What does a dropping candidate do the day after the election?

Unfortunately, I know the reply firsthand.

A lifetime in the past, it seems, I ran for Congress in Skokie, Illinois, the city where I spent most of my childhood.

California Post Opinion Editor Joel Pollak drives his marketing campaign automobile in Skokie, Illinois, in the summer time of 2010. Joel Pollak

It is a deep-blue suburb of the deep-blue metropolis of Chicago. The district, at the time, included the college city of Evanston, plus the far northern neighborhoods of the metropolis itself, alongside the glittering lakefront.

Growing up, I was curious about politics. In faculty, I was a left-wing Democrat, and labored as an intern for then-Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun in Chicago.

I imagined operating for Congress one day, but not as a Republican.

Fast-forward more than a decade. With some real-world expertise behind me, I “came out” as a conservative in legislation faculty. 

In faculty, Pollak was a left-wing Democrat before coming out as a conservative. Joel Pollak

One day, Barney Frank, the late Massachusetts congressman, came to Harvard to lecture about the world monetary disaster. 

Frank spent his speech blaming Republicans. When I requested him how much accountability he had for the disaster, since he was the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, he blew up at me. I saved my cool and we argued for about 5 minutes.

The video of our confrontation went viral, and quickly the Illinois Republican Party called. Would I think about operating for Congress back house?

Sure, I said. At that level I had already signed up to take the bar examination in California, but like many of my classmates during the recession, I didn’t have a job yet.

Plus, it was a distinctive alternative to make a distinction. 

Pollak greets voters on a practice platform in suburban Chicago during his marketing campaign in the summer time of 2010. Jasmine Hauser

I knew my possibilities were slim: The last Republican to win in a metropolis of Chicago district had only accomplished so because the Democrat had been indicted for corruption. 

But the incumbent in my district, Jan Schakowsky, had a few scandals that the media had missed. Perhaps in a “wave” election — like the Tea Party marketing campaign of 2010 was shaping up to be — I might catch lightning in a bottle.

I launched my marketing campaign with nothing — no cash, no workers, just a couple of volunteers. I had to study how to ask strangers to write checks.

I went to the nationwide Republican headquarters and requested for opposition analysis on my opponent. They had never bothered.

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So I did my own digging. And I started to discover hyperlinks between my opponent and the aggressive marketing campaign by the Obama White House to promote Obamacare to the public. 

A superb impresario named Andrew Breitbart had just launched a conservative information web site in LA. He beloved the story, and shopped it to Glenn Beck, then of Fox News. Beck used the story to join the political dots between Obama’s Chicago and the DC swamp. He ran it for two weeks.

I began elevating cash. I employed workers, including a one-armed political veteran named Paul Miller. 

Miller informed me to begin knocking on doorways and greeting commuters at practice stations. I wouldn’t meet everyone in the district, but I would “get my name out.”

Pollak, heart, and Paul Ryan attend a marketing campaign fundraiser in downtown Chicago, 2010. Joel Pollak

Our opponent began making errors. She did a fundraiser with the well-known White House correspondent Helen Joseph, who posed for photographs with huge donors.

A few weeks later, with the photographs already in the mail, Joseph outed herself as a rabid antisemite. 

Congratulations, donors!

Schakowsky also backed a new, far-left Jewish group called J Street, which took anti-Israel positions. That irritated residents of the closely Jewish district.

It also satisfied my former professor Alan Dershowitz, then a staunch Democrat, to weigh in. He came to Chicago for a fundraiser. I was the first Republican he had ever backed. 

Now we had enough cash for a actual marketing campaign. 

I reached out to Paul Ryan, then an up-and-coming Republican with daring concepts about reforming Social Security and Medicare. He agreed to do a fundraiser. The media didn’t flip up — journalists didn’t dare cross Schakowsky — but a whole bunch of donors did.

The marketing campaign was roaring. Commercials, rallies, debates. Conservatives began coming out of the woodwork to volunteer. Schakowsky, who usually directed volunteers to other districts, saved them in her own. That would assist other Republicans win in neighboring districts.

But not me.

Pollak thanks voters on a practice platform, Nov. 3, 2010, the day after dropping the election. Joel Pollak

On election evening, as supporters gathered in a lodge ballroom, I watched outcomes come in. 

The race was called in an hour. Schakowsky didn’t take my concession call.

With a lump in my throat, I gave a speech thanking everyone.

The next day — at Miller’s course — I was out at the practice stations again. I shook arms; I thanked strangers for the alternative to run.

That’s what you do the day after you lose. You thank the voters.

And then, you choose up the items.

I called buddies in Washington. No jobs there.

But I had a California legislation license. I called Andrew Breitbart.

I lost in Chicago, but I won a new life in LA.

Joel Pollak is the Opinion editor of the California Post.

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