Wildes campaign a well-oiled machine

Don’t call it a comeback.

Former Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes is back on the campaign trail to win back the post he gave up 2010 to spend more time with his family. But, the years Wildes, a high-profile immigration attorney who has represented, among others, First Lady Melania Trump, spent away from politics have done little to blunt his prowess in the field.

Wildes was something of a whirlwind Wednesday afternoon, first flagging down Englewood voters outside of the city’s Shop-Rite, then knocking on resident’s doors to secure their vote and gain permission to post campaign signs, at times even recruiting campaign volunteers.

“It’s not my comeback. It’s the City of Englewood’s comeback,” Wildes told one resident he, his wife Amy Wildes, and a pair of campaign staffers visited at home.

The day’s efforts, though they were cut short by the evening’s 7 p.m. debate, were still methodical enough to be effective.

The campaign said that through a proprietary process, they could reach 100 Englewood primary voters each hour, and Wednesday’s efforts did not seem to be too far off of that mark.

The efforts have paid off from a visibility standpoint. Wildes signs were almost ubiquitously visible in the city of roughly 29,000.

Most of the businesses on Palisade Avenue, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, had some kind of Wildes sign in their windows, while the signs of opposing mayoral candidate Philip Meisner were only seen in the storefront of his own campaign headquarters, though Meisner’s campaign had stapled some signs to the avenue’s trees.

A similar trend emerged with signs in front of the city’s homes. Most of the signs again belonged to Wildes, and his campaign will use those signs to target voters for its election day get out the vote operation.

Wildes’ return to politics, timed to combat what the candidate sees as a decline in the city, could herald a future run at higher office.

The attorney has more than $770,000 sitting in a federal campaign account that he could use in a future election. He’s been gathering that money since 2003, with the bulk coming between then and the end of 2008.

While Wildes said that he had called Rep. Bill Pascrell to assure him that his return to politics was not to be taken as a threat to the congressman’s seat, for which he briefly ran in 2012.

But Pascrell, who has served in the House since 1997, is no spring chicken at 81, and it’s conceivable that he might bring an end to his political career come Englewood’s next mayoral cycle.

It’s also quite feasible that Wildes would throw his hat in the ring for that seat should it become vacant.

“If my kids allow me to buy a few more pairs of shoes and my firm is in good hands and I’ve earned the trust of a greater community, I would always contemplate it,” Wildes said of a run for higher office, joking about the wear canvassing has on one’s feet. “Right now, I want to dig down into Englewood.”