Maffei, Sweetland, Hawkins continue campaigning
News10Now – Time Warner Cable
Bill Carey
November 3rd, 2008
CENTRAL NEW YORK -- For the two major party candidates for Congress in the 25th District, it comes down to this. The final hours of the long campaign spent shaking hands, meeting voters. All the rest of the campaign work is pretty much done.
"The planning is over. The strategizing. Making the commercials. The fundraising. It's down to just talking to voters, one on one. It's where democracy really happens," said Democratic candidate Dan Maffei.
The one thing that Democrat Dan Maffei and Republican Dale Sweetland might have in common is a clear idea of just what a challenge it is to run a modern campaign.
"I'm tired. We've worked really hard. We have. We've been all over the place from here to Rochester," said Republican candidate Dale Sweetland.
Both candidates say they have met thousands of voters and clear themes have emerged in 2008.
"Change and new jobs and putting Central New York back on the map," Maffei said.
"People are disgusted with Washington," Sweetland said. "People don't see Washington tending to the issues and attending to the things that they deal with every day."
In the final hours of any campaign, the candidates still have an urge to keep campaigning, to keep searching for that one last vote.
"People want to meet you. People want to know you. They want to look in your eye and tell whether or not they can trust you. And it does make a difference," Sweetland said. "There's so many people to meet that it's difficult and you have to keep working at it."
"I think it matters. I need to make sure that, for me, that I'm going after every vote possible. I don't want to wake up the day after the election and go, gee, if I had only worked a little harder," Maffei said. "So right until the last minute, I'm going to be shaking voters' hands."
Both Maffei and Sweetland hope to spend at least part of Wednesday resting.
Voters have a third choice for congress in the 25th District. That's the Green Populist Party candidate Howie Hawkins. Hawkins, too, plans last minute campaigning after he is clear of his overnight job at UPS and gets some sleep.
Hawkins is a former Marine and has been active in social justice and anti-war movements since the late 60s. He is a co-founder of the Green Party in 1984.
Hawkins has run unsuccessfully for a number of positions ranging from Syracuse Common Council to mayor, from Congress to the U.S. Senate.
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