Ok So Hilary does suck. But not running 3rd candidates is a good strategy. If they want to really use their weight they would vote to NOT endorse Democrats that are total sell-outs. When WFP endorses Spitzer it shows that Spitzer is a real progressive. When WFP endorses Hilary they are giving her legitimacy that she does not deserve. They should have endorsed Tasini. When the incumbent Dem is a Joe Lieberman style Vichy Democrat, the WFP should endorse the person running against him or her. Why do they stoop to endorsing corrupt party hacks on - the Clarence Normans of the world? That's similarly a bad choice for them.

How does it help to endorse Tasini and watch him get creamed? When Tasini pulls a Nader and gets 2% of the vote, it'll send the message that we don't matter. I'd rather win the Boehlert open seat and knock off Sweeney and maybe Kuhl or Reynolds. Hillary will get the message if candidates who want to bring the troops home safely from Iraq now win in Western New York. Even if she doesn't, Democrats running the House instead of Republicans will do more to end the war than a symbolic protest vote against Clinton.

Anyway, this post is silly. Clinton is going to win, and if the Republicans can't run a credible Senate candidate then how can a third party? And don't you know about David Soares or David Valesky? Maybe you ought to read about New York politics before writing about it.

Well, for me, the problem of Hillary Clinton is that she is a supporter of the Bush war in Iraq. That puts her out of step with the majority of voters in NY.

Unlike Joe Lieberman, for example, she has not been an active foe of civil liberties or lined up with Bush on Social Security. None the less, the war is a crucial issue. The money wasted on this immoral and wrongheaded boondoogle starves programs in the US and runs up deficits our grandchildren will be paying for.

So, although I have been helping Tasini in the primary, I am ready to vote for Senator Clinton in the General Election.

And I expect I will do so on the Working Family Party line. They're not perfect; they make deals I sometimes wish they hadn't. In exchange for getting an increase in the minimum wage, they endorsed Yonkers GOP Senator Nick Spano (who won by a wisker, due to that endoresment). I might not have made that deal because Sen. Spano has been such a disappointment on Education issues like funding the settlement of the CFE lawsuit

As I see it, however, WFP significantly improves leverage of the left in NY and the quality of political debate here. The problems cited with the WFP in this essay stem, in my view from its weaknesses and can best be addressed by making in stronger. Do we need a political party in NY which raise issues? Well, the WFP does that to a significant degree. They oppose the war (albeit quietly), they've raised the minimum wage, they've a good but not great health insurance proposal on the table. Not a ghastly record, all in all.

It's not that the Democratic Party "felt compelled to back the brother of slain City Council Member James Davis," but that it *was* compelled to place Geoffrey Davis on its ballot line, as that was the decision of James Davis's Committee on Vacancies.

So the Dems complied with the law and then *backed* Tish James.

The New York Working Families Party's leaders, including Executive Director Dan Cantor, Party Chairs Bob Master and Bertha Lewis, and Secretary Jon Kest, have spent the past few years engaged in court battles to prevent party members from forming constituted county committees. They deny registrants the opportunity to select candidates and determine the party's direction by allowing their shadow organization, the Working Families Organization (which requires paid membership but does not require membership in the Working Families Party), to screen candidates. It is the state committee of the Organization, not the Party, that determines who will appear on the ballot and makes policy decisions for the party. Individuals have no vote within the Working Families Organization, instead groups (like ACORN and 1199) are assigned a number of votes based on the number of paid memberships they purchase. The duly elected members of the state committee have been rendered powerless and irrelevant by this process.

Eight years after achieving ballot status, the New York Working Families Party has county committee members in only one county, Suffolk, and the executive committee of the party is actively attempting to quash that committee. Cantor and the WFO failed in their attempts to dismantle the Working Families Party Suffolk County Committee; although a judge ordered the 2004 county convention to be redone, the "do-over" convention held in 2005 produced exactly the same result as the 2004 convention confirming Chuck Pohanka as County Chair, Donna Lent as Secretary, and Dotty Weisgruber as Treasurer.

to view documents from that court case, go to: http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jun/51002178720041sciv.pdf http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jul/5100217872004100sciv.pdf http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jul/51002178720042sciv.pdf

In an August 2005 decision, Judge Thomas Whelan took the Executive Committee of the New York State Working Families Party to task for subverting election law through its attempts to prevent formation of county committees and deny county committee members control of nominations through Wilson-Pakula.

read that decision at: http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005aug/51001598520051sciv.pdf

Despite Whelan's decision, the New York State Working Families Party continues in its efforts to prevent formation of county committees and, specifically, to quash the Suffolk County Committee of the Working Families Party. It recently sent letters to Suffolk's elected officials telling them to contribute only to the state party.

Your disaffection with the Working Families Party is well placed. For me, the crux of your disapointment is the start of the last paragraph: "The truth is, New York City could probably benefit from a third party that gives us some real alternatives to those persons the two major parties run for office."

How true. And it exists: the Green Party.

I'll bet that you're more than comfortable with the main ideas the Greens stand for, from bringing the troops home now to universal, single-payer healthcare to genuinely reducing global warming by creating a sustainable economy based on grassroots democracy supported by elections that are not hijacked, etc etc.

It's partly our fault that we have not been more in the spotlight, but you must know how hard it is to get coverage when the corporate media are so under the thumb of the governing power structure.

A couple of weeks ago the Green Party of NYS named a five-candidate peace slate for statewide office, including Malachy McCourt for governor and Howie Hawkins for senator. Your readers can check out their sites for details on the issues.

My point: If progressives continue to vote for the Democrats who continue to disappoint them, why be surprised? Put another way, if you always vote for the lesser evil, you still end up with evil.

The only way to have a genuine alternative at the polls is to vote for the genuine alternative at the polls.

That's the only way to build a real force for positive change.

A crucial point omitted from the prior post: According to a recent Zogby International poll (May 20, 2006), 32% of New Yorkers would support an unnamed antiwar candidate over Hillary Clinton. One can only wonder how much higher that percentage might be in November. And come November, New Yorkers WILL have a choice. Progressives must spread the word!

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have posted responses to my original blog. I have found each of them to be very interesting and, in many cases, enlightening. Keep them coming!

An update to my previous post --


On June 8th, Judge Jeffrey Arlen Spinner of the NY State Supreme Court nullified amendments to the Working Families Party's rules made at a special meeting of the State Committee in February, 2006. These changes denied a constituted County Committee of the party the power to endorse candidates.


In his decision, index number 2006-02925, Spinner writes:
"... the Respondents [WFP of NY State, the Executive Committee of WFP of NY State, Bertha Lewis, Robert Master, James Duncan, and Jonathan Kest] have drafted and passed an amendment to the Rules in order to deliberately and effectively deprive the Petitioners of their statutory rights as conferred upon the County Committee by Election Law S. 6-120. By doing so they have acted in a manner that is expressly proscribed by statute."


Spinner further states:
"...it is apparent that the Respondents have promulgated the change in the rules solely to make an 'end run' around the statutory scheme, thereby emasculating the County Committee by improperly wresting the Wilson-Pakula power from them."


Perhaps the court's decision will finally permit the rank and file members of the Working Families PARTY, rather than the groups that pay to belong to the Working Families ORGANIZATION, to set the course of the party.

here is the address where you can view the full decision:
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2006/2006_51095.htm