On February 12, the Socialist Workers Party announced that its 2016 national ticket will be Alyson Kennedy for president, and Osborne Hart for vice-president. This is only the second time that the SWP has nominated a woman for President; the first time was in 1972, when Linda Jenness ran.
The Socialist Workers Party has now nominated a presidential candidate for 18 elections in a row. Besides the Democratic and Republican Parties, the only other U.S. political parties that ever did that were the Prohibition and Socialist Labor Parties.
The 2016 campaign now has four parties with “Socialist”, “Socialism”, or “Workers” in their name with presidential nominees. The others are the Socialist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Workers World Party. All of them except the Socialist Party have roots in the Trotskyist movement. Thanks to Jed Ziggler for the news.
I don’t understand why the leftest minor parties like the Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the (seemingly) thousands of socialist parties don’t combine instead of fighting for scraps. They could actually be electable if they worked together.
You mean like Kshama Sawant in Seattle?
Kshama Sawant won a non-partisan election for city council. Socialist Alternative has not been able to come close to electing anyone in a partisan election. In November 2014, Socialist Alternative legislative candidate Jessica Spear got 17.7% in her two-person race in a Seattle district. In November 2012, Kshama Sawant did better, receiving 29.4% in a two-person legislative race.
In other words, people are ready to vote for socialists, but not Socialists.
I don’t think the Greens have ever won a partisan election either. At least, not when there’s another candidate on the ballot.
The Green Party has won five partisan state legislative races: one in California in 1999, one in Maine in 2002, one in Maine in 2004, one in Arkansas in 2008, and one in Arkansas in 2012. And the Green Party has won dozens of partisan races for local office, maybe even more than 100.
The main reason why we haven’t seen all the left/socialist parties combining forces involves differences on what to do with capitalism (reform vs. replace). From what I’ve seen, the Green Party is one of the more moderate third parties on the left in that we don’t want to completely replace capitalism with socialism (most of us at least) but instead heavily reform/regulate capitalism and enhance the social safety net. It’s probably also why, as Richard Winger pointed out, we have managed to win a few partisan elections for state legislature, and quite a few for local office.
if you had a party of 100 active members, and there’s another party of a similar non-identical ideology with 100 active members… then what difference does it make to have one party of 200 members or two parties of 100 members? Not to mention people leading those parties would probably prefer leading a party instead of moving down the ladder in a larger party.
If one of those parties started winning, they’d get the attention and support easier than a bunch of parties that are basically micro-parties trying to unite.
Richard, as I understand it the two wins that you site in Arkansas happened when major party opponents were removed from the ballot, or when there was an order not to count the votes for the major party candidate. Also, some victories in local partisan races are not partisan in the common sense. They occurred in localities where there is a tradition of fielding candidates on ballot lines that exist specifically for the given election. At least I know that in New York this is often done in villages, when the independent petition method is used for all candidates.
As far as the leftist parties joining, some could theoretically, but I doubt the reasonable, progressive Greens have much at all in common with the hard line authoritarian communists that make up the SWP.
Clay, in November 2012 the Green Party won a partisan race in Colorado, for County Commissioner of San Miguel County. It also won two partisan county elections in Arkansas, Craighead County Clerk and Justice of the Peace, district 6, Mississippi County.
In November 2010 the Green Party won a partisan race for Saline County, Arkansas Tax Collector.
In November 2008 the Green Party won a partisan race for Newberg Township Clerk in Cass County, Michigan. And it won a County Commission race in San Miguel County, Colorado.