nothin Power(-Fighting) Couple Hits Streets Again | New Haven Independent

Power(-Fighting) Couple Hits Streets Again

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Meyersons canvass for Sanders in the Annex on primary day.

Bill and Cathy Meyerson have worked for so many underdog political campaigns that they can’t begin to remember just how many. On Tuesday they were focused on on their latest quest: to help a democratic socialist from Vermont win Connecticut’s presidential primary.

The couple picked up a clipboard full of names of potential Bernie Sanders supporters at the Vermont U.S. senator’s Westville headquarters on Whalley Avenue Tuesday at 3 p.m. They were taking the last volunteer shift of the day, and the last few hours of opportunity to get people in the Annex neighborhood near the East Haven town line out to the polls.

Sanders’ call to tackle the economic disparities — to go after the millionaries and the billionaires” — is what got them knocking on dozens of doors Tuesday despite dreary skies that remained stubbornly overcast, intermittently spitting rain.

To add insult to injury on the unexpectedly cold spring day, a piercing wind whipped at the volunteers as they scanned the lists of voters’ names, turning their ungloved hands to stone.

But the weather didn’t stop the Meyersons. Married for 32 years, they have spent much of their time together hitting campaign trails for underdog progressive candidates like Sanders.

He’s the only one talking about forming a movement,” Cathy said of why she supported Sanders. The only way to fight the powerful corporations is by forming a movement. I wish he was winning” among the delegates and superdelegates.

In the first two hours in The Annex, they found about five people home — a man who had changed religions and no longer voted, a daycare provider who vowed from her window to go vote once her husband got home, an elderly gentleman who’d voted earlier in the day, another woman who voted for Sanders, and another woman who said both she and her husband voted, but declined to say for which candidate.

The woman who voted for Sanders said the Meyersons were the only people who’d come to ask for her vote for either candidate. She said she believed she’d received some campaign calls, but admittedly hadn’t been answering her phone. But she said if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, she’d support Clinton in the general election in November.

The Meyersons feel the same way. They even vow to work for Hillary Clinton’s election if she’s the eventual nominee. But they weren’t giving up yet on Sanders’ political revolution.” Political revolutions take time. And many, many uphill campaigns.

Growing Up On The Trail

The Myersons outside the Sanders Westville headquarters.

I know we worked on the 88 [Jesse] Jackson campaign,” recalled Bill, who until his retirement was employed by Local 1199 hospital workers union. Jerry Brown ran. We worked on the [John] Daniels for Mayor campaign. We worked a number of aldermanic campaigns, including most recently Aaron Greenberg’s” in Wooster Square.

Cathy grew up with progressive politics. Her father was a union organizer. Her mother, Catherine Quinn ran for the then-Board of Aldermen in the 1970s. She has worked on campaigns since she was a kid.

I think that the most memorable one was the [1988] Jackson campaign, because we won in New Haven and everybody was shocked,” said Cathy, a retired Yale worker who helped found the campus’s UNITE HERE Local 34.

We beat the machine,” Bill recalled.

And it was so much fun,” Cathy added.

At the time, Yale unions were in the middle of a contract fight with the university. Jackson came to New Haven on the eve of a strike, and waded into the fight on the side of the unions.

He helped settle the contract,” Bill said.

He was just wonderful,” recalled Cathy, who served on the union negotiating committee.

The couple worked on Jackson’s campaign in New Haven and went up to New Hampshire to help out in that state’s primary.

But the most fun of the Jackson campaign is that we caught the Democratic machine completely by surprise,” Bill said. We turned out all these people and literally sort of the regulars at the poll were going crazy, saying Who are these people? We don’t know these people.’”

It was so funny and then to have him win New Haven was — the idea that an African American could run and win in New Haven [at that time] was just like it —was cool and it was fun and he was so wonderful. That was really great.”

Cathy said her other most memorable campaign work was probably for Barack Obama. She and their daughter joined local union members to help get out the vote in Norfolk, Virginia. They stayed on the ground for a couple of days, but a lot of work had already been done by the time they got there. She said on election day, the volunteers were ready to hit the doors, but when she turned on the television at 5 a.m. they discovered that people were already standing in line waiting to vote.

