What is the Working Families Party?
Chad Marlow on DMI throws a brick at the Working Families Party, which is helping Democrats, particularly upstate, in their effort to take over congress.
It's a sign of the long-standing tension that exists on both sides between the pragmatists and the ideologues, not unlike the occasional strategic differences between New York's Conservatives and Republicans this year.
Marlow writes, "So now that [WFP Executive Director Dan] Cantor has inadvertently admitted in a widely broadcast email that even the WFP sees itself as Democrats with a substitute label, maybe the WFP's membership will look in the mirror and ask themselves if that is what they really want to be. Perhaps one day a real third party will stand a chance of taking control of Congress. Now that would be an event worth raising money around."
-- Azi Paybarah
WFP is sleazy mix of political union lefties coupled with a non profit making lots of money, ACORN that sells itself to the highest bidder.
The electoral fusion system to which we continue to cling in New York is a needless, costly, cynical anachronism.
If the WFP or IP or CP want to endorse a candidate, they should run a candidate. It's as simple as that.
Now, they amount to little more than patronage mills.
Seems that 11:15 has been reading too much of the Post. Get this through your skull ... WFP is not "left." They are sleazy, but not leftist. We don't want them.
WFP is a joke, always has been a joke, and will always be a joke.
They run around acting like a bunch of progressives, but the truth is they'll support whoever gives them the most $$$$.
Some of their past endorsements are enough to make you cringe. But hey, the candidate contributed to them, so what the hell.They are as easily bought as a quart of milk or a hooker in Nevada.
Like another poster said, patronage mill, pure and simple.
WFP are about as effective as progressives get in the US today. All this gripe, especially from DMI, which is a freaking glorified blog for God's sake, not a "think tank", and has as much pratical campaign experience among its members as any other drum circle, is why the left will always play the role of powerless critic. Politics is about strategic compromise, not blogging.
It's too bad that the W and F in WFP seems to stand more for Whores and Frauds than actual Working Families. A true and viable third party is so desperately needed. A party like the American Labor Party in the early 20th Century. With all the hacks and greasy lobbyists involved in the WFP how can they truly stand for any kind of reform in electoral politics?
See thats just it, you're blinded by historical sentimentality. Vito Marcantonio, the only real elected member of the American Labor Party, was a great Rep, but he also played politics and got his hand dirty. He was actually responsible for getting Impellitteri to become City Council President at the urging of some not so progressive individuals.
The WFP is a good organization that has been effective at pushing progressive issues and legislation. Other progressives should follow their example and keep the vitriol for the real opposition. But again, infighting, another hallmark of ineffective lefties.
I yield to know one in my awe for Vito Marcantonio, one of our greatest urban leaders (50 Marcantonio fans can't be wrong). I do not see why his good name should be sullied by association with the WFP. After all, he initially ran for office as a Republican and came from a proud, and morbid, Labor Republican base.
Please don't call WFP progressive. They are just trying to latch on to the current popularity of the Dems.
The WFP has been good at pushing nothing. As a third party, they are a feeble joke.
As for being progressive, I seem to remember them whoring out to Ron Tocci a few years ago. He was quite the progressive, wasn't he?
I'm sure if you went in and dug out the records, you'd see that Tocci gave them money and WFP promptly gave them their line.
WFP are a bunch of political whores. Give em some money and they'll give you an endorsement. It really doesn't matter who you are.
What frustrates me about this discussion is that I have to believe that not one anti-WFP statement is being made by a single individual that is active in electoral politics. You say the Dems are sell-outs, the WFP are sell-outs, whose left? Oh, thats right, the left is whats left.
Worse than the distasteful decisions that the WFP has had to make now and then to be effective is the complete irrelivency of the Green Party, or any other left of center party for that matter. Another lefty foible, making the perfect the enenmy of the good.
WFP's so-called effectiveness is an illusion. They are only effective in the sense that they employ a bunch political hacks who run around and claim importance while sucking in cash from suckers who play along with their ruse.
But I guess that's what goes down as effective these days.
If they changed NY's vote tally roles, WFP would be gone in a NY minute. And everyone knows it.
But since they have not, I hereby announce the formation of the NY Suckers Party. If you're a sucker with cash to burn, sign up for our line. We won't actually do anythimg drastically different, but we'll give our friends jobs and you another line to run on!
Suck It Up -- Vote Suckers!
The day the minimum wage was increased in New York State, it gauranteed a raise for 700,000 people.
SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND.
That happened for one reason and one reason only: the machinations of the WFP.
You want to be an idealogue? Go ahead...doesn't do a damn thing for anyone.
Pragmatic progressivism: it HELPS people.
Hey 04:35 PM-
Glad to see that you're frustrated. Because I, for one, am quite involved in electoral politics... and housing activism and community building too.
Me too, isn't that funny. Do you work with the Greens or some other useless third party? Must be fun to run twenty five years old dungeon masters for State Senate.
But aside from that, how can you be so down on the WFP, when they were so instrumental in getting the minimum wage increased, and keeping the Dems honest about alot of issues that affect poor and working class issues. And what about DA Soares in Albany?
What I also find funny is that the article on the DMI blog was written by someone that had worked for Ted Kennedy. Hmm, glass houses?
Progressives are not a majority in New York State, so therefore coalition building, sometimes with fingers firmly tight on noses, is a necessary part of doing anything. If progressives were in the majority they could make demands and do what they want, but they aren't.
Also, if they don't work like a traditional third party, that is a credit to New York State's laws that allow fusion parties to endorse major political parties. Many progressives all over this country would love to have that option, but they don't, and it has stifled progressive political organizing for years.
Thanks to the WFP we had Nick Spano (by 18 votes) in the state senate for the last two years and now have to put $$ into defeating him instead of going after other seats. Left? My labor record was left of the CP USA for years before Dan Cantor was out of the limos that delivered him to the country club swimming pool.
The only difference between the WFP and the whorish Liberal Part was that Ray Harding always kept his word.
Thanks to the WFP we had Nick Spano (by 18 votes) in the state senate for the last two years and now have to put $$ into defeating him instead of going after other seats. Left? My labor record was left of the CP USA for years before Dan Cantor was out of the limos that delivered him to the country club swimming pool.
The only difference between the WFP and the whorish Liberal Part was that Ray Harding always kept his word.
Thanks to the WFP we had Nick Spano (by 18 votes) in the state senate for the last two years and now have to put $$ into defeating him instead of going after other seats. Left? My labor record was left of the CP USA for years before Dan Cantor was out of the limos that delivered him to the country club swimming pool.
The only difference between the WFP and the whorish Liberal Part was that Ray Harding always kept his word.
The idea that the WFP produces votes for Democrats is silly. They simply take votes that would have been for the Democrat on the Democratic line and shift it to the WPF line, but there is no net-gain for the candidate.
And I have about 20 years of electoral politicals experience, so I know what I am takling about.