On Elizabeth Benjamin’s daily political round-up over at the NY Daily News, she writes: “In light of Bloomberg’s efforts to land a ballot trifecta (GOP, Independence and WFP), Steve Kornacki floats the idea of ending cross-endorsements in New York,” and Benjamin then links to the piece at Politickerny.com(see below.) Kornacki (of the Observer, posted at Politickerny) gives an excellent explanation of the pros and cons of third party fusion in New York, and what Bloomberg’s cross-endorsments mean in political terms. The full article is definitely worth studying.
(excerpt from) Politickerny.com
Mike Bloomberg: Independent, Except for All the Party Labels
By Steve Kornacki / April 13, 2009
Michael Bloomberg, the Democrat-turned-Republican who swore off the concept of party membership altogether in the summer of 2007, is now set to seek re-election this fall as the official candidate of the Republican Party. He will also run as the standard-bearer of the Independence Party and, if he gets his way, the Working Families Party.
Should the mayor pull off this trifecta, it would be, roughly speaking, the political equivalent of serving simultaneously as the president of the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets fan clubs. These are not groups that see the world the same way—not even close.
Of course, the one thing Mr. Bloomberg will not be identified as on the ballot is the one thing he actually is: an “unaffiliated” voter, officially unaligned with any political party—a distinction the mayor shares with more than 700,000 of his fellow New York City residents…
In most states, this kind of cross-endorsing between political parties is forbidden by law. And of the few that actually allow it, none take it as seriously as New York, where electoral fusion seems to be regarded as a permanent, almost sacred, institution.
The system has its roots in the Tammany era…
Two simple steps could eliminate the disproportionate influence of small parties-and the attendant need for candidates to make exorbitant concessions to their agendas. One would be to ban cross-endorsements…
The other is to rethink the premium that New York’s ballot procedures place on party labels…
…[Due to the way independent candidates and third parties are situated on the ballot in NY] Mike Bloomberg can’t run as the one thing he actually wants people to believe he is: a true independent.
1 response so far ↓
1 Eric Sundwall // Apr 14, 2009 at 1:04 pm
This is one of the reasons the LP has so much trouble in NY. Next year we’ll be faced with the prospect of producing a candidate for governor who represents either a compromise of party values (spare me the compromise for success cliches/associations/assertions) in order to get the magic number to qualify as a ‘party’ (50K – even then it’s a crap shoot . . . most voters invest in their heart strings and pocket books before long term strategic value) or we’ll run one of our faithful, who will be buried in obscurity, no money or name recognition.
The ballot qualified parties (WFP, Conservative & Independence) will gladly squander their opportunity to produce an independent candidate who speaks to their party’s ‘ideas/interests’. This in order to gain a little influence for some of the key party members, usually in the form of some patronage for delivering the votes.
The one glimmer of hope is that two Senate seats will be available, this might provide an interesting case for the Greens and Libertarians to cross endorse with each other. Not only would that allow for an opportunity to challenge some of the fusion assumptions (ie small fuses with big), but it would also allow each party to maintain their identity in each candidate without compromise core issues (ie Greens – Universal health care, Libertarians – not Universal health care, etc).
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