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of doing what many politicians would do and say, ‘Oh, I don't believe in these polls -- that's a crock of shit -- I'm going to win,’ said, ‘Okay, so how do we turn the poll around?’” And we sat down and figured out how to do that. That was his story. He really didn't have much to do with changing what we were doing other than pointing out that we should change in terms of strategy and plotting and so forth. That was done at the VID. When we won, as we ultimately did by 41 votes, it was because of the hard work of the club, the hard work of myself. I remember going down to the South Village and getting eggs thrown at me. I'm glad it was only eggs. I worked very hard.

The night of the election at the VID -- it was probably the most exciting political night for me -- we thought that I had lost, because all of the E.D.'s had reported with the exception of Stewart House, which was the last E.D. and it was so big that it was an election district all by itself. It had not yet come in, but it was certain to go to Carmine because Diane Halley lived in that building and normally you expect that a building will support the candidate if that candidate lives in the building. It's one of those things, sort of pride that “local boy makes good” syndrome.

So I was sure it was over; everybody was downcast. There was a telephone call from Costikyan and he says to me, “Don't concede. You've won.” And I said, “Eddie, please don't tell me I've won. I'm looking at the board here and we have the results.