Dyed-In-Wool Socialist Leads Biden Trek

Peterborough, N.H. — Marty Dunleavy wore a thick, baggy pair of dark-green plaid wool pants as he stood outside of Mary Maughan’s door. They were not stylish. But they did the job: They protected their wearer from an icy wind, as they have done in every presidential campaign since 2000.

Those pants are veterans of two decades of hyperlocal, state, and national political campaigns, their wearer a veteran of another four.

And those 60 years of experience were enough to convince Dunleavy that right now, the country, too, needs to make a weather-tested and reliable choice — practical, not stylish or aspirational. So this past weekend he trekked up to New Hampshire from New Haven to lead a group of 14 Connecticut residents to canvass for Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. Dunleavy had gone up the previous weekend as well; he plans to continue to make trips to New Hampshire until the Feb. 11 Democratic Primary.

A day on the primary trail with Biden’s Connecticut entourage showed the campaign’s relentless focus on pragmatism, the argument that the Democrats need above all to nominate a familiar, successful elected official to take on President Donald Trump in November. In Dunleavy’s case, the day also offered insight into how, even in these days of hyper-partisan politics, a democratic socialist can end up braving sub-freezing temperatures for hours on end to help elect the leading Democratic candidate with the most centrist record.

When Maughan opened her door, Dunleavy explained that he was there with Joe Biden’s campaign for the Democratic presidential endorsement. He asked if Maughan knew whom she was supporting.

“I’m exactly between Biden and [Pete] Buttigieg,” she replied. Dunleavy asked what the deciding factor was for her.

“I don’t want to say who can beat Trump, but …”

“Having someone who’re steady, who’s been there before, who really understands how it works is really what he’s about,” Dunleavy said.

“I like Pete,” he continued. ​“I think he has a future in the party, but we’ve never had a president at 38 before.”

“It’s just I want to make the younger people feel… I want them to feel like they’re a part of this,” Maughan replied.

Dunleavy, 63, explained that he has known Biden personally since the 1980s.

“I think the deciding factor for me is who can basically step in on day one without a learning curve,” he said. He bid Maughan farewell and walked back to the gray Ford Escape where Gene Faltus, who was chauffeuring the expedition, waited.

Dunleavy canvassed for Bernie Sanders in 2016. Like Sanders, he has proudly worn the label of ​“democratic socialist” for decades while he has worked as a political and union operative throughout the country. Now, however, he is supporting a candidate he believes can beat Donald Trump and will know how to function once he reaches the White House. (Read more about local participation in the Sanders and Warren campaigns here.)

A few minutes later, Walter Morton emerged from a driveway, having just spoken to another voter on the canvass list. Morton, 28, is a young but important player in Hamden politics. He is the liaison for the town to the state, and serves on the town’s Board of Education.

As Morton and Dunleavy approached the final door on the street, Morton looked down at Dunleavy’s pants.

“I like those pants,” he said as the two campaigners stamped ovals in the snow. ​“I’d get them tailored, and I’d wear them with a blazer.”

No one answered the door. So, they trudged back to the street where Faltus was waiting and piled back into his car. The car rolled forward, beginning the trip back to the Keene field office.

“So, Walter, I’ll tell you the story of these pants,” Dunleavy began.

The Long Game

It was 2000, and Dunleavy was political affairs director for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) at the time. The union had just endorsed Al Gore for president; Dunleavy had flown out to Iowa for a three-day trip to campaign for him. He needed to fly back to D.C. for a meeting, then fly back out to Iowa for an event in Davenport.

“So I got snowed in,” he recounted, and ​“instead of being out in Iowa for three days, I’m out there for three weeks,” with only three days worth of clothing.

He was supposed to go home after that third week. Then he got snowed in again, this time in St. Louis. Three weeks became four weeks.

“I said, ​‘Bobby, I don’t have clothes,’” he recalled. Bobby, his boss, agreed to split the cost of whatever he bought.

A piece of advice from Dunleavy’s mother came in handy: Get either a Sears card or a J. C. Penney card. Wherever you go, you’ll find either one of those stores. (Remember: This was 2000.) He went to a J.C. Penney and bought a few necessities. Then he flew straight to New Hampshire, where it was three degrees below zero.

He was working with Bill Shaheen, the husband of then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (who is now one of the state’s U.S. senators). ​“I said Billy, I’m freezing my ass off,” recalled Dunleavy. Shaheen told him that if he wanted really warm clothing, he should visit a Native American trading post in Dover. So Dunleavy drove the 4‑wheel-drive Ford Ranger he was renting to the trading post.

