The New York Daily News of August 12 has this story about petitioning candidates for New York city Mayor starting to submit their petitions. The deadline is not until August 18, but already the Socialist Workers Party, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, have submitted their petitions.
I see the Liberal Party is still in the running. Is the Right To Life Party makng an effort for mayor or are they going to wait until the 2010 race for New York governor?
It is good to see two of the socialist parties getting involved so early. I have one comment about the Socialist Workers Party, though. The SWP has become so reclusive and/or paranoid that is even difficlut to apply for membership now days. I know this for a fact because I was interested in joining the Party a couple of years ago or so (my mind is failing me on the exact time). After many attempts to even get a response from the Party, I finally got to talk to a leader and I got the feeling that he was not very interested in me joining. That is not the correct way to go about Party building!
By the way, I now belong to the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party USA.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) come from different branches of the family tree of radical working class organizations. They should maintain their separate identities. But in the U.S. they — and all socialist organizations — should get ballot access and run for office together.
The California Peace and Freedom Party has started a new effort to build a nation-wide, multi-tendency socialist party. PSL but (so far) not SWP is participating.