Lawless kick starts uphill battle to Congress

PROVIDENCE, RI - Jennifer Lawless faces long odds in her challenge to U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., in the September 2006 Democratic primary. But one month after Lawless, an assistant professor of political science and public policy, made her formal announcement, her nascent campaign boasts staffers, an office and - arriving last Wednesday - bumper stickers.

"At this point the campaign is definitely in its infancy - we are still putting together the organization and infrastructure," said Adam Deitch '05, Lawless campaign manager. "It's been pretty hectic," he said, since Lawless' campaign kickoff, held at the Community College of Rhode Island's Warwick campus on June 15.

The campaign's new storefront headquarters in the Conimicut area of Warwick are staffed by five Brown alums and current students working full-time this summer, another student working part-time and Assistant Professor of Political Science Corey Brettschneider, who is serving as campaign treasurer. That staff has been putting in long hours, according to Deitch, getting down to the gritty work of setting up a headquarters, researching policy, raising money, planning events and seeking local support.

Deitch said the campaign's "early, early start" will yield benefits: "We feel we're working harder than any 2006 House campaign is working right now, and we're going to use the early start as an advantage."

"The last few weeks have been great," Lawless said. "We've really been gaining momentum."

Langevin is not yet actively campaigning for a fourth term, just eight months after being elected to his third. His press secretary, Joy Fox, said he "maintains a year-round campaign office, primarily for fundraising, and he also maintains a Web site."

"The congressman is concerned about every challenger and will work hard to gain the support of the 2nd District, just as he did in the last election when he won 75 percent of their support," she added.

In April, 17 months before the primary election and two years after moving from New York to Rhode Island to teach at Brown, Lawless announced she would run for Congress. Since then she has moved to the 2nd District, where she is challenging Langevin. She previously lived in Democrat Patrick Kennedy's 1st District, where Brown is located.

Deitch told The Herald in April that Lawless chose to run in the 2nd District because of Langevin's stance on abortion - she favors abortion rights, while he is anti-abortion - as well as his unwillingness to take a political risk by challenging Senator Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., for his Senate seat in 2006.

Lawless sounded an anti-incumbent note when speaking with The Herald.

"The status quo in Rhode Island on many issues right now is simply unacceptable to me, and the regular politicians don't seem to be able to change things," she said. "I think Americans in general and Rhode Islanders specifically are ready for a fresh face.

"I just couldn't sit back anymore. Research and teaching about campaigns wasn't enough - I knew that I actually had to get in there and fight to make a difference," she added.

Her staff echoed her anti-incumbent message.

"Certainly there are members of the community who think we don't have a chance, but people seem to want change," Deitch said. "Jen is not a traditional political candidate, and this is not a traditional campaign. She's not a Washington insider, she's never been in politics before, and we see that as a huge plus. The last thing we need are more career politicians in Washington."

"The reason I'm doing this is because I'm so dedicated not just to Jen but to progressive politics and change in general," said Nick Goldberg '05, the campaign's director of policy. "The real problem is the ingrained career politicians in Washington, D.C., who are out of touch with their constituents and are viewing this as a profession.

"Too much today we're seeing politicians go out and raise a million dollars and never knock on any doors and run some ads and win the election," Goldberg added.

Deitch said Lawless will instead run a "grassroots" campaign, centered on "new and innovative ways of campaigning." Right now, he said, that involves meeting with as many local officials as possible, writing letters to "constituents who are doing great things in the community," and "listening" to people at events such as last weekend's Wickford Art Festival in Kingston.

"We're looking to engage everyone in conversations," he said, and "listen to what these people have to say."

Deitch also pledged that "Jen is going to knock on more doors, a higher percentage of doors in this district than any candidate ever has before."

But the campaign is more mainstream in other ways: Deitch said that "fundraising is definitely a priority" and that the campaign has been in contact with several national political organizations to ask for their support, including NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Women Under Forty PAC.

The Lawless campaign is a long shot. Langevin is well funded and popular - he scored a 63 percent approval rating in a June poll conducted by Brown's Taubman Center for Public Policy, trailing only Democratic Sen. Jack Reed within Rhode Island's congressional delegation. It is difficult to defeat any incumbent these days - 91 percent of House members were re-elected in 2004, according to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. But Lawless and her staff are enthusiastic and hopeful despite the uphill battle they face.

"I can't emphasize too much how energized the staff is," Deitch said. "We're working every day as a team to make this a winning campaign."

"Jen will knock on more doors than any other congressional candidate in the country," he said.

"I am learning so much about campaigning in general and meeting so many people from Rhode Island," said Marne Lenox '05, Lawless director of planning and policy analyst. "I'm getting a great feel for being involved in politics, in the policy side of politics."

"I definitely think she's going to win," Goldberg said. "I think the voters of Rhode Island right now see this as a long shot, but that's how people saw Paul Wellstone when he started riding around in his bus." Wellstone, then a professor of political science at Carleton College, ran a successful outsider campaign for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota in 1990.

Lawless noted she has found the experience of running for office far different from simply studying campaigns.

"I can honestly say that until you do it you have no idea what it's like. Everything is more challenging than I thought it would be, but by the same token it's more exhilarating than I thought it would be," she said. "If nothing else, I've learned there's a huge divide between research and practical politics."

This article, written by Ben Leubsdorf, appeared on July 17, 2005, in the Brown Daily Herald.