Local writer pens book on Mamdani campaign, “Run Zohran Run!,” from Sunset Park POV

Sunset Park resident Theodore Hamm has been writing about politics and culture for decades, but much of the action in his latest book, “Run Zohran Run!” — published by OR Books and set for release Oct. 14 — hits close to home.

Hamm sat down for an interview with The Sunset Post at Judy’s, near the neighborhood’s eponymous park, where mayoral front-runner Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani has held two rallies.

The book tells the story of the democratic socialist’s insurgent campaign against Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primaries, where Mamdani went on to win by 12 points after ranked-choice votes were tallied. From anti-Mamdani aerial banners flying overhead to publisher meetings interrupted by Mamdani canvassers, Hamm experienced the campaign right outside his front door.

“My perspective is the view from Sunset Park,” he said. “I got to see the theater of real conflict playing out in front of me.”

At one weekend rally, he watched a heckler scream at Mamdani, the same man who days later bit one of the candidate’s volunteers in Manhattan.

Local political figures also feature prominently, including Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, as well as Sunset Park’s councilmember and assemblymember. “There’s a lot of Sunset Park mentions in the book,” Hamm explained. “It’s a DSA neighborhood — Alexa Avilés, Marcela Mitaynes — they’re close allies (of Mamdani), and they show up frequently.”

Hamm’s credentials include founding “The Brooklyn Rail,” which he started with friends as a DIY newsletter. He and his wife would photocopy issues and hand them out in cafés. The newsletter eventually converted to a nonprofit, and he left the publication due to differences with the board.

His previous works also heavily feature our borough, including “Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn” and “Bernie’s Brooklyn: How the New Deal City Shaped Bernie Sanders’ Politics.” The 2020 release on Sanders, tracing the senator’s New Deal roots, landed with bad timing.

“It came out after he dropped out (of the presidential race),” Hamm admitted. “It just kind of died on the vine.”

By contrast, the new book is arriving with Mamdani leading in the polls, just weeks before early voting begins Oct. 25.

After canvassing for Sanders in 2016, Mamdani decided to run for assembly following a 2019 Sanders rally in Long Island City. Hamm sees continuity.

“Bernie always said his ideas weren’t radical, rent stabilization, free tuition, affordable healthcare. That was his generation’s reality in New York. Mamdani picked up that thread,” he said.

For Hamm, democratic socialism is less about ideology than about lowering costs. “They’re not nationalizing industries,” Hamm said. “They’re redistributing wealth through popular pressure, taking what normally costs money and making it free, or lowering the cost in whatever way they can.”

That includes Mamdani’s proposal for city-run grocery stores, which Hamm says Cuomo distorted into an attack about “free groceries.”

“He’s saying that if you go to low-income neighborhoods, like around the NYCHA houses in Red Hook, it’s a food desert,” Hamm explained. “There’s a void that the city can help fill.”

The book came together quickly. Hamm began writing in March 2024, and after Mamdani declared victory on June 24, his publisher pushed the deadline up by two weeks to the end of July. Hamm went on a sprint to finish, while keeping to his usual schedule, awake at 3 a.m., asleep by 9 p.m.

“I spent most of July at my desk,” he said. “The only breaks I took were to go to the swimming pool and try to get some exercise.”

Hamm’s politics align with Mamdani’s for the most part, though he does have one Sunset Park fix not on the candidate’s platform, an idea that would help him stay active as he drafts his follow-up book chronicling Mamdani’s general election campaign.

“Why not put solar panels over the swimming pool so people can swim for more than just two months a year?” Hamm asked, admitting he was hazy on the details. “I’m not a specialist in that stuff, I just want to be able to swim more.”

It might sound far-fetched, but as Mamdani reminded supporters in his primary victory speech, quoting Nelson Mandela: “It always seems impossible until it is done.”