It was raining, and there was a line of African Americans standing at five freakin’ o’clock in the morning,” she said. Everyone that was going to vote had voted by 10 o’clock in the morning. It was like one of the most awesome things I’d ever seen. I just sat there and cried. It was such a cool thing. Such a really, really unbelievably cool thing and such a long time coming. That was great.”

The Meyersons said they supported Sanders because of what they see as his courageous stand against economic disparities and his willingness to take on big corporations and Wall Street.

I’m from a working-class background,” Cathy said. I have a very strong class identification, and what’s happening to the working class in this country is just horrible.”

Regardless of what happens, Bernie Sanders has brought in an entire new generation of people into the local process and into the Democratic Party,” Bill said. If we continue what he calls the political revolution, and keep organizing a movement that’s based on his platform, then that could lead to some real changes, not just within the country but the Democratic Party.”

I will work in my small way to keep it going in whatever form it takes, to whatever extent it can because otherwise this country is heading into a very, very bad direction,” Bill added. He said Sanders has built a truthful narrative,” that’s not based on blaming immigrants, or blaming Muslims, or saying, All we need is a business man who knows how to negotiate to solve our problems.’ It’s not about any of that. On the other hand, it has some of the same anger and concerns that many [Donald] Trump voters express.”

Cathy said she believes those who’ve said that if Clinton is the nominee that they won’t vote for her are just angry at how Sanders has been treated during the primary season. She predicted that many of those Sanders supporters will get over it to oppose Trump, who appears to be crushing any hopes that Ted Cruz can wrest the Republican nomination away from him.

Fight For Change Continues

Garland Short voted for Sanders.

After a pit stop to a Dunkin Donuts on Main Street in East Haven for hot chocolate and a little thawing out, the couple ventured back out to hit a few more doors before 7 p.m. in the Annex, one of the few significantly racially mixed New Haven neighborhoods targeted Tuesday by the Sanders campaign.

The Meyersons didn’t find many more people home, but they kept at it until they finished their list. They found a man home who said he voted for Clinton and didn’t know much about Sanders. But they also bumped into Garland Short on Terrace Street, a custodian at Yale, who knew all about Sanders and had voted for him.

I liked the little bit that I’d heard about his history,” he said. I like the way he’s going after the big corporations. He wants better for the middle class and lower class.”

Short said if Sanders didn’t win, he’d vote for Clinton. I’m a Democrat,” he said.

Jessie Marcano didn’t vote because he said all politicians are the same.

The couple also had a spirited but good-natured chat with Jessie Marcano, who shared passionately with them why he did not vote, though he said the people who lived at his house had voted for Sanders. They were busy and couldn’t come to the door.

Marcano, a truck driver and mechanic originally from Long Island, said that politicians tend to talk a good game of being for the people to get elected. But once they’re in office, they all behave the same once they start getting their six-figure salaries and free health care.

Nothing will change when he gets in the White House,” he said. I’ll still be here trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.”

The Meyersons tried to convince Marcano that Sanders would be different, but he was not feeling the Bern.

Remember what I said,” he told them.

Less experienced campaigners might have taken Marcano’s position against their candidate personally, but not the Meyersons. They enjoyed his passion and even called the exchange fun, though Cathy had to brave his small and excited dog. Cathy is not a dog person; throughout four hours canvassing, she let Bill handle the houses with dogs.

They were asked why they continued volunteering door-to-door for campaigns after all these years.

Because what freakin’ choice do we have?” Cathy, 67, responded with a chuckle.

There’s so much that needs to be done in this country and that can be done if people get together, organize, demand change — fight for it,” Bill, 65, said. And it is young people who are really getting involved.”

Plus on the positive side it is just really exciting to have somebody saying the things that Bernie has said about Wall Street and the corporations,” Cathy added. He is really building this momentum and this movement. It’s really exciting and it’s fun. And New Haven is a great place to be doing this.”

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