Street Fight - power, corruption and lies...

Introduction

The summer of 2002 saw a political race with a bit of a difference. It was the Mayoral election for Newark, New Jersey. Both candidates were from the same political party, the Democratic Party, and both were black. The current Mayor, Sharpe James, had been in office for 16 years whilst the new challenger, Cory Booker, had only been in public for four years on the Newark City Council.

Marshall Curry, a young film maker who was actually making his first film, had heard about the election and wanted to film the whole campaign from both sides so that he could present a balanced picture of an election between two black candidates. He didn't get what he wanted.

Very quickly Curry discovered that old hand James had an iron grip on the city of Newark, which is unsurprising after 16 years in office. What was more surprising though was that James didn't believe in open democracy or fair campaigning in a city of the country that tries to export democracy globally.


Booker's campaign was blocked at every turn by James and city workers, whether building inspectors who objected to his doorstep campaigning in a public building, police officers who blocked legitimate attempts to film Sharpe James or firemen who illegally tore down Booker's campaign posters on the day of the election despite warning from the electoral commission.

James used dirty tricks from a book he must have compiled during his long term in office. He would close down businesses who supported his rival, threaten city contractors with the loss of said contracts and lied to the media about everything from Booker's colour and political leaning to how much money was spent on the campaign.

Street Fight is a grass roots level examination of US politics that continually surprises, although the ending is not that surprising.

Visual

Essentially one man (well, at least two in the end) and a Sony PD-150 camera, long takes rather than swift editing make for a film that feels longer but also more real.

Audio

2.0 Stereo soundtrack but no subtitles bar those on-screen burnt captions during phone calls.

Extras

None.

Overall

I've been keeping an eye on the US election and the Democratic Party nomination battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I've watched some of the mud slung at both candidates that is both racist and sexist in turn. What I failed to realise is that the mainstream national barracking and smearing of those two candidates is quite tame in comparison to local politics.

The behaviour of incumbent Mayor James is disgusting, starting with his obvious hatred of anyone daring to show support for newcomer Booker. The closing down of businesses is a severe breach of office, but the sheer racism from this man was severely depressing. Stating that Booker wasn't black enough and was in league with Right wing Jewish organisations should have had this man barred from ever holding public office, but it didn't. Then when things started to turn against him, he lied about the campaign expenditure of his rival by upping the figure of around $4 million spent (which was relative to his own) to $10 million in an attempt to state that Booker was trying to buy the election - what's more surprising is these figures are a matter of public record but no one in the media even bothered to check them.

On election day he organised police and firemen to pull down campaign posters for his rival, a clear breach of electoral rules. He also bussed in paid volunteers to campaign for him from another state (interviewed briefly by Curry where it was clear most had no idea who they were supporting), and then had the gall to state to the local media that all his campaign volunteers were volunteers and local. I still don't understand how he had the gall to do it and still look to smear his rival in the process.

I realise that in politics that things are expected to get a little negative but this campaign by James just scraped the barrel. He managed to win the 2002 election but justice was finally served when he dropped out of the 2006 election for Booker to win a landslide with 74% of the vote, and James himself has recently been jailed for fraud and corruption. Hurrah. I suspect the non-scrutiny of James by the media was more to do with the fact that this was an election with two black candidates, I really doubt that James would have dared similar tactics with a white candidate or that the press would have let him get away with it. And that's ultimately what I find so disappointing about this whole affair. It's almost as if no one cared what was going on, all sense of decency evaporated for the potential spectacle of two black candidates slugging it out. Booker rose above it, despite being advised to be negative, and ultimately got his reward, just a shame he had to wait another four years.

An excellent film but it tells a rather depressing story of just how dirty politics can get.