MAJ'S NO-FRILLS CAMPAIGN FUELED BY IDEAS

The weather has turned from the warm days of the primaries, and Chris
Maj is wearing a tweed sport coat and a tweed hat. It's a fall look
that replaces his Maj for Mayor T-shirt.

There's a story behind the hat, he explains.

He got it in Springville, Erie County, when he was in high school. It
was in a bag of used clothing that cost $5.

"Five dollars," Maj says. "The whole bag." Then pointing to the hat,
he says with pride: "L.L. Bean. Lifetime warranty."

The money, or the lack thereof, gives the measure of the man and
tells the story of Maj's no-frills, dirt-cheap, ideas-driven run for mayor.

"I've been turning away money," Maj says, as he sips his coffee in
Java's on Gibbs Street in the city. "I got a huge check from
somebody. I sent it back."

Take the money and you're bought, Maj says. You might win, but you
spend your days doling out jobs to supporters.

And your ideas, the ideas you believed in, such as decriminalizing
drugs, get watered down.

Of course, the money to buy some television spots and some print ads
might have turned into votes in September's Democratic primary.

It might have gotten everyone to correctly pronounce Maj's name.
(It's "May," as in the month.)

Twenty-six years old and a relative unknown, Maj finished a distant
last in the primary. Former Police Chief Robert Duffy won with 10,427
votes. Maj got 209 votes.

Maj sees it as a victory of sorts. "I spent $4 per vote," he says.
"Duffy spent $51 a vote. "I got more bang for my buck. I'm more efficient."

Knowing he wouldn't get the Democratic nod, Maj and others came up
with the Red White and Blue ballot line for the November election.
He's more comfortable on that line anyway.

Better to be a third-or fourth-or even a fifth-party candidate than
part of the establishment.

Maj says he enrolled in the Democratic Party only so he could be in
the high-attention primary. He filed to change his party enrollment
after he lost.

Maj got his political start in a third-party-line effort in 1998,
when he was 19 years old. He volunteered to collect signatures to get
Thomas Leighton, the Marijuana Reform Party candidate for governor,
on the ballot.

"He was our youngest serious worker," says Leighton, who lives in New
York City. "He was great."

In 1998, Maj knocked on doors in Buffalo to get those signatures. In
2002, he did the same in Rochester for the Marijuana Reform Party.

Both times, his candidate lost, as expected, but winning or losing
isn't the point, Leighton says: "The point of third parties is to
raise issues other parties won't address."

Throughout the primary and during the general election, Maj has stuck
to his issues.

He's called for the legalization of marijuana and other drugs,
arguing that crime and violence in the city, including the recent
series of murders of young people, can be traced to the uncontrolled
sale of drugs.

"As long as we are going to continue to allow drugs to be sold by
criminals and let them carry guns, this is the kind of violence we
are going to reap from that failed policy," he said earlier this month.

Maj also opposes a juvenile curfew in the city. He favors a
student-run school board. He'd annex suburbs near to the city.

Last Run?

Maj's ideas led to some problems when he was at Rochester Institute
of Technology.

An Eagle Scout, he had graduated from high school in Springville in 1997.

His father is a union electrician in Buffalo. His mother sells books
and cheese at farmer's markets, including the Rochester Public Market.

In 2001, his senior year at RIT, Maj demonstrated against the
school's connections with the Defense Department. Maj was loud, he
says, and he used an obscenity. He was thrown out of school, though a
year later his punishment was overturned.

He was readmitted but didn't return, as his software business was up
and running.

The business is still doing well, says Maj, who works on contract for
companies. He also spends time designing software that he gives away.

Michelle Cassevoy, 45, of Rochester met Maj seven or eight years ago
when he was doing programming where she worked.

Since then, she has been at another company he programmed for. He has
also come to her home from time to time to help her family with
computer problems, accepting, at most, a free meal for his work.

"This guy is really something when it comes to computers," Cassevoy
says. "I've never seen anyone like him."

Maj lives in Corn Hill. He has a pickup truck, which helps him when
he goes deer hunting. But he gets around the city a lot on his bicycle.

He doesn't think he'll run for office again. "I'll help other people
run," he says. "I'll keep active."

Leighton, of the Marijuana Reform Party, says that Maj deserves
credit for running this time.

"There's only a handful of people who do what Chris does; they're
very special," Leighton says. "It takes courage, the courage of your
convictions."

What If He Won?

Third-party candidates don't win very often. But what if Maj became
mayor? What would he do on his first day in office? "I'd talk with
union people," he says. "I'd go to the workers and ask them what
needs to be addressed. They make up the majority of the people."

As someone who is self-employed, Maj manages himself. But could he
manage a city government? Maj says he would come to the job fresh; he
would not be encumbered by the old ways of doing things.

"A lot of what a mayor does is a waste of time," Maj says. "Cutting ribbons."

Tony Morelle, 25, of Rochester met Maj a few years ago when Maj was at RIT.

"Could he be mayor?" Morelle says. " I think he could do it. ... I
think what this city, state and nation needs is someone who doesn't
have a career in politics."