Two guys talking about wanting world to be better

10 years since Aaron Woolf ran for Congress, he is making a difference

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Ten years later, Aaron Woolf is a footnote from the political past.

A trivia question.

Ten years ago, he became the first Democrat vanquished by Elise Stefanik's political machine.

At the time, Woolf was a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, a political novice long on idealism, short on the ruthlessness needed to be a modern-day politician.

He was a nice guy.

He was a deep thinker who looked at the big picture and wanted to make the world a better place.

But being the most interesting guy in the room doesn't win you elections.

It's still unclear his motivation for the email that led to our call last week, but I was interesting in know where he had been and what he was doing because Woolf is one of those people where there is a reason behind the small talk.

He was shock at the age of the crowd, then further shocked the band was even older.

But then came that wave of energy only Springsteen can deliver.

"I have rarely seen a more authentic performance," Woolf said as he got to to the larger question.

There was a song -"Last Man Standing"- that Springsteen introduced with a poignant story about the recent death of a former bandmate that left him the lone survivor from his first first band.

"Did he tell that story in Syracuse," Woolf asked about the concert three days later.

I told him he did,.

Woolf was disappointed, a little saddened the story was scripted as part of the regular show.

I wondered if that was what Woolf was seeking now at this point in his life.

That authenticity.

That reality that has long-term meaning.

Then Woolf was sharing that once-in-a-lifetime teenage moment about his first kiss at a summer pool party with Springsteen's "Born to Run" blaring in the background.

Oh, someday, girl, I don't know when

We're gonna get to that place

Where we really wanna go and we'll walk in the sun

But 'til then, tramps like us

Baby, we were born to run

And I wondered if the story was off the cuff too, unscripted or was Woolf was getting at something.

We were just two guys talking.

"I was a total rookie in so many ways," Woolf said about that campaign 10 years ago. "Sort of the naive. There has always been nastiness in politics. There is a sourness that was emerging at that time and cynicism that was emerging. I could sense that in my opponents."

It has been 10 years since Aaron Woolf ran for Congress against Elise Stefanik.\

At the time, Woolf and Stefanik were both outsiders with tenuous ties to a rural region with plenty of problems while Matt Funiciello was the Green Party offering who had more of an edge than either of them.

The irony is that 10 years later, it is Woolf who stuck in the North Country and may be making a much bigger difference locally than he ever could have as a congressman.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The race affected Woolf, changed him and maybe it changed the direction of the region as well.

Woolf pointed ouit that before his run for Congress, his documentary film work always had a political subtext.

"Everything that I have done since that race is so much less political," Woolf said. "The work I'm doing now is real stories, human stories that are kind of invisible stories in our midst that wouldn't be told if I had not done them."

Woolf has four films in production, but that wasn't what he wanted to talk about either.

So while Elise Stefanik is serving her fifth term in Congress and is a national leader in the Republican Party, Woolf has been making his contributions in Elizabethtown where he has a business, serves on the Planning Board and is determined to help small rural communities survive.

And that started with his campaign 10 years ago.

"One of the things about running for Congress was to see communities that were struggling, that were figuring things out," Woolf said. "One of the more interesting lessons was that I saw so many places with these deep and sincere efforts to build an office park or lay out the infrastructure to attract business. I really do want to crack the code of this next chapter of rural American communities, Adirondack communities."

When's the last time you heard an elected official of either party say that?

He believes there is a different way to change the dynamic.

"Some of the communities that were succeeding were building trails, places like Saranac Lake, attracting people not because of a widget factory but selling a lifestyle; that alternative to an urban world," Wolfe said. "What is happening, young people are moving there because they like what the scene was. And they were coming up with jobs. It felt like an organic way in finding what communities wanted."

Woolf hopes to apply those lessons in the North Country.

"I've been really looking at Elizabethtown," Woolf said. "Local food and recreation infrastructure. There is this promising nexus where the two things are happening at the same time."

He sees potential with Champlain Valley agriculture and the lure of the High Peaks.

He continues to develop a mountain bike trail system that would include a wilderness lodge, not just to attract tourists, but more residents. Woolf says he knows of four young families who have moved to Elizabethtown for biking.

He's looking at downtown and sees old buildings that can be converted into offices for lawyers, a bike shop and a brewery.

"E'town will always need office space because of the courthouse, lawyers," Woolf said. "We can create a more intentional work community."

Woolf has a vision in a region where that is rarely the case.

The difference between Woolf's positivity and the horrors of the current political landscape are stark, and quite refreshing.

It reminds Woolf of what he left behind.

"There was an ugliness to the political process when I was running," Woolf remembered. "There was something revolting about some parts of the race."

And that goes for all the political parties.

"Some of the ways the Democratic Party looked at rural communities was tin-eared at best," Woolf said about that time. "Really just appalling, and ignorant at worst. Just a kind of ... I don't know if it was Obama era, a bit of smugness that the demographics were going their way that the growing Latino population would guarantee a Democrat dominance in future decades. Rural communities were not a part of that story. There was an immense sense of disenfranchisement, deep dissatisfaction, a deep lack of feeling that anybody from Albany or Washington had the interest of these communities at heart."

It ultimately made it easy to leave politics behind.

Ten years is a long time.

The country has obviously changed. What's worse, the people may have changed as well.

That makes people like Aaron Woolf more important than ever.

When we finished talking, I agreed to come see him in Elizabethtown and see the potential for myself.

I was feeling more optimistic, hopeful.

At the Albany concert, Springsteen played a song called "No Surrender" from his Born in the USA album that should have spoke to Aaron Woolf as well. It speaks to be born again, not to run, but to make a difference.

Well, now young faces grow sad and old

And hearts of fire grow cold

We swore blood brothers against the wind

Now I'm ready to grow young again

And hear your sister's voice calling us home

Across the open yards

Well maybe we could cut some place of our own

With these drums and these guitars

Cause we made a promise we swore we'd always remember

No retreat, baby, no surrender

It's called "No Surrender." I suspect that’s the way Aaron Woolf has been living his life for sometime.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.