Why We Run: Ronnie Cho
Ronnie Cho is another candidate vying for the open seat in New York’s City Council District Two. He worked previously on Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and in the White House, and as a producer at MTV, before deciding to run himself. He talks below about his passion for public service, the role of storytelling in politics, and demystifying the process of running for office.

Previously in your career you’ve worked behind the scenes on the Obama campaign and then in the White House. Was there a particular event or issue that made you want to run yourself, or was that always a goal that you would be the candidate?
To be honest I never really seriously planned or considered running for office. As someone who’s been an operative and sort of behind the scenes, as you mentioned, you kind of imagine what that would be like you. You’ve seen it enough to think, maybe I could do that at some point, but I never took it that seriously. It was only in the last few months, after the election of Donald Trump, that I felt kind of a stirring in my gut that I might have something to offer. That I, myself, could be a good public servant to my neighbors. As your great organization has seen and is highlighting, I think a lot of people also felt that way. What’s been so amazing is how that’s been a generational kind of thing. So many young people, millennials, who are entering the call to service. President Obama, in his farewell address in Chicago, I was lucky enough to attend with my mother. I heard him speak and he said if you’re not happy with your elected officials, grab a clipboard and get some signatures and run for office yourself. That was kind of a clarion call for anyone who fought so hard to pass progressive policies and protect our immigrant friends and family members and LGBTQ neighbors, etcetera. We all have a responsibility to do the most good and the best we can. So for me, I thought, I do have something to offer. I do have the experience and the passion and the subject matter expertise that I could provide and be a real asset to the city council and to my neighbors. And that’s when I decided to run.
How has your experience as a candidate surprised you? How has it differed from your experience working on other campaigns?
From a practical level it’s very different, just day-to-day the responsibilities you have as a candidate. At the end of the day, I am responsible for raising the money to pay for the staff and printing the flyers and keeping the lights on in the office and that responsibility is something I’ve never had to deal with. As I talk to my friends in the neighborhood who are entrepreneurs or small business owners, I think the similarities are striking in that you have to be the boss. You are the boss. I’m still getting used to seeing my face on thousands of flyers and people wearing Ronnie Cho T-shirts and seeing Ronnie Cho signs everywhere. But I would say it’s just been a really great experience. It’s brought me to more parts of my neighborhood and introduced me to more people that ordinarily I maybe wouldn’t have gotten to know. That’s been the most exciting thing about running, how receptive people are to my candidacy and to our campaign. I’m really having a blast, I have to say. It’s been a lot of work, it’s a lot of responsibility, long days, but I’m having a great time and I’m glad I’m running.
And then you worked as a producer. How has your experience in that role helped you in campaigning?
The role at MTV taught me, and sort of coaxed out my ability, to be a storyteller. Great campaigns, great political figures, are great storytellers. When it comes to campaigning, it’s been a real asset in being able to communicate my vision, my background, why this moment in American history and the future of this city is so important, and to talk about people. Talk about why we’re doing this — for the small business owner who’s struggling to make ends meet because rents are high, or the family that can’t afford to go to college, or having a hard time getting to work because the metrocards are so expensive, etcetera. These are big issues that day-to-day impact people on such an intimate level that we need to tell those stories and we need to be able to get that out there. So people feel and understand that, even though we are in a big progressive city like New York, there’s still so many challenges that prevent us from living up to the potential that we have to be a model of what a big city can do for it’s citizens and make it work for everybody. So being a producer and having access to sort of the media platform that I had at MTV, it gave me a perspective on how to tell those stories in compelling ways.
What is the thing you least expected about all of this so far?
I guess what I’ll say is: how opaque the process of running can be. One of the things that I want to be doing after this is over is — I’ve been journaling every day, documenting my experiences, the ups and downs of day-to-day campaigning — the demystification of the process. It’s vital to get more people to run, and people who don’t come from more traditional political backgrounds to run. For me, as someone who’s never run for office himself — I’ve been on campaigns, obviously, and been around politicians for a long time — the process of actually getting on the ballot, of registering paperwork to be an official candidate, all of that stuff was more challenging than I expected. I thought the hard part would be the running, the actual campaigning, but an unexpected hurdle would be having everything mailed and certified and signed. I had to go to two different boards of election, one in New York City and one for New York State. All of that is just hurdles that protect incumbency, protect insider, establishment people. And not lowering the barrier to entry for ordinary citizens to run themselves. So I would say that has been the most surprising challenge is getting on the ballot or just registering your campaign.
What’s been most challenging part of the campaigning itself?
