On November 5, the chair of the Republican Party of Illinois, Andy McKenna, called a press conference to denounce the Green Party’s candidate for Governor, Richard Whitney. Whitney was a member of the Socialist Labor Party from the late 1970’s until 1993, and he was editor of the party’s national monthly newspaper, The People, 1989-1993.
Although convention wisdom dictates that the presence of Green Party candidates always injures Democrats, in the Illinois gubernatorial race, it is the Republican Party that fears the presence of the Green Party ticket. Republican gubernatorial nominee Judy Baar Topinka has attacked Whitney at least twice, but Democratic incumbent Governor Rod Blagojevich has refused to comment.
Whitney said “I became disenchanted with the philosophy and left the party in 1992, a year before he moved to Illinois (he had lived in California previously)…I have not been a socialist for 14 years. When I got out of college in the 70’s, there were a lot of radical political groups around, and because of my devotion to working people, I was initially attracted to the socialist ideology.” He added that he became convinced workers need “both a healthy public sector and healthy private sector.”
The Socialist Labor Party was the original party of socialism in the United States. All other U.S. parties with “socialist” in their name can trace their roots to the Socialist Labor Party. The party last ran a presidential candidate in 1976, and last appeared on the ballot in a partisan election in 1985.
The Republicans a more stupid than I could possibly have believed!
Desperate, but not necessarily stupid. Mike Fisher, the Republican running for governor of Pennsylvania in 2002, pulled the same sort of thing, calling a press conference not long before the election to say the minor-party candidates were not serious and should be excluded from future debates. Generally, minor-party candidates can detract from the lesser-known candidate’s ability to build a profile as the definitive alternative to the front-runner.
Politics is a dynamic process, not a static snapshot. Topinka is probably correct in assessing that Whitney is hurting her more than Blagojevich.
Why should Whitney have to defend himself or his candidacy in any way, let alone having been a member of the Socialist Labor Party? The SLP is actually quite a stodgy outfit and has been around for over 125 years. To anyone familiar with 3rd party history, this press conference is pretty hilarious and McCarthy-esque. It does sound quite desperate.
Maybe the Republicans are attacking the Green Party in order to give the Greens more publicity, which will help them take votes from the Democrats.
How can the Socialist Party of the early 1900s with Eugene V. Debs, who in one election got 7% of the vote, be traced back to the Socialist Labor Party?
no, in illinois, whitney’s stance on gun ownership and republican’s dissatisfaction with topinka have given a suprising number of republican followers.