Richard Campagna '72 has been an overachiever all his life. After graduating from Brown with a degree in political science at the age of 20, Campagna has succeeded in a plethora of professions, including law, business and education. He has returned to school several times and holds five college degrees, including a J.D. and Ph.D. The 52-year-old is fluent in six languages and has worked as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department. However, despite his many accomplishments, the Brooklyn, N.Y. native said that he is now facing his biggest challenge yet: He is trying to become the next vice president of the United States, running on the Libertarian ticket.
"Even though I had a clear idea as to what I was getting into and what I wanted to accomplish, it turned out to be a slightly bigger challenge than I thought it would be," Campagna said.
"Slightly" might be an understatement. Campagna and his running mate, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik, are running so far behind in national polls that they are not usually mentioned in media coverage. However, although he is optimistic about his campaign, Campagna is realistic about his chances of winning the election and attributes his party's low profile to biased media coverage.
"I don't think my chances are that high, to be honest," he said. "However, what I would say is that if we had a more level playing field and I thought the system was run more fairly in terms of the elite media, I think my chances would be a lot better."
While winning the election is still his main objective, Campagna said his goal for this election was for the Libertarian Party to garner between 1 and 3 million votes, which would be the most votes the party would have ever received in an election cycle. Another goal is to be a factor in battleground states.
"I want to have an impact in swing states," he said. "Our vote totals should be greater than the margin of victory in those swing states, if we don't win them." He added that his goal wasn't to "spoil" the presidential race in those states, but to gain attention for the party.
Campagna said he has been a Libertarian for about five years. He became interested in the party when a Libertarian gubernatorial candidate was making a campaign swing through Iowa City, Iowa, where Campagna currently lives with his wife and son.
"An individual by the name of Clyde Cleveland came through town and declared that he was running for governor," Campagna said. "I attended a couple of his events here in Iowa City and got to speaking with him after events and became friendly with him. Not long after, I joined the Libertarian Party and soon after, he asked me to become his running mate."
Campagna's 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor has been his only experience in running for political office thus far.
Campagna is similar to other third-party presidential ticket candidates in that he is very critical of the Democrats and Republicans. Calling the two parties "the two heads of the monster government that the Libertarians like to call the Republicrats," Campagna blasted the major parties and said their views sharply contrasted with those of the Libertarians.
"We are for the bottom-up government as opposed to the command-and-control top-down government as the Democrats and Republicans seem to espouse and govern," he said. "The best government is the one that governs least, and when the government needs to govern, we believe that it is best done at the lowest level, starting with the individual."
Campagna also dismissed the notion of the Libertarians as a "fringe party."
While at Brown, "I remember reading Libertarian literature basically saying this Libertarian Party is really what the founding fathers were all about," he said. "They were trying to make the point that there is nothing fringe-like about Libertarians. It's probably closer to the mainstream than other political parties."
For example, Campagna said Libertarian ideals reflect those of liberal Republicans, comparing the Libertarian style of governing to that of President Ronald Reagan. But he added that the Bush administration had strayed so far from liberal Republican ideals that it looked nothing like Reagan's party.
When asked whether he would prefer Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry or President George W. Bush in the White House, Campagna implied he was leaning towards Bush.
"If the Democrats win, we are going further and further toward the nanny state and the big government command-and-control approach in foreign and domestic policy," he said. "I almost deep in my heart prefer an outcome closer to our philosophy that an administration, namely the Republicans, would come closer to governing to our platform. Somehow, I personally prefer an administration that is more hypocritical but that would possibly do the right."
But he added that his "gut feeling" was that many Libertarians would want the Democrats to prevail because of the many social rights that the Republicans have infringed upon with the Patriot Act.
Although Campagna was eager to talk about the views of the Libertarian Party, he was just as eager to talk about his personal life. In addition to being a politician, Campagna is a lawyer, businessman, psychological counselor and college professor. He is a family man, living in Iowa City with his wife and 22-year-old son. He is a recreational swimmer and basketball player. He is an avid traveler - he said he has visited over 200 countries in his lifetime. And, according to one of his best friends from college, he is also a very good friend.
"The first thing I think of is that he's a good person," said Josef Mittlemann '72, adjunct lecturer in engineering, who has known Campagna since their first year at Brown. "I think that his motives are to better the people around him."
Mittlemann also said he thinks Campagna would make a good vice president.
"I think he does a good job of everything he undertakes, and I don't think this would be any different - that's who he is as a person."
Campagna was raised in a Brooklyn neighborhood that he called a "cultural, athletic, movie star melting pot" because stars such as Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen grew up there. He demonstrated his academic prowess in elementary school and middle school, skipping two grades. He graduated from high school before most of his peers, at the age of 16, and decided to enroll at Brown. He said he was determined to go to an Ivy League school ever since he was a young boy.
"Brooklynites said that you got to go to an Ivy League school to get ahead and have a great life - that's where the future leaders of America will come from," he said. "So ever since I was young, I said to myself, 'You have to go to an Ivy League school.'"
Campagna said he had several possible destinations for college, but he was sure that Brown was the right choice because it was a little more "quirky" and "freeing" than other Ivy League schools.
"It was pretty clear within me that Brown is really unique," he said. "It's just not as uptight and existentially free-wheeling, allowing people to succeed in a traditional sense and be more of who they are as an individual and really allowing people to create their own lives and exist in existential ways."
Like many Brown students, Campagna dabbled in a variety of activities at college. He concentrated in political science, although he took several classes in Spanish, French and Portuguese. He was the social chair of the fraternity Phi Delta Beta and even wrote and published a book as a student. Mittlemann said that even as a student, Campagna was always into philosophy.
"He was always this existential-type, philosophical person," Mittlemann said. "I don't think he's much different today."
Despite graduating from Brown more than 30 years ago, Campagna remains involved in the Brown community. He is the worldwide chair of the Brown Alumni School Committees, organizing Brown alums to interview and recruit prospective Brown students, and visits Brown occasionally as a result. When he does visit, he stays at Mittlemann's house, where the two continue with their conversations that they started when they were students at Brown or on vacation together in Puerto Rico.
Mittlemann said he never thought of his friend as a politician, but Campagna's candidacy did not surprise him.
"Now that he's vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, I would say that fits him to the T," he said. "I would say he's not a big-government person. He's one who thinks deeply about things and is concerned for people and tries to keep his North Star, his general idea of what's right and what's good and what's best for the people."
Mittlemann also said that although he does not take political positions, he wishes the best for his friend.
"I just wish he were running with a more powerful party," Mittlemann said. "But who knows - maybe in the future, with his participation, it will be.
