doesn't tell you what you want to hear, he tells you what he really thinks," says Golub.
While truthfulness may be a rare quality in a political candidate, it has also gotten Bloomberg into some sticky situations.
"Mike shoots from the hip; he's very straight-forward, and this gets him into trouble. We were out on Long Island and someone asked if he supported school prayer. Mike said that he had no problem with it. The media took this to mean that he supported school prayer, which was not true. Mike would never implement school prayer in New York. The problem is that Mike tends to voice his personal opinions before thinking about the political consequences. When you're a political candidate, your personal opinions are taken as your political views," says Fesche.
Trezza agrees and says that if Bloomberg's top staffers can keep the campaign's momentum going in the next week and make sure that Mr. Bloomberg sticks to scripted campaign issues, he has a good shot at winning.
Bernstein, who worked closely during the summer with Bloomberg's chief of staff, whole-heartedly believes Bloomberg will win next Tuesday. Earlier this week, Bernstein even headed to New York to spend the last week before the election with the campaign.
While this one Hopkins alumni looks towards becoming mayor of New York City, the four students who worked on his campaign are already looking towards their own political futures. They all say that working for Bloomberg has given them a lot of ideas. And all of them say that they would like to do a campaign again.
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