Dan O’Connor of Brooklyn is hoping to win over fellow New Yorkers with his enthusiasm as he campaigns for Congress.
“I think I have a lot of energy as a young guy,” O’Connor, 33, said, at a recent interview in his modest office in the heart of Chinatown.
Standing over six feet tall, he’s vying for the Democratic nomination for the congressional seat representing District 7, which includes Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo, Boerum Hill, Williamsburg, Park Slope, the Gowanus, Red Hook and Bushwick. It also covers Chinatown in lower Manhattan – and thankfully, O’Connor speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese, languages he picked up while living in China.
“I always wanted to travel and see the world, and I was always very interested in Chinese culture… I guess I always found it mystic, or fascinating, a culture I couldn’t quite grasp, being this far apart from it,” said O’Connor on why he spent six years living in China.
He worked as a consultant for U.S. companies in Hong Kong and Taiwan before returning to New York two-and-a-half years ago right in the middle of the recession.
“I’ve always been a big student of history and of economics, and a student of international relations, but I was not politically active, until recent years when I’ve been really disturbed by out-of-control government, the way corporations dominate our policies in Washington, D.C.,” O’Connor said on why he’s mounted a campaign.
“I think the bailouts were a turning point for me in general,” he explained, referring to the government bailouts of Wall Street.
“I was more of an economist, not a politician,” O’Connor said. In fact, according to his campaign website biography, he predicted the 2008 recession.
So O’Connor, making up in confidence what he lacks in political experience, decided to run for Congress. But campaigning in New York City has not always been easy.
“It’s extremely entrenched as a political system. The establishment tends to help one another. The people who hold office tend to help the people who hold office,” O’Connor said. “They’re scratching each other’s backs a lot, and that definitely makes it more difficult for a non-establishment guy to run.”
Instead, O’Connor’s strategy has been “running around shaking hands with people in the district and talking to them and listening to them,” he said.
The Democratic primary is on June 26, when O’Connor will face off against three other candidates, including the incumbent Nydia Velazquez.
“Not only will I be an outspoken voice,” said O’Connor. “But I think I represent practical solutions to the out-of-control policies in Washington, the lack of accountability.”
O’Connor also strongly supports term limits. He’s pledged to serve only four terms. “I don’t aspire to be a career politician. I think the longer people stay in politics, the more corrupt a lot of them become, and I don’t want that to happen to myself,” he said.
“If I am able to contribute to reviving America and the system in general, I’ll get out of politics,” O’Connor added.
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