I would say how lonely it can be, as a candidate. We all have good and bad days, we have good and bad things that happen, I think the most challenging thing is to be able to go through this process and not feel isolated. There’s only so many things you can project to your team and your volunteers and no one understands the challenges you face as the one who’s on the hook for all of this. It can be a lonely endeavor. But what I’ve been blessed with is a very strong network of people who have run before, like my friend Eric Lesser who’s a state senator in Massachusetts or my good friend Michael Blake who’s an assemblyman here in New York, to sort of bounce ideas off of and to vent and to have a support system of people who have been in and around politics for so long to give me perspective and sort of be a sounding board. But yeah, running can be very lonely but I’ve been able to mitigate that to a strong degree based on the people that I’ve gotten to know over my ten years working for Obama and being in public service.
It’s great you’ve found people like that to talk to, I think we’re sort of building a network of young, politically active people.
I think it’s so important to have that network to call upon and rely upon. The subject matter expertise, the institutional knowledge of running campaigns and being a candidate, should not just be concentrated among high priced political consultants. I want to democratize and demystify what it means to be a candidate and what you actually need to do and what’s important so that we have more people who will run. That’s a big goal of my campaign — in addition to, you know, running and winning — is to also help others find their entry point into running for office in their own community.
You mentioned that you have a network of people that you know from your work in politics — what was the best advice that you got about campaigning?
I’ve gotten a lot of advice, not all of it’s been good. But I would say the best advice I got was to not take it personally. Whether it’s people in the rival campaigns who may be saying unflattering things about you, or people that you thought you could rely upon to donate or volunteer who haven’t: don’t take it personally. Politics is a funny thing and in many ways it’s a business for some folks, and for some of us it’s a lifelong pursuit and public service. At the end of the day, I think especially in this campaign and this race, we’re all Democrats, we’re all very left-of-center progressives, and we’re all going to be working together on some level at some point. So I think my friend said, “Look, don’t take it personally if someone won’t answer your phone call when you ask for money, or so-and-so is saying not nice things about you in the neighborhood.” It’s politics, and you shouldn’t get distracted by it. Keep your head down, stick to your plan, trust your instincts, trust your team, and let everything else just kind of fall by the wayside.
Well you sound very energetic and positive, but obviously campaigning can be hard and tiring. What is keeping you upbeat?
I would say generally I’m a pretty happy, positive guy. I think that’s just part of my metabolism — being optimistic about what’s possible without being overly naive or Pollyannaish about the challenges. What keeps me motivated are the people around me. Like any other situation, professional or personal, it’s not necessarily what you’re doing but it’s who you’re doing it with or who you’re doing it for that makes the memory or that experience fulfilling. As I’m going door-to-door and sneaking up into these buildings in the city — canvassing has very unique challenges in New York — I’m having real live conversations with people who are looking for leadership, who are thirsty for it, and have never interacted with someone who is asking for their vote in person or have never had an interaction with their elected official. What keeps me motivated is there are people who are waiting for me and waiting for our campaign to reach out to them, and who are relying on someone to stand up and fight for them. At the end of the day, if you believe as I do that government can and should be a force of good in people’s lives, then we need to be electing people who believe that to be true. What keeps me upbeat and gets me up in the morning and keeps me out late is that it’s that important. This is bigger than me. It’s more than just Ronnie Cho for City Council, this is an outsider campaign up against an establishment New York politics. This is a young person running for the first time that is running to win. The things that we’re able to accomplish in this campaign will have ripple effects across the city, but also I hope it can be a model for what’s possible in other campaigns across the country. That’s one of the reasons why I’m such a big supporter and a big fan of Run For Something, you guys are tapping into that energy and that inspiration that people are having. We need more young people in office. We need a new generation of leadership, otherwise things are not going to get better. The Democratic party right now, the leadership is old and white primarily, and lots of old white men and that’s not the Democratic party. This is a party that is for immigrants and people of color and women and working people. This is a party that needs to be more reflective of not only the party itself but the country. The country is becoming more and more diverse and we need leadership that reflects that. All of that just gets me really fired up, I could really nerd out about public service, I just, I love it, I think it’s so important that we can change peoples’ lives. This might sound cheesy, and I’ve been accused of being corny about this stuff, but it’s because I actually believe it to be true. I do believe in public service and I believe that we have a responsibility to improve the lives of the people around us. That’s why I’ve spent my entire career in this space, because I think at it’s best your work should be a performance of your humanity. I’ve spent my career in government and public policy and social justice advocacy — that’s what keeps me fired up, is the opportunity that we have in front of us to make people’s lives better.