“I walked in and said, ​‘What are the warmest pants you have?’ He handed me these,” Dunleavy recalled. There was no price listed, and he asked the shopkeeper how often they sell. Perhaps once every five years, the shopkeeper replied. He hadn’t raised the price in 10 years. He sold them to Dunleavy for $40.

“So that’s the story of these ugly pants,” he said, turning to Walter, who sat in the back of Faltus’s car. ​“These freaking pants, Walter, they have been on every single presidential campaign. They’ve been up in Maine; they’ve been here in New Hampshire …” 

Dunleavy said his first campaign memory is of ​“handing out palm cards for Jack Kennedy when I was four and a half years old in front of the Fountain Street firehouse.” There’s a photo of him there wearing knee socks, shorts, and a camel coat.

As a teenager, he got his first paid campaign job poll standing for a New Haven aldermanic election. Since then he has worked as political director of the AFL-CIO Connecticut, held top roles with AFGE and the National Education Association (NEA), lead the Ethnic Democrats (which aimed to bring mostly European ethnic groups into the party), and worked for the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy. He was the clerk of the Connecticut House of Representatives under former Speaker Brendan Sharkey. He has been a super delegate at the Democratic National Convention numerous times, and has attended every convention since the 1970s. He is now the calendar clerk for the State Senate. He was also a Westville alder for the duration of the 1980s.

Don’t Go To Keene For The Pizza

After Dunleavy recounted the story of his pants, he spent the much of the remainder of the half-hour trip back to Keene talking about a previous canvass turf both he and Faltus had walked.

“That is the worst list I’ve ever had!” said Faltus. ​“One of [the addresses] was a church rectory, and another was a museum!”

Faltus said he wants to knock 400 doors for Biden by the end of the month. He met the candidate in August. Biden’s staff captured the encounter on film, and Biden then posted it to his Twitter. Faltus told him that he has terminal cancer. They embraced, and Faltus said he hopes he can vote for him in the general election.

I’m grateful that Gene shared his story. The battle against cancer is personal for me, like it is for so many Americans. But I’m confident — with the power of America’s best minds — we will end cancer as we know it. pic.twitter.com/x5TJ0IHplu

— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) August 26, 2019

Since then, Faltus said, the campaign has looked after him. To repay Biden, he has canvassed as much as he can.

“I’m going to be out tomorrow,” he declared as he drove along the winding state highway between Peterborough and Keene. ​“I’m going to be out Monday! I’m going to be out Wednesday! I’m going to be out Friday!” He chuckled.

Faltus (pictured above) still goes to Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford for his prostate-cancer treatment. He moved from Manchester, Connecticut, to Swanzey, N.H., a year ago. It hasn’t been long, but he has embraced his new home.

Faltus drove Morton and Dunleavy to Peterborough for a pre-lunch canvass packet. The arrangement was that he would stay in the car, keeping it warm, while Morton and Dunleavy jumped out at each address on the list.

As they pulled away from the Keene field office to begin the trip, Dunleavy reached for his seatbelt.

“There’s no seatbelt law in New Hampshire,” Faltus said, glancing at his passenger. But ​“you can wear it,” he added. His own seatbelt bounced loosely next to his seat. ​“That’s our motto up here. Live free or die. It’s not just a motto; it’s a way of life.”

As he drove, he talked about his treatment, the campaign, and his new home. ​“That lake we just passed had George Carlin’s ashes in it,” he said as Spofford Lake disappeared in the rear window. The seatbelt alarm beeped.

The beeping continued on the way back, through Dunleavy’s pants story, through the discussion of the bad turf, through a discussion of longtime political satirist and candidate Vermin Supreme. (“Oh, the guy with the boot!” Dunleavy exclaimed when Faltus mentioned him. ​“Yeah. No, he’s an institution. I distinctly remember him on the Mondale campaign” shouting into a megaphone on a Manchester street corner.)

When Faltus pulled into the field-office parking lot on Ralston Street, a Domino’s car was just pulling out.

“Domino’s, Marty?” Morton asked from the back seat, no small dose of disdain lacing his voice.

“You know what, it’s probably the best pizza in town,” Dunleavy fired back. ​“This is not New Haven.”

“Yeah, I’ll go to the fish place across the street,” Morton replied. He doesn’t eat pizza outside of New Haven, he explained. With one exception: ​“New York pies. I will eat a New York pie.”

