The Political 43rd: Effects of the District on the Candidates' Learning Curves

The candidates were asked whether their personal view of the 43rd district changed significantly after each of their first campaign experiences (Czerwonka in 2002, Owens in 2004). Mr. Czerwonka had a significant amount to say on this topic, comparing and contrasting his two unsuccessful campaigns for this seat. Mr. Owens generally did not feel that the campaign for this seat was a learning experience, so this section mainly discusses Czerwonka’s learning curve, from his perspective.

Czerwonka addressed how his perception of the 43rd district had changed after his first attempt at the seat in 2002, necessarily explaining some of his presuppositions along the way. One might conclude from his answers that there were presuppositions that seriously hurt him in both campaigns he ran, in 2002 and 2004. These assumptions ranged from beliefs about how the Republican Party should handle his race, to things he learned about the various subcultures amongst his prospective constituency.

The first area in which Mr. Czerwonka’s first campaign changed his perspective of his district was in relation to Republican Party activity. He had counted on the party to staff the precincts and to challenge attempts at voter fraud. “My views changed in that I realized that I could not rely on the local Republican Party to do their job of staffing the precincts in the most challenging of areas in Jefferson County with qualified Republicans.” Jefferson county had already developed a notoriety for electoral corruption before Czerwonka’s 2002 race against Paul Bather. He said that many votes were cast illegitimately against him in 2002, and so he knew to be prepared against these tactics in 2004. In 2003 he was selected to recruit and place challengers in every precinct’s polling place in the 43rd district, to stem the expected tide of electoral corruption during the 2003 Kentucky Gubernatorial race. By 2004, Czerwonka was much more prepared to deal with illegal vote-gathering techniques, fraudulent voters and polling-place electioneering. “This was something that know we had to do and we did it extremely well,” said Czerwonka of his 2004 campaign’s organizational efforts.

Having also had a chance to feel out popular response to former incumbent Paul Bather, Czerwonka understood that his close brush with victory in 2002 was not necessarily indicative of his own success with voters. He concluded rather that the incumbent Bather was so unpopular as to almost allow his opponent to surmount the insurmountable, which Czerwonka had almost done. “I knew exactly what the challenges were in the district,” said Czerwonka, referring his own white, Republican status in a 60% black, 90% Democrat district. “I also knew that no one sans Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden generated as visceral of a response as Paul Bather, …that 2004 was…a Presidential Election Year, very hotly contested, [and] that my opponent for the General Election, Darryl Owens, was going to present a different type and style of campaign.”

Adducing from the political atmosphere in his district, and what he had learned about his potential constituency in his 2002 run, Czerwonka opened his heart up to voters in the 43rd concerning his conservative family values views. In 2002 he learned quickly that voters in his district, even those who did not have sound families for themselves, wanted that soundness of family values for their children, as well as better educational and career opportunities, and better neighborhoods. He knew that most of those in the black and white neighborhoods shared a churchgoing nature of some kind at least, and tended to be more socially conservative than most strongly Democrat constituencies would be. Therefore the Czerwonka camp considered seriously, as he stated it, “that in 2004 there was a Constitutional Amendment on the Ballot defining Marriage as between a man and a woman,” and that their chances of success were likely tied to the family-oriented sentiments of their toughest votes to win: the entrenched black vote. “…Knowing the fact that the poor, Christian blacks of West Louisville cherished their families, [we thought] hopefully those black families would analyze the candidates and realize,” he said, that he was on their side, and “that this was clearly an issue on which my opponent and I were diametrically opposed.”

Czerwonka’s approach, then, was one of assessing the issues carefully after his first campaign, and attempting to educate his constituency as he campaigned to win their trust. He approached the campaign in a fashion that comfortably reflected the things he thought he shared with the best parts of the district: a disciplined work ethic, exerting his efforts diligently on the ground to win trust voter-by-voter, one-by one. He also ensured that he was well informed as to the actual issues that the average voter in each subdivision of his district cared about, or should care about if they did not.