The Working Families Party, which started out in 1998 as a party only in New York state, has been expanding into other states. This year it has candidates for partisan office for the first time in Oregon and Delaware. It also has candidates in New York and Connecticut, as it did in 2006 and 2004.
In Delaware, the Democratic Party has exerted considerable pressure on all Democratic nominees, not to accept the nomination of the Working Families Party as well (Delaware permits fusion). However, this year in Delaware, three Democrats bucked their own party and accepted the Working Families nomination. The Working Families Party also cross-endorsed three Republican nominees for state house.
The Working Families Party tried to have nominees this year in South Carolina, but Democratic Party officials persuaded various Democrats not to accept the WFP cross-endorsement.
Is Frank MacKay the Chairman of this political party in addition to the other 2 or 3 parties he claims to be Chairman of???
If Democrats won’t accept the fusion nomination of the Working Families Party then, they should nominate their own candidates independent from the Democrats.
Frank MacKay has no connection with the Working Families Party. If anyone is the national head of the Working Families Party, it is Dan Cantor. But there is no true national structure, just associated state parties.
The WFP was set up in NY first by ACORN and some large union organizations (like the Communication Workers District 1, various Teamster and SEIU locals) who wanted to replace the Liberal Party (a patronage engine taking up space on the ballot) and didn’t like the anti-Democrat stance of the Labor Party (the currently existing one founded in Cleveland around 1996). CWA had participated in the founding of the Labor Party, but evidently weren’t committed independent politics.
After the Labor Party set itself up in SC, the WFP did the same. The SC AFL-CIO isn’t that big. I’d be interested in learning whether this is just a tactical split, or a sign of a real difference in opinion.
What interest does the Democratic Party have in getting its nominees not to accept the nomination of another party in a fusion state? Am I missing something, or does the contradict common sense? Doesn’t it help increase the candidates’ vote totals? I don’t recall ever hearing about Democrats in New York State forcing its nominees to refuse the Liberal Party nomination. In fact, I believe the American Labor Party was created (in New York) specifically to help FDR’s vote total there and reduce support for the Socialist Party, was it not?
more of an enforcement (tactical) arm of labor — especially NYSUT and sister education based unions.
How many candidates do the WFP have that aren’t Democrats? fusion dems do not count as WFP candidates from my point of view – they are just Dems after all.
Thursday (9:38 p.m., EDT), September 25
Richard, because you are right much more often than you are wrong, I hestitated to send this; nevertheless, your third paragraph above may be misleading. I live in Charleston, South Carolina and received the WFP nomination for State House Seat 115—with Democratic Party encouragement. Indeed, the Chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party drove me to the WFP convention in Columbia where I received their nomination May 3!
Also at that WFP convention, Mike Cone was nominated for the U.S. Senate. On June 10 Mike, I, and other WFP nominees were unsuccessful in the Democratic primary. Later, the WFP decided not to certify any of its candidates to the State Election Commission. I cannot speak of Mike but am under the impression that he—like I—would have been happy to run as on the WFP ballot line in November.