Paul Bass Photo
Joshua Van Hoesen finally got to speak to an unaffiliated voter on Benton Street about an upcoming special election for alder. But first he had to break form and agree to break a rule.
Van Hoesen, the Republican candidate in a May 30 special election to replace resigning Ward 26 Alder Darryl Brackeen, followed lots of rules when he knocked on doors of unaffiliated voters in the Upper Westville neighborhood Sunday. That fit with the theme of his process-oriented campaign: Emphasizing better-managed, rule-following government over partisan ideological rancor.
One rule: When no one answers a door, slip a card inside the storm door. If the storm door is locked, don’t leave the card in the mailbox. That’s against the law. And the card might blow into the street.
Second rule: Look for “no soliciting” signs. Walk away if you see one.
Rule three: Knock once. And only once. Then count to “30 Mississippi.” Then move on.
Rule four: Move on even if you see the voter in the back yard, as Van Hoesen did after knocking once to no avail on one Benton Street door. As Van Hoesen left he noticed a resident mounting a moped. He let the man be.
“I try not to interrupt people when they’re doing things,” he said as the man tooled by.
That was the closest he got to meeting a voter in his first five door knocks with a reporter in tow Sunday afternoon.
The sixth stop, at another Benton Street house where unaffiliated voters live, was shaping up the same.
A woman stood beside a Kia in the driveway.
“They’re cleaning out the car and chatting,” Van Hoesen observed. “I will knock on the front door. Then they can ignore me.”
He knocked once. No response.
There was no chance the woman could hear the knock, anyway, because a dog was barking.
This was getting a bit tedious. So a reporter (me) broke the journalistic prohibition against influencing an event you’re covering. I asked Van Hoesen: Are you sure she doesn’t want to talk to you?
Let’s do an experiment and walk into the driveway, I suggested. I offered to take the blame for the interruption and introduce myself to the woman first, as a reporter who challenged the candidate to bother her when she was busy.
Van Hoesen was game.
The woman in the driveway, Jackie Allen, greeted us with smiles. She said she’d be happy to hear about Van Hoesen’s campaign …
… as long as the only front-facing photos were of her mini-Schnauzer mix Major, not of her.
Major was perched in the driver’s seat of the Kia.
“Major, I can’t hear!” Allen called.
Major quieted down. Van Hoesen commenced his pitch.
Paging Jed Bartlet
Van Hoesen has had practice knocking on voters’ doors: He has run longshot Republican quests for municipal and state legislative offices since 2017. He still feels a bit shy interrupting people on the doors, but loves chatting with them and participating in the democratic process.
In this special election he faces Democratic candidate Amy Marx, a legal aid attorney and crackerjack vote-pulling ward co-chair.
This may be the most civil, respectful American election since Matt Santos faced Arnold Vinick in 2006 — and that was a fictional presidential contest in which Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda played the candidates in the final season of The West Wing.
This month’s two real-life Ward 26 candidates offer only kind words about each other. Van Hoesen said he first met Marx when she was battling the city to hold to its lead paint enforcement rules, a successful crusade he applauded. They co-chair the neighborhood’s community management team. Van Hoesen also sits on the City Plan Commission and volunteer tutors at New Haven Reads.
Van Hoesen, 33, said he keeps running as a Republican for office for local offices Democrats have held since the last century because he believes in issues-focused competitive elections. He believes in good government. Each campaign (and in his civic work in between) he impresses people with his sincerity, politeness, and smarts.
Still, he faces daunting math. Ward 26 has 2,086 registered Democrats, compared to 863 unaffiliated voters, just 135 Republicans, and 36 minor-party members, according to the most recent figures on file. A Never Trumper, Van Hoesen quit the state and local party committees after the Jan. 6 insurrection but remained a Republican to fight for the “old” fiscally conservative values. He designs accounting software for a living, primarily for nonprofits; he argues that that experience informs his quest to improve the results government works the way it should, with results that match programs’ stated goals. By, for instance:
• Making the civilian review board work as it was intended to, in order to build trust in the police.
• Updating the zoning code for the modern remote-work age so that not just lawyers and architects, but graphic designers and computer programmers can operate out of home offices.
• Returning most public meetings to hybrid in-person affairs while maintaining a remote option. (“Part of government is that in-person aspect. It breeds trust. That’s what we need for cohesion as a community: Trust in each other.”)
• Tweaking the ordinance governing “ADUs” (aka “accessory dwelling units,” or in-law apartments) so that people can actually afford to build them and maybe even enjoy some of the tax breaks the city now showers on out-of-state developers.