Dunleavy had ordered the sub-par pizzas for the other canvassers. They were all supposed to return from the first packet around 2 p.m. to refuel before heading back out for a second. Slowly, they trickled into the office.

Many were current or former politicians or political operatives. Connecticut Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz had driven up with the group for a canvass launch earlier in the day. She had published an op-ed endorsing Biden in the Hartford Courant the day before.

Gov. Ned Lamont’s former campaign manager, Marc Bradley, was among the canvassers. He is now Lamont’s director of external and constituent affairs.

Brian McDermott stood in one corner talking to Tiffani McGinnis (pictured above, together). McDermott was a state senator until Republican Len Fasano unseated him in 2002. He is now the Democratic Town Committee (DTC) chair of Avon. McGinnis has worked on a number of campaigns in the state, and serves on the West Hartford DTC. She worked for the Kamala Harris campaign before the California senator dropped out of the race.

“I think they’re both pragmatic progressives,” she said of Biden and Harris. ​“They want to make change but they don’t want to blow the whole system up.”

McDermott, too, had switched his support. He was a Pete Buttigieg person until recently, he said. He still likes Buttigieg, he said, ​“but I don’t think he has the ability at this point to beat Trump.”

“The way I kind of look at it is our country is on fire,” said McGinnis. ​“We need to just focus on putting out the fire, and not on buying a new fire truck.” She said that when she was out canvassing in Iowa, people told her that they would not vote for anyone who would take away their private health insurance.

“I think he’s what we need right now,” said Sherri Steeneck (pictured above, right, with Andrea Haverland), a business owner from Fairfield. Not only can he beat Trump, she said, but he can also unify the country in a way that other candidates won’t. ​“If Bernie’s in there, we’ll keep bumping our heads against each other,” she said. She said that if the country were not so split, she would be voting for Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris (were she still in the race), but ​“right now, I can’t take that chance. So, I’m going to suck it up and vote for who I think can win.”

Seafood In Inland New Hampshire?

Once they had finished lunch, Dunleavy and Morton got into Dunleavy’s silver Saab to drive back to Peterborough. Faltus could not accompany them this time.

“Best scallop roll I’ve had in my life,” said Morton as the car pulled onto Winchester Street.

“You don’t come to inland New Hampshire to get seafood,” Dunleavy replied.

“I’m telling you Marty, it was good,” Morton persisted.

Dunleavy and Morton know each other through their work at the state Capitol. ​“And Walter has a nice self-effacing style and he’s full of shit,” Dunleavy joked, explaining why he likes him.

Both Dunleavy and Morton voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary. Dunleavy said he wanted Biden to run, but when it became clear he would not, he joined the Sanders campaign. He said that last time around, he thought Sanders actually had a better shot at winning than Hillary Clinton. ​“Bernie had a broader campaign last time,” he said. But that coalition split afterwards.

Morton said he came into the fold of national Democratic politics when Barack Obama ran in 2008. ​“Anybody who was good to Obama’s good to me,” he said. ​“I think Biden gives us by far the best shot at beating Donald Trump in the general.”

“Not A Left-Right Thing”

Snow was beginning to dust the road as Morton and Dunleavy drove out of Keene. By the time they reached Peterborough, a solid white blanket printed with tire-tread gashes covered the road.

This time, Dunleavy stayed in the car and Morton jumped out to knock doors. Snow covered the shoulders of his wool coat within moments of stepping onto the slippery sidewalks. After each quick conversation, clipped by the biting cold and the driving snowflakes, he would race back to the car.

“Wooh, temperature’s dropping,” he said as he shut the door to drive to the next house.

“Well, I’m not going to walk in your sneakers and get my feet wet,” said Dunleavy. ​“I’m not an idiot.”

“A good-looking idiot,” Morton countered.

“How those shoes holding up?” Dunleavy asked.

“Good. They’re not wet. Just cold,” Morton replied.

He stepped back out into the snow to knock on the next door. His black canvas sneakers made small, flat prints on the sidewalk. He walked up a set of stone steps to a colonial brick building with black shutters. No one answered the door. He hurried back to the car and huddled into the warmth.

“I told you to dress for winter,” Dunleavy said.

It was 4:26 p.m. when they finished the list. They had to be back in Keene by 5, so they began the drive back.

Dunleavy told the story of how a stretch limousine once picked him up in New Haven and brought him, with John Kennedy Jr. and Daryl Hannah, to a Grateful Dead concert at the Nassau Coliseum in New York.

