April 21, 2002 By Erik Kriss
Albany Bureau Albany -The Green Party, passionate about cleaning the
environment and reforming the criminal justice system, ran actor Al Lewis
for
governor four years ago.
>
This year, the party has wooed rocker Patti Smith, best-selling author and
filmmaker Michael Moore and acclaimed journalist Jimmy Breslin to run for
state government's top job.
The Greens have good reason to seek out a celebrity as their candidate.
Political parties need 50,000 votes in the race for governor to win an
automatic ballot line for every election during the next four years. And
the
order in which the candidates for governor finish determines their
parties'
ballot position.
So the Greens are looking for a vote-getter.
Meantime, New York is the only state in which vote totals for a candidate
running on more than one line are combined to determine the winner.
So some minor parties endorse major party candidates in an effort to
influence political debate and, some say, win future government jobs.
With the 2002 campaign for governor looming, all six of New York's minor
parties are scrambling for position to keep themselves alive and well
through
2006.
The Conservative Party is expected to endorse George Pataki for the third
time in a row. Pataki, a Republican, wouldn't be governor had he not won
328,605 votes on the Conservative line in 1994, when he narrowly defeated
incumbent Democrat Mario Cuomo.
The Independence Party is leaning toward Pataki, although Tom Golisano,
the
wealthy Rochester businessman who gave the party ballot status in 1994 and
improved its position to Row C in 1998, could force a primary.
The Liberal Party is expected to endorse Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
The Working Families Party wants to back the Democratic nominee, but Cuomo,
the former federal housing secretary and son of former Gov. Cuomo, is
locked
in a tight race for the Democratic nomination with state Comptroller H.
Carl
McCall.
The Green and Right To Life parties like to run their own candidates.
Green organizer Mark Dunlea says the scramble for votes and ballot
position
is counterproductive to democracy.
"In New York, you're sort of forced to run celebrities or
cross-endorse a
major party candidate to overcome that major media blackout of the minor
candidates," he said. "So that sort of weakens your
message."
But other minor parties say the ability to combine vote totals gives them
a
voice in policy and politics unparalleled in the United States.
"A party like ours is interested in trying to change the debate and
alter
policy outcomes," said Dan Cantor, executive director of the labor
union-backed Working Families Party.
He noted more than one in five New Yorkers who voted in the 1998
governor's
race pulled a minor party lever, "living proof of the view that
people want
more choices in politics."
Cantor acknowledged the Cuomo-McCall race, plus a seven-way battle for the
Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, is causing his party some
headaches.
The Working Families Party runs the risk of playing spoiler if it backs
the
wrong Democrat in either contest.
The Greens have their own dilemma.
Breslin is a well-known New York City newspaper columnist. Patti Smith
spoke
around the nation on behalf of 2000 Green presidential nominee Ralph Nader.
And Michael Moore made his name with the book "Stupid White
Men,"
encouraging
people to seek local public office, and his movie "Roger and
Me," about
General Motors.
But all three have said no, leaving writer, author and New York City labor
intellectual Stanley Aronowitz as the "leading candidate at this
point,"
Dunlea said.
In 1998, Dunlea said U.S. Senate candidate Joel Kovel did a better job
articulating the party's issues than Lewis. But he said the actor, who
played
Grandpa in the 1960s television sitcom "The Munsters," "was
able to generate
more major media coverage."
As for Smith, "we usually don't take no for an answer the first few
times,"
Dunlea said.
"There should be another way to create a party - get a certain number
of
people to register in your party, as California does," Dunlea said.
"And
California rotates placement on the ballot throughout the state to
overcome
bias."
State Independence Party Chairman Frank MacKay agreed the 50,000-vote
requirement drives minor parties' candidate selection process, saying it
"no
doubt" favors the rich, celebrities or "known quantities."
He noted Libertarians heavily courted Howard Stern to run for governor in
1994, speculating the radio talk show host easily would have won at least
50,000 votes.
Paraphrasing the late President John F. Kennedy, MacKay said, "You
first
have
to become a politician before you become a statesman. It's a pragmatic
issue."
Conservative Chairman Michael Long disagreed.
"I think the law is fair for all minor parties," said Long,
whose daughter
Eileen works as deputy secretary to Pataki. "The Conservative Party
has
always tried to pick the best candidate to advance Conservative principles
and issues."
In 1990, Conservative Herbert London nearly won more votes in the race for
governor than Republican Pierre Rinfret. Just four years later, the party
put
GOP candidate Pataki over the top.
"It's a very, very good system for minor parties," argued Robert
Spitzer, a
political science professor at the State University of New York at
Cortland.
"You know that because New York state has them (minor parties), and
virtually
nobody else does.
"It's a very good way for minor parties to survive, to have an impact
on
elections and to have an impact on public policy."
Spitzer theorized giving parties ballot status simply for registering as a
party, as some states do, "would lessen their power in the long
term."
The current system, he said, "gives you the kind of legitimacy
parties that
can't meet the 50,000-vote requirement can't get. ..."
But Richard Winger, editor of the San Francisco-based Ballot Access News,
said New York's law tends to "deform" minor parties.
"Other minor parties have to survive in an atmosphere where they
can't
cross-endorse a major party candidate," Winger said. As a result, he
suggested, minor parties elsewhere stay truer to their ideology.
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