Race to the Rizzo!
Nick Rizzo, Williamsburg’s outsider candidate for the obscure-but-influential Democratic Party position of male district leader, stomped his absentee opponent with an earnest, aggressive get-out-the-vote operation that netted him 1,634 votes to foe Michael Brienza’s 980, with 94 percent of votes tallied. In his campaign Rizzo positioned himself as the hipster candidate, boasting to whoever would listen online about his beard, tattoos, roll-your-own-cigarette habit, and devotion to bike-riding. But he said the whole reason he tried so hard to score an unpaid job when he is already a self-described “semi-employed bartender” is because he wants politics to work for people again.
“My single greatest goal is to get more people involved in the Brooklyn Democratic Party,” he said during his victory party at Teddy’s Bar in Williamsburg. “We need to get the party out of the hands of politicians and back into the hands of people with sane interests.”
Rizzo said that he wants to move beyond talking about his personal aesthetic and serve everybody in the area.
“Tonight’s results show that North Brooklyn understands that I am fighting for the whole community,” he said. “It is time we got past these labels.
Rizzo ran a sophisticated campaign with canvassers stationed outside subway stations and poll watchers taking exit polls on primary day. Brienza laid low, failing to respond to months of press inquiries and not updating a Facebook page promoting his candidacy after July 30.
Brienza was the third opponent Rizzo faced. The two previous candidates dropped out ahead of the primary.
