The title of this piece is actually stolen from a well-known political consultant/lobbyist, but I’ve utter confidence he’d not want his authorship of this bon mot to be widely disseminated, so I’m jumping his claim and taking it for my own. He was speaking of the Working Families Party (WFP), and so am I.
I have nothing against adding more parties to the ballot; let a thousand flowers bloom in our glorious democracy! Let’s lower the scandalously high signature threshold for independent candidates, but eliminate cross-endorsements (except in the case of qualified incumbent judges, who should, ideally, be exempted from facing partisan campaigns for re-election; although retention elections would be an even better idea). Parties should run their own candidates instead of operating glorifed extortion rackets preying upon others.
In practice, I don’t so much mind the Conservative Party, which sometimes gets up from gorging at the Republican trough for a minute or two in an effort to use its evil powers to ensure that the Republicans run candidates so right wing they cannot win election (still, John Spencer is overkill; KT McFarland is quite sufficiently unelectable). Even more delightful is when one of the lunatics they’ve backed loses a Republican Primary and still insists upon running in the general in order to drain the victor’s votes and help elect a Democrat. In 2004, that gambit was responsible for more victories by the State Senate Democrats than all of David Paterson’s efforts combined.
But while the Conservative Party perseverance yielded the Senate Dems one 2004 victory (Valesky), and put the icing on the cake in another (Klein), even Paterson’s lame efforts shine when measured against those of the WFP, whose total yield of Senate seats to the forces of progress was exactly minus one. By endorsing Westchester Republican boss Nick Spano, the WFP actually cost the Democrats a victory they’d have otherwise achieved (the margin was 18 votes). But this year, having been burned one time too often by the Senate Republicans, WFP has brought the full force of their convictions down upon the head of Nick Spano; they’ve endorsed no one at all. Maybe next time they will go even further, by doin’ the “WFP Ferrer Bop”, in which WFP endorses the Democratic candidate, but doesn’t actually give them their line. This is what is known as slow and steady progress.
The whole concept of WFP is a joke. The idea is:
1) To encourage the Democrats to be more liberal by forming another party; thus drawing liberals away from enrolling as Democrats, and depleting their numbers in party ranks.
Even WPF eventually figured out that this was just stupid, so they encourage "members" to stay enrolled as Democrats.
2) That somehow the cause of liberalism will be advanced by forcing the Democratic party to the far left and making it less electable.
The idea that each major party needs to be kept towing the line by having a purer ideological younger sibling may sound nice in theory. In practice, it has offered sleazebag hustlers like Ray Harding of the old “Liberal Party” the opportunity to hold a gun to the head of the Democrats and make potential victory a hostage to their demands, which rarely concerned issues (as opposed to their “issue”, like the two sons Harding insisted Giuliani hire). Since almost every WPF vote would go to the Democrats if the party didn’t exist, in practice WFP’s existence gives the Democrats nothing but extra mouths to feed, and sometimes, as in the Spano seat, costs them crucial victories.
For some reason, this divide and be conquered strategy is all the rage among informed left opinion, with WFP enjoying favorable publicity around the country, coupled with calls for expansion of state laws facilitating fusion and cross endorsement, which have attracted as much attention as far better left ideas such as “instant run-off voting”. I’m in agreement that New York’s unique political system should serve as an example to others; but, we're supposed to be a negative example! New York's one-of-a-kind culture of political paralysis, of which cross-endorsement is only one of many symptoms, has resulted in the most dysfunctional body politic in the country. Yes, I know fusion brought us La Guardia; if someone can bring LaGuardia back to life, I'll support fusion voting. And while they’re at it, please resurrect the Marx Brothers!
And not only is the WFP the rage around the country, but among many New York Democratic pols. Every Gubernatotrial election requires the minor parties to obtain 50,000 votes or lose their ballot status. You would think Democrats would see this as an oppotunity to kick their lazy, leaching brother-in-law out of the house. Instead, like clockwork, "progressive" Democratic pols urge their constituents to vote for Governor on the WFP line. It's like Patti Hearst buying bullets for the Symbionese Liberation Army. Most pathetic are the members of the Democratic State Committee who do so. Since a State Committee Member's weighted vote in designating Party nominees is based entirely on the number of votes cast in their constituency for Governor on the Democratic Line, the logical conclusion of what they advocate is to to render them without a single vote, which actually seems like the appropriate punishment. As such, my personal position is that no one should cast a vote for Governor on the WFP line, except residents of those Assembly Districts where the Democratic State Committee Member has urged a vote for the WFP; in those districts, I advocate that everyone, without exception, cast a vote for Governor on the WFP line!
