Daniel Torres speaking at an anti-gas-drilling rally in New Paltz last June. Photo by Julia Reischel
Twenty-year-old Daniel Torres, who as a member of the New Paltz Board of Education is the youngest person ever elected in the town, has posted a fascinating account of his first 18 months in public life on his blog, The Youngest Candidate.
The post is a mini-memoir, full of anecdotes about how Torres juggled campaigning with Maurice Hinchey and Andrew Cuomo with being a freshman and sophomore at Marist College.
Here's one anecdote, about a forum at Marist that became a political sing-along:
The Secret Service cleared the room and asked everyone but the government officials to take their seats. I sat in the second row and witnessed one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It felt like a scene straight out of the hit show Glee. Secret Service members lined the front of stage and three people who looked about my age walked to the stage and started to sing. They sang This Land Is Your Land and asked the crowd to sing along. No one joined in and it was a bit awkward at first. Then I saw a flashbulb go off down at the other side of the row I was sitting in and there I saw one man singing along. It was again folk legend Pete Seeger!
He had shown up unannounced and the crowd of a few hundred started to sing along. Then in the middle of a verse the Congressman walked on stage and started to sing along. This of course included John Hall who had once been the lead singer of the group The Orleans (for those who may not know). Once that happened the whole place broke out into spontaneous song. As quickly as it started it ended. I sat in my seat and realized I just saw Obama cabinet members, a former Governor, Congressman, a rock star, Pete Seeger, and a small crowd, sing together an American folk classic. To say it was a moment that gave me goosebumps doesn’t seem to give it the full credit it deserves.