Once the story ended — with the crowd pressing up against the penalty booth to see the celebrities — he turned back to politics.

“So, I’m a democratic socialist,” he began. ​“I really care about a very progressive, left-wing agenda.” 

“The difference between Biden and Warren and Bernie is actual versus aspirational,” he said. He recalled a time when he asked Ted Kennedy why he was co-sponsoring the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act (passed as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996), which some on the left saw as too moderate. Didn’t Kennedy want to move the needle more? Dunleavy had asked. Kennedy had replied that he would be happy just getting a slice.

Sanders, Dunleavy said, is trying to ​“totally change the way the country works today. It would be a democratic, peaceful transformation of America. Biden is more pragmatic. So it’s not a right-left thing, it’s really visionary versus pragmatic. Biden says we need to beat Donald Trump and then we need to put the country back together.”

For instance, there is no national consensus on Medicare for All, he said. It would have a tremendous impact on Connecticut, an insurance state, and would put people out of jobs. ​“Plus, they don’t have the votes to pass it,” he said.

Besides, ​“who did more for the guy who doesn’t have healthcare — Bernie talking about it, or Biden passing it?” he asked, referring to the Affordable Care Act.

The U.S. has had very few quantum leaps in its history, he noted: The Revolution, the Civil War, and the New Deal. ​“If anything, we’re in danger of having a leap to the right. And that’s a scary thing.”

Elizabeth Warren doesn’t have a way to pay for her plans, he argued.

“And guess what. It’s not all going to come from a millionaire’s tax. And I like the idea of a millionaire’s tax,” he said. ​“We have seen in my lifetime the percentage of the taxes that come from the wealthy in this country has been reduced tremendously. We’ve see tremendous growth in wage disparity between the bottom and the middle and the top. We’ve seen the shrinking of the middle class, and that’s all due to tax structure. We’ve got to restructure the tax system. But you’ve got to do so in such a way that you can actually pass it through the senate and the house.”

Over and over, he said, primary voters have said they would cast their ballots for whoever has the best shot at beating Trump.

“That’s the issue that they’re weakest on,” he continued, referring to other campaigns. ​“No one is out there making the argument that Bernie, or Elizabeth Warren, has the best shot of beating Trump. I found out a long time ago: Working class people, poor blacks, poor whites. They’re very, very practical. And one of the reasons they’re so practical is that they have to worry about where their next meal is coming from and how they’re gonna pay the rent. So, they don’t necessarily buy into aspirational politics.”

For progressives in Connecticut, it’s easy to think that you can make quantum leaps to the left, Dunleavy argued.

“Once again, it’s a practicality issue. It’s easier to want to move the needle further left here and think you can do it because here we have moved that needle further to the left. You know you’re starting further left and therefore you think it’s doable. And, you know, you don’t work in a state that’s a right to work for less environment; you don’t work in a state where unions — where people in the labor movement — are routinely thought of as communists — and they’re not. You don’t work in an environment where everybody is, or professes to be, a born-again Christian… So, because of that, that’s not your experience and you believe that you can change all of these things overnight and you can’t.”

Waiting For Stragglers

It was almost completely dark by the time Dunleavy and Morton reached the field office in Keene. Two inches of snow covered the ground and crunched under foot.

They met the rest of the canvassers there. Dunleavy told them that the plans with a local pub had fallen through. They were supposed to have appetizers there, courtesy of the campaign (“Booze is on you,” Dunleavy had said earlier in the day), but that was no longer the plan.

They drove to the Day’s Inn where the Biden campaign was putting them up, and a staffer helped them check in. Once they had taken their bags to their rooms, the canvassers trudged through the snow to the Chili’s across the street. The crystals made a roar of tiny tinkles as they landed on the quickly-rising layer of white that covered the ground.

Dunleavy remained in the motel lobby. He was waiting for the last of the canvassers to arrive before he headed to dinner himself. He sat in his thick, dark-green plaid wool pants with a red flannel tucked into them. A blue Biden sticker sat just above the right pocket flap. A yellow sun rose above overlapping mountains framed on the baby-blue wall behind him. He had seen many of these motel lobbies. And he knew that when the wind is driving a heavy snow on a frigid New Hampshire night, thick wool pants are the only way to survive.

Previous New Hampshire primary coverage:

• Progressives’ Pitch: Movement vs. ​“Bulldog”