I will concede the WPF its victories. Joe Bruno does sometimes respond to blackmail and bribes, and WFP has shown some skill in deploying both; but, even when successful, such a strategy is pennywise and pound foolish, as helping to enable Bruno’s majority ensures that, in the long run, “actual working families” (as opposed to “the Working Families Party”) get screwed. I suppose the WFP also deserves the lion’s share of credit for wiping out the "Liberal Party", but this was done solely to ensure the interests of their own protection racket. We don't call the Genovese Crime Family crusaders for law and order because they had the trigger pulled on Crazy Joe Gallo. They can also claim some credit for Tish James’ election to the city Council on their line, which proves that WFP can beat a Democratic candidate provided that the Democrat was imposed without a primary and is a schizophrenic child support deadbeat with a criminal record and the entire Democratic Party establishment lined up against him.
However, as a field operation, WFP deserves some respect, although the same unions and allied groups were capable of doing the same stuff without a line on the ballot (a commodity of such dubious value that, as I’ve noted, they couldn't muster the guts to actually use it in the last mayoral race).
Nonetheless, even their efforts in the field sometime function more as a self-serving publicity scheme than as a useful operation for the candidates themselves. It is rumored that in one special election (an event where everyone coming to the polls knows who they are voting for, or they wouldn't bother coming) the WFP operation consisted of palm carders at every black majority polling place, whose sole function was to persuade voters to vote for the Democratic candidate on the WFP line, rather than the Democratic line, thus bolstering the WFP numbers and allowing them to claim credit in the event of victory. If this effort had instead been expended on a pulling operation, their candidate might have actually won, but bolstering their numbers was more important to them than actual victory.
And, while their efforts to influence Democratic primaries have sometimes been laudable (e.g., the Albany DA race), they often skim the razor’s edge of what is legally permitted, making a farce of such progressive ideas as campaign finance law. WFP’s efforts in primaries have also resulted in tremendous blunders; their hands were all over Mark Green’s “Sharpton-Ferrer cartoon” imbroglio, which was nearly as important to Bloomberg as his cash in ensuring his election as Mayor.
It should be no surprise the WFP leadership backs Hillary against Tasini (whose campaign is another stupid idea implemented by meatheads, and thus worthy of WFP support); pragmatically, nothing else would make any sense. Yet, one feels sympathy for those idealists who actually joined the party because they believed the rhetoric; they were just the useful idiots in some powerbroker's efforts to make themselves seem important. It's poetic justice that the idealists have stopped being useful to the power brokers and have become more of a nuisance; maybe next time they won't believe the hype!
But, I guess I should lay off the WFP; after all, what other party can brag that it has its own professional basketball team? These days the definition of a WFP primary is a conversation between Bertha Lewis and Bruce Ratner. Bertha Lewis has been Forest City-Ratner’s pitbull on Atlantic Yards, race-baiting anyone who dares to raise a question about any of the project’s aspects. To be fair, careless and not so careless inflamatory language, race baiting, character assassination and lies, damned lies, and statistics have been the common currency on both sides of this debate. Admittedly Ratner has engaged in both bribery and blackmail, while the opponents have availed themselves only of the latter, but otherwise, if good behavior can be said to determine the moral high ground, then no one in this controversy has risen above the level of the subway. And it’s clear that Bertha’s gotten results; whatever one thinks about the adequacy of the percentage of “affordable” housing in the project, I defy anyone to find any developer who’s ever done any better. I’ve never objected to activists trying to turn real estate development projects into opportunities to collect baksheesh. Why should Fishbein Badillo, Bolton-St. John or The Parkside Group have all the fun? Perhaps I’d be a little more objective if Atlantic Yards weren’t so damned big and so insentive to quality of life issues in my area. Still I’d be more convinced of the worthiness of the “Community Benefits Agreement” negotiated by the “Community” as defined by Bertha, if so many of the benefits didn’t flow through or to the interlocking WFP directorate of organizations working out of the WFP’s home on Brooklyn’s Third Avenue.
The WFP: half a satchel of unmarked small bills is better than none!