By William Lewis
I recently interviewed Darryl Fox, the director of City Councilman-elect Dan Halloran’s campaign in the 19th Council District. Aside from the candidate himself, much of the credit for this victory should go to Fox and his campaign staff, which worked hard to bring this race to a successful conclusion.
He first came to the forefront of political involvement in 1993, when he directed the field operation for Rudy Giuliani’s winning race for mayor. He went on to train lawyers to monitor elections during the voting process in New York and Pennsylvania. He has also served as executive director and consultant for the state Republican Party from 1994 to 2002. He has worked in managing and consulting numerous political campaigns since then at all levels of government.
Fox indicated the people of the 19th District voted on the issues. They cared more about their community than about the attacks on Halloran’s religion. He spoke about a huge number of mailings being sent to all enrolled voters and relentless communication to these same voters explaining the candidate’s positions on the relevant issues.
He also spoke about the campaign of Halloran’s opponent being negative. He believed Halloran’s opponent did not understand the things that mattered to voters. Fox described Halloran as an outstanding candidate who knew the issues, was optimistic and enjoyed running for office.
If Fox had to direct the campaign again, he would change nothing.
He said, “We won this campaign on the issues that are important to the voters. Dan Halloran is a man of great integrity and compassion. He is going to be a very responsive city councilman.”
During the campaign, state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) was active in assisting both Halloran’s campaign and Councilman-elect Peter Koo’s victorious race in the 20th District. Padavan believed Halloran’s opponent, Kevin Kim, had received bad advice from advisors, considering the negative campaign Kim ran against Halloran.
Padavan further contended that negative campaigning does not work. Padavan believes voters will pay attention to issues, not personal attacks. He expects to work with Halloran and Koo, since 80 percent of the matters that come into his office are city issues.
On Election Day, Padavan spent a lot of time campaigning at PS 129 in Whitestone, where a significant number of voters expressed their displeasure over the negative campaigning Kim used in continually attacking Halloran’s religious beliefs.
He mentioned the large group of Kim campaign workers in the field. Padavan indicated Kim had eight people supporting his campaign outside the school by giving out brochures. One of these campaign workers said she worked for U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside).
Padavan said, “We are delighted with the results of the election and happy for the candidates [Halloran and Koo] and the people they will be representing.”
As we analyze the overall results of the Council elections in Queens, there were four highly competitive races. The Republicans won three of those races with Halloran defeating Kim, Koo defeating Yen Chou and Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Rockaway Beach) winning over Frank Gulluscio in the 32nd District. Ulrich was an incumbent, having won the seat in a special election earlier this year.
The other two Council elections the Republicans won were both open seats. These seats had been vacated by Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), who ran for city comptroller and won. Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) gave up his Council seat to run for mayor in the Democratic primary, but lost.
District 30’s seat was held by Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village), who won her seat in a special election last year and was challenged by former Councilman Tom Ognibene. Crowley won by a wide margin, but the Republican county leadership considers this year politically successful after winning three Council seats.
