An isolated Assembly race in underserved North central Brooklyn in an election off- year wouldn't normally attract much interest -- witness grudging coverage<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/nyregion/54th-assembly-district-vote-could-upset-brooklyn-politics.html>
in *The New York Times* on the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend. It surely would be a snoozer to a national audience or to those *New Politics* readers who consider mainstream politics to be mad, bad and dangerous to know -- the elephants' graveyard of classic social movements, as though the movements weren't already among the walking dead. Plus, following election races can be a hobbyist's game when unions are getting bashed, the Obama administration is inert when it's not otherwise shilling for finance capital, or when August job growth was stagnant and just 57 percent of the working age population<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/business/economy/us-posts-solid-job-gains-amid-fears.html> hold any sort of job.
Still, the race of Jesus Gonzalez, a 26-year-old community activist running as a third party candidate in the 54th Assembly District, which comprises all of once devastated and landlord-torched Bushwick as well as parts of Cypress Hills and Bedford-Stuyvesant, is worth a look.
Gonzalez is running against type, battling two separate Kings County machine war horses. The candidate, a first-generation American of Dominican-Puerto Rican parentage who anglicizes his given name, is running on the Working Families Party (WFP) line, a more-or-less left-leaning party comprising labor union political directors, leaders of community-based organizations and a smattering of active general members. WFP rarely runs or even nurtures its own candidates. Instead, it takes advantage of New York State's fusion election rules by co-endorsing and running mainstream hopefuls -- invariably Democrats -- on its own ballot line.
Not this time.