The “Dr.” in Dr. Jim Maxwell isn’t to impress new voters, it’s to remind old patients.
And that might be part of what gives the Republicans their best shot at representing Rochester in the House of Representatives for the first time in a generation.
Dr. Jim Maxwell is running his first campaign, but it turns out he’s been running it for 40 years, building up a bank of experience, money and good will that could make him very strong on Election Day.
In fact, a push by seeming associates of Maxwell to sue for an early special election is likely a sign of confidence on the part of the candidate that he can take an unsuspecting Democrat candidate by surprise.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise.
Monroe County – which with minor variations is the 25th District of New York – has a habit of electing Republicans. The county executive and district attorney are Republicans. The sheriff is a conservative accepted into the ranks of the Democratic Party when it needed a candidate and he needed a ballot line. And the county clerk, the one true Democrat in recent years to win countywide office, goes out of his way to be apolitical and nonpartisan.
Monroe County voters have repeatedly gone to the Republican line on Election Day. It seems reasonable to think that they could do so again to pick a congressman.
The last 30 years – as the office was held by intensely progressive Louise Slaughter – may have been about Louise Slaughter, as opposed to her political philosophy. Her predictable success may have been about incumbency and personality.
In the Democrat basket, however, is the fact that two years ago, in the presidential election, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump 54-40 percent. There also is the fact that a party which has been able to win the last 15 congressional elections can arguably be expected to win the 16th such election.
Which makes the Democratic candidates interesting, and potentially important.
Joe Morelle is the elder statesman of the group, and is the patron of the biggest and most successful Democratic organization in the county. He’s been waiting and planning for this opportunity for a long time. He is confident and capable and has to be taken very seriously.
But so too do at least two of his Democratic challengers – Adam McFadden and Robin Wilt.
McFadden is a long-serving city councilman with a history of organizing and energizing black voters in the city. His candidacy has the potential to be a joke, or to take him to Washington. He may be in over his head, or he may be the guy who’s crazy like a fox.
Robin Wilt is progressive, female and black, a potentially very strong combination. She will play hard on the notes of her race and gender, and should – identity politics has a 230-year history of electoral success in America. And in her announcement last week, staking out the far left and raising the issue of gender, she probably boxed Rachel Barnhart out of the race.
Barnhart – who is just about to earn the title “perennial candidate” – finds herself without a “raison d’etre” in this race. She will have her small cadre of passionate supporters, and they and she will be angry and claim discrimination, but she doesn’t have a play in this election. She fights Morelle for the older liberals she needs, and she fights Wilt for the unified women she needs, and she probably loses both those fights. That leaves her nowhere.
Primary wins by Adam McFadden or Robin Wilt could motivate black voters in the general election, a very good sign for Democratic success. A primary win by Joe Morelle – defeating two black candidates, including onewith deep roots in the city – suppresses black votes in the general election. And Democrats don’t win when blacks stay home.
This will be an interesting election. There are paths to victory for almost all the candidates. Which one of those paths will play out, only time, talent and fate will tell.
But the Republican is in it.
Maxwell has professional campaign staff, is following a long-planned and vetted strategy, and is adequately bankrolled.
And for 40 years he’s been doing surgeries, holding hands and saving lives.
The “Dr.” on his campaign signs and website is not to impress new voters, it is to remind old patients – people and families whose lives he has touched and benefited for years and years. People who number in the hundreds of thousands.
People who may do their doctor a favor on Election Day, figuring that if they could trust him in the operating room, they can trust him in Washington.