Working Families Party makes Its' Mark

[bread_and_roses]

Article in NY Times on Working Families Party that I thought DUers might find interesting. I am one of the un-sexy and un-glamorous people doing that door-to-door knocking and phone-banking for WFP (though upstate, not in NYC). What is most interesting to me is that we find - in a heavily Republican area - that we can take a Progressive economic message to people who are so disgusted with both parties that they have opted out of participating in elections and get them out to vote. We also give Rs who don't want to vote a D line an option for voting for D candidates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/nyregion/metrocampaigns/09WORK.html

We're the noncelebrity party," Mr. Cantor said. "We welcome them, but we just don't have any. What we're doing is not sexy or glamorous. To go door-knocking week after week, month after month, is not for the faint of heart. <snip>

Roberto Ramirez, a political consultant who is former chairman of the Bronx Democratic Party, said that the Working Families Party's biggest asset was its clear, unequivocal view of the world. Because the party does not worry about alienating mainstream voters, it forces other political players to clarify their positions on controversial issues, and reinvigorates politics by attracting voters who might not otherwise be involved, he said.<snip>

Moreover, George Arzt, a Democratic political consultant, noted that many old-guard Democrats are concerned that the Working Families Party is trying to shift its agenda too far left. "I find their role to be a problem because they're wagging the tail of the Democratic Party," he said.

"Bertha Lewis, 52, co-chairwoman of the Working Families Party, dismissed such criticisms as short-sighted. "They just don't get it," she said. "Instead of seeing the party as a force, as a tool, as another way to express Democratic and progressive values, they are so parochial and backward thinking. The Democrats eat their young." <snip>