His feet in sandals, Van Hoesen set out on a sunny 67-degree Sunday afternoon to walk the neighborhood with that message.
He checked his street-by-street spreadsheet of unaffiliated voters through the cracked glass of his Motorola Moto G 3 cell phone. He said he eschews more expensive phone models because he doesn’t need to pay for “bells and whistles” like crisper photos. His previous Moto never cracked, even when it fell off the roof of Van Hoesen’s car onto the payment. He had to upgrade six months ago when Xfinity’s switch to 5G left the old model with spotty service: The salesperson assured Van Hoesen he didn’t need a case, because the glass wouldn’t break. Soon enough, the new phone fell from his pajama pocket down the stairs — and the screen shattered.
Still, the phone worked. It offered “minimum viable product” for the money, he noted, just the way government programs should. He knew which doors to hit, whether or not people would end up being home.
ADUs 101
Van Hoesen dived into the ADU issue when he noticed the standalone garage in Jackie Allen’s driveway, and when Allen told him three generations live in her household.
Allen smiled and listened patiently as he spoke for over three minutes, for the most part about ADUs.
He covered the law (not “super conducive” to individual homeowners). He covered the economics. He covered the challenges of ripping up concrete foundations. He covered the tradeoffs between fiscal policy (individual tax breaks) and density that come with ADUs. (Click on the above video to watch parts of the pitch.)
Allen listened, offering the occasional nod and verbal response of “right!”
“My shtick is process management and fiscal responsibility,” Van Hoesen said. “I like what all the alders are trying to do. I don’t know if we’ve done things efficiently and effectively.” He repeated those three sentences throughout the day; at some houses that’s all the time some independent voters gave him.
Loss To Gun Violence
“It’s not exciting. It’s important,” he said about that elevator pitch, and about his approach to politics in general. “I’m not out here for a fight of good of versus evil. I want us to be able to do the things we want to do, effectively.”
Van Hoesen did get emotional at one point on his rounds, in between stops on Lawncrest Road. When a reporter asked him about guns.
He spoke about how gun violence touched his life, one day back in 2015.
He was logging in to his computer that afternoon for his routine end-of-the-afternoon check-in and and rounds of Xbox video games with his older brother Michael, who lived in Gorham, N.H. His brother didn’t show. Van Hoesen wondered why.
Then he received a call: A former roommate had shot Michael dead.
The ex-roommate, who struggled with mental health problems and dangerous actions, had previously lost his gun permit because of an incident in which he had waved his weapon at a car wash. He blamed Michael for turning him in. Because the ex-roommate’s family was friendly with the police chief, he received permission to get his gun back without having to petition the court.
Michael had a legal gun on him when the ex-roommate came up to him that day. But he didn’t know the ex-roommate had made a list of people to kill. He didn’t know he was the first person on the list the ex-roommate encountered.
As it happened, new police officers were being sworn in at a ceremony next door to where the ex-roommate fired his gun. The officers heard the shots. They made it outside to capture the shooter before he could escape. But not soon enough to save Michael’s life.
Van Hoesen teared up on the sidewalk Sunday as he recalled that story.
Gun violence “affects everyone,” he reflected. “We’re all impacted directly or indirectly.” As a society we should be able to discuss how to address it without rancor or villainizing each other, he said.
"But ..."
Then he marched on to the homes of more unaffiliated voters. Ron Spiegel was in his driveway with a bicycle on the rear of his car .
This time, unlike at Jackie Allen’s door, Van Hoesen needed no prompting to approach the voter. (“You proved me wrong,” he explained. “I can change in the face of evidence.”)
Van Hoesen introduced himself to Spiegel and told him about the upcoming special election.
“I’m sure you’re a nice guy,” Spiegel said. “But you’re a Republican!”
“Old-school Republican,” Van Hoesen responded.
“I don’t think highly” of the national Republican Party, Spiegel said.
“You and me both,” Van Hoesen.
They proceeded to share their appreciation for Erin Stewart, the moderate Republican mayor of New Britain, where Spiegel used to live.
Before hitting the next door (where a woman did promise to vote for Van Hoesen — as, she said, she has in the past), the candidate left Spiegel a flyer.
Spiegel said he plans to “look up the Democrat” before deciding how to vote.
Van Hoesen urged Spiegel to show up at the polls, “even if you want to vote against me as a Republican.” The candidate promised to be there ready to talk policy
I wish the majority of Republicans were like Joshua. Unfortunately he is running against a unicorn. Amy Marx is a generational talent with the professional and civic body of work to prove it.