Zitian Lin
Due date: August 1st, 2013
The Street Fight illustrates Cory Booker, an impressive graduate of Stanford and Yale Law School and a Rhodes Scholar runs for mayor of Newark in 2002 against the 16-year incumbent and old-fashioned politician Sharp James. The campaign, as the titles refers, denotes that two people in the streets of Newark use different ways to show their leadership and power to win.
Leadership is a process that could be practiced by everyone. Moreover, a leader asks people to share his goals. He allows conflicts to be stated by the people and he accepts as well as explains with what is the reality to those goal alignments. There are three steps that leaders can practice in order to gradually achieve their goals.
Firstly, a leader must articulate a vision, which means the leader must show his people where he is going to take them. In the very beginning of the documentary, Cory Booker argues that Newark, New Jersey needs a new mayor because there has been no change in this city under mayor Sharp James who takes over the position since 1986. Moreover, Booker hope to build a more open and honest government. This city needs a new leadership, which Booker can bring this here.
Secondly, a good leader should define the reality by letting his community of followers knowing where they are right now, where they will go, and when they will reach the goal. When this documentary was made, residents in Newark area were still living in poor neighborhoods with poor schools, and a rising jobless rate. Booker kept knocking on every door on the street in those neighborhoods to stress the fact that what situation they are experiencing and the city would improve by replacing the previous leadership. He questioned mayor Sharp’s policies by discussing the city’s sky-high murder rate, its poverty level of over 30% and the astonishing 60% high school dropout rate. He emphasized the importance of a new generation to bring a “renaissance” to all of the Newark’s downtown and its residents.
Thirdly, a good leader gets people from reality to the vision through the orchestration of conflict. In this step, a lot of disagreements will occur that require the leader to be comprehensive and to continue to bring his followers together by reminding them their vision and reality. One of Mayor James’ supporters questioned Booker that he has no interests in this city by saying Booker doesn’t own anything and doesn’t understand the politics of this town; Sharp James in this way did a great job because he has something that relates to the residents and know the politics. Another James’s supporter intensely questioned Booker, calling him a lair who didn’t live in the house where Booker said he lived there before. However, Booker keep patient when answering their questions because he is confident about his leadership in this town with those people. He also does not get angered but be comprehensive as well as accept these questions raised by the local people. He clarifies the fact regarding the real situation about him and the town as well as reminding them their goal for a better life in community.
Additionally, in comparison with Booker, James is a “machine” politician who uses power to influence the behavior of others to get things done in his way. He as a mayor can use his legitimate as well as coercive power to have the policemen destroy Booker’s campaign poster in public area, and put more posters and advertisements about him on the transportation bridge. Whoever does not give James vote, he shuts down the local residents’ store. In order to keep their normal business, some Newark residents have to be dependent on James by continuing support him and voting him. It illustrates that the power is in relation to dependency, which basically means that one person have something that others want. Therefore, in this case, people need to do something for Mayor James since they are dependent on him. It further explains why people are dependent on James and how he creates dependency. However, Booker’s charisma attract a lot of people voluntarily vote for him. There is a girl feel excited when she shakes hands with Booker. She said she smells the future.
The two mayor candidates showed different personality traits that brings different results from their leadership and power. Their traits also influence this city and their vote amount. Once people figured out how to use the power to attract or influence their followers and utilize appropriate leadership to maintain their followers. It will bring the success to the person in this campaign.
In this campaign process, Sharp James showed more about his time-building personality, which he only care whether he can still win this turn. Cory Booker on the other hand showed more about his clock-builder style. He is committed to make the community healthier and the more open as well as honest government. No matter what a skillful person is, the thing about a political story is the good guy finally wins.