IT'S GOING to be a busy night Nov. 2: One of the most hotly contested presidential elections in recent history, control of the Senate in precarious balance and a cutthroat Congressional battle in our own backyard. But here's one more race to watch: In New York's 29th district, something momentous is happening. Samara Barend is running for congress. At a time when The U.S. House is nearly 86 percent male, and even whiter than that, Barend is running in a district that's never selected a female representative. And while she hopes to join a congressional delegation where the median age is 53 years, at 27, she would be the youngest woman ever elected to do so.
While the obvious accusation would be inexperience -- candidates twice her age are often subject to such criticism -- Barend's resume is dizzying: three years spearheading and authoring the I-86 campaign that turned New York's Route 17 into Interstate 86, an initiative expected to create thousands of new jobs and over $3 billion for her region of the state; Upstate Director for the New York Democratic State Committee; and communications director for the New York Democratic Rural Conference, as well as a campaign operative for Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. And in her spare time, Barend is the executive director of a non-profit focusing on exercise and mental illness.
Feeling inadequate yet? that's not even counting her dual degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. It's not only her accomplishments that may well buoy Barend to victory; despite gloomy statistics in her district (in 2002, the Democratic candidate received 27 percent of the vote), nearly a third of her potential constituents are considered swing voters, and the local Republican Party has been marked by infighting while Barend has run up impressive fundraising numbers.So, see Sam run, perhaps even see Sam win. But what does it mean?This nation ranks among the last in the developed world in terms of electing women, and not much better when it comes to electing young people or minorities -- in short, we have a system of governance for old white men by old white men. Yet, according to a recent survey by the White House Project, "Strong majorities of young people believe that having more young people (62%), more women (59%), and more people of color (55%) in office would make government and politics better."
The gap between opinion and reality becomes a chicken-and-egg situation: Because there are so few women and minorities in positions of leadership, most people have difficulty conceptualizing these figures as potential politicians. Think, for example, of the presidency, which usually draws candidates from the Senate or governorships; when there are only 14 female senators and only nine women governors (none of a color other than white), it's no small wonder that, between them, the two major parties have fielded a woman on the ticket for the presidency/vice presidency only once in their shared history. If none of this sounds shocking, consider the following: Iraq's newly written constitution requires 25 percent of its government's representatives to be female, nearly twice the percent of women serving in our government.
Why the urgency? Diversity, loaded word that it is, is becoming increasingly necessary in a congressional delegation that seems to fill each morning's headlines with fundraising scandals, stalemates and waste. We should be laughing when another 60-year-old white man beholden to the same party lines and corporate donors promises us in his congressional campaign that he'll bring a "new voice to Washington," and recognizing that if nothing else, different backgrounds can bring a breath of fresh air and common sense.
Barend's campaign (and with any luck, impending term in the House), for example, is characterized by creativity and even a dash of recklessness. Insisting, "If the government can't bring cheaper drugs to our seniors, we'll bring the seniors to the cheaper drugs," Barend has organized a "Prescription for a Change" bus trip to Canada on the 23rd of the month for seniors and working families to purchase drugs they need and cannot afford, pledging a part of her congressional salary to such a trip every year until the legislature addresses the skyrocketing costs of health care in this country.
But far from a starry-eyed stunt, the bus trip is part of Barend's comprehensive five-point plan that includes closing loopholes and empowering the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate prices. It's this potential for ingenuity and willingness to take risks that come with nontraditional representation, and coupled with pragmatism and command of the facts, that can bring real change to our stale system.
So run, Sam, run. And let's hope the coming election heralds in many more like her. This country's future may depend on it.
Katie Cristol's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kcristol@cavalierdaily.com.
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