> [Pointless nastiness about H's physical contours - though reminiscent
> of Gennifer Flowers' naming of the twin tragedies of the Clinton
> family, Hillary's fat ankles and Bill's small penis - but dead on
> about the politics. The WFP, a horrid local replicant of the New
> Party, smells like a front for the Democratic party designed to keep
> pwogwessives voting for hacks.]
Why the insane impulse to denigrate the motives of a range of impeccably progressive activists who worked to create the Working Families Party. Yes, you disagree with the strategy - so noted, but the "pwogwessives" and "hacks" comment is just intellectually bankrupt and plain nasty.
Aside from the obvious lesser-evilism of fearing another vote to support Trent Lott's filibusters in the Senate, you completely ignore the motives of any third party of running at least one high-profile vote getter on a statewide line - namely to hold onto ballot status. I would note that the Peace and Freedom Party in California lost ballot status after three decades of activism because none of their statewide nominees got enough votes to retain ballot status. Working Families barely made it last time, so this is probably a relatively safe way to do it (assuming that Senate race vote totals count for ballot status in New York).
The interesting place to judge the WFP will be their more local races-- how they use endorsements of Dems or independents to influence politics throughout the state. Give it at least one or two election cycles before you piss on other peoples strategies.
And how running Granpa Lewis advances progressive or left politics is beyond me.
-- Nathan Newman