What Alex Law has been doing since being clobbered in his run for Congress
On June 7, in a funky upstairs office at the SoHa Arts Building in Haddon Township, Alex Law choked back tears - not entirely successfully - as he thanked a room full of volunteers for their efforts on his congressional campaign, an effort that he had just learned failed by 40 points.
On June 7, in a funky upstairs office at the SoHa Arts Building in Haddon Township, Alex Law choked back tears - not entirely successfully - as he thanked a room full of volunteers for their efforts on his congressional campaign, an effort that he had just learned failed by 40 points.
In the eight weeks since he lost a hard-fought primary to incumbent Rep. Donald Norcross, Law, 25, has moved into a new apartment in Collingswood, free-lanced as a consultant for small businesses in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, and made public appearances with likely 2017 gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop.
"Oh, and I forgot, too, I started a software company," Law said in a recent interview, spread out on a brown leather sofa in the sunny second-floor flat he shares with his girlfriend.
Before the move last weekend, he had been sleeping on various couches - his father's, his friends', the one at the office - in an effort to cut costs so he could afford to campaign full time. It's nice, he said, to be settled back into a permanent spot, his hundreds of books spilling out of their shelves instead of sitting in storage.
Law, who grew up in Voorhees and graduated from Eastern Regional High School, has a family history in the business of politics. His great-grandfather, he said, founded the Democratic party in Collingswood; his grandfather, Bud Law, was mayor of the borough before Jim Maley assumed the post in 1997.
He can't keep his hands out of politics, big and small. His Facebook post calling on supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders - whom most of Law's own supporters favored - to vote for Hillary Clinton in November reached more than 100,000 people.
On the local level, Law attended a Collingswood forum last week where parents held officials accountable for a controversial policy of overreporting student incidents to police. With no kids, in the district or otherwise, Law had no personal tie to the event - but "when you have hundreds of citizens showing up to a meeting," he likes to be there, as well.
And, of course, there's Fulop, who is mayor of Jersey City.
They both come from Jewish New Jersey families. They both lost their first races - which were both hard-fought Democratic congressional primaries against established incumbents - by staggering percentages. They've both sparred this year with members of the Norcross family, including George E. Norcross III, a pillar of Democratic politics in New Jersey.
And, Law remarks, they may be "the only politicians in America" who went to New York University's Stern School of Business.
Law says he's appeared with Fulop because they have "very similar backgrounds" and because the mayor would be an excellent governor of the state should he decide to run.
That would again pit Law against the Norcrosses, who are allied with Stephen Sweeney, the state Senate president from South Jersey, who also is seen as a likely candidate.
Fulop, 39, says he sees himself in Law, and is committed to supporting bright young political minds.
Law, and the small group of dedicated campaign staffers who will follow him, would offer powerful South Jersey ties to a Fulop campaign more familiar with the state's northern quarters, Law campaign director Max Young said.
Those networking efforts seem to have begun three weeks ago, when Fulop spent a "really, really good day" in South Jersey, meeting with Law supporters at the Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill and with allies in Camden.
Fulop also invited Law to the New Jersey delegation breakfast he sponsored last week at the Democratic National Convention. Both said they hope to make more appearances together.
"I would expect over the next six months and next year to really strengthen and build more and more relationships in South Jersey," Fulop said. "I think [Law] is an important person to have a relationship with."
In the meantime, Law's new start-up, a program called "Partic" that he and former high school classmate Sean Adler hope to launch in the next few weeks, will also reflect his politics, at least to some extent.
The program - born out of a prototype Adler built for Law's campaign - streamlines phone-banking and data collection for campaign volunteers.
Adler, who knows Law from as far back as an elementary school courtroom role play (who could forget "Judge Law"?), said they will have to walk a fine line between marketing their product and backing their political views. Law said he would reserve "some amount of oversight" over which campaigns will be eligible to purchase the program.
"I don't think we'll be working with the Norcross group in that way," Law said.
In the future, he could be strategically deploying the new technology, offering political commentary, or running for another office - Law is keeping an eye on Collingswood's next commissioners race, in May 2017. It could be all three of those things.
"Do I see myself running for something again in the future? Of course," Law said. "I never felt like I was doing something that felt more natural to me, or that I was better at, than the campaign. It felt like that was what I was born to do."
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