NY-ers can vote on the WFP line. Everyone else, just make sure to vote!

Andrew may not be your favorite Cuomo, but do you want "Crazy Carl" Paladino to be governor of NYS? And the key thing is to vote for Andrew on the Working Families Party line.

"You don't have to hide the flaws in the candidate you choose to support. But you do have to support someone, and I'll tell you why."

-- David Swanson, in "Why Arguments Against Voting Fail"

by Ken

THIS FIRST PART IS JUST FOR NEW YORK STATE
RESIDENTS, WHO CAN VOTE ON THE WFP LINE

This is just a reminder to New York State residents that our election law enables us to vote for major-party candidates on "minor party" lines and have the votes counted toward the candidates' totals. In case there's anybody out there who doesn't know about the NYS Working Families Party, here's the start of an e-mail sent out by our OpenLeft colleague Adam Bink, a Buffalo native:

What if you could vote support Democrats tomorrow, but send a message at the same time?

In New York, you can- and I want to tell you how.

In New York, third parties are different, because they can endorse candidates also running as Democrats or Republicans. For over a decade, the Working Families Party has used this power to endorse the most progressive major-party candidates running for office and make sure they win -- without spoiling elections.

It's a strategy that works. The Working Families Party (WFP) has raised New York's minimum wage, passed living wage laws, fought hard against transit fare hikes, pushed for a moratorium on unsafe natural gas drilling, and helped elect real progressives in every corner of the state.

The WFP has done more for ordinary New Yorkers than any political party in memory. That's because they focus on issues, not personalities. Living wage jobs. A fair tax system. Better and affordable mass transit. Fair treatment for the elderly. Investment in education. It's a common-sense progressive party, with a strategy that lets progressive New Yorkers hold their politicians accountable. . . .

As we've noted, the Working Families Party has been put through the wringer by gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo, who might actually have dealt the party a death blow by refusing its endorsement, thereby making it impossible for the party to rack up the 50,000 statewide votes it needs in the gubernatorial race to achieve ballot listing for the next four years. It was clear that our Andrew -- who's definitely not your grandfather's Cuomo -- intended to run (and presumably govern) well to the right of the WFP, and might have done his share to bury it, if he hadn't run into that stretch of polling turbulence following the primaries, when he found himself facing not pathetic GOP stooge Rick Lazio but Teabagger darling "Crazy Carl" Paladino, and polls were showing a dead heat. At that point Andrew seems to have seen the political usefulness of embracing the WFP in exchange for a mere whopping does of humiliation.

There's likely to be a lot more humiliation for the WFP in what we assume will be the first four years of the Cuomo administration. Now that it appears its support isn't so important after all, the governor-to-be has been less tight-lipped about his intention to bring business interests into the running of state government in a big way. Still, at least the WFP -- increasingly targeted, as a measure of its successes, by right-wingers from all over the country -- lives to fight another four years' worth of fights.

AND DON'T FORGET ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN

I would certainly rather that Andrew occupy the governor's chair than Crazy Carl, and for that matter I certainly prefer current appointed State Comptroller Tom Di Napoli to his Republican challenger, Harry Wilson. Of course the race that really matters is for the attorney general to succeed Andrew, in which for once we get to vote for a truly stellar candidate: my current state senator, Eric Schneiderman. There's such a high degree of apathy among NYS Democratic voters that it's all too easy to imagine Eric being swallowed by the year's angry right-wing tide, which I assure you exists in the Empire State too. Worse, a lot of semi-disengaged Dem voters probably assume that the Cuomo victory will sweep the other statewide candidates in, when the truth is that there's no reason whatever to assume this.

When we finally get a candidate for some office worth voting for, as opposed to someone who's just marginally better than the other clown, the least we can do is vote for him.

On the Working Families Party line, of course -- right after voting for Andrew on the WFP line. (That's the vote that counts toward the party's continuing ballot certification.)


AS FOR YOU NON-NEW YORKERS . . .

You've probably some candidates running for office at some level who can make you feel good about the act of voting the way Eric Schneiderman will do for me tomorrow. As we've been saying so often these last few months, in these electorally troubled times it's crucial that we progressives get behind the people who really mean to do the business of government the way we think it should be done. You may also have important ballot initiatives that deserve your support, one way or the other.

As for the rest, unfortunately there are a lot of races where it really does matter to vote for the lesser of the offered evils. It's not just a matter of forestalling the horror of Republican takeover of one or both houses of Congress. Remember that the governors and state legislatures in office come next January are the people who are going to carry out reapportionment based on the 2010 Census, thereby setting a lot of the ground rules for the next ten years of our political life.

I can't think of anyone less plausibly cast as an apologist for dithering Democrats than progressive (and especially anti-war) activist David Swanson, which is why I commend the attention of anyone unpersuaded about the importance of voting tomorrow to his DailyKos GOTV diary today, "Why Arguments Against Voting Fail." Here's some of what he has to say (I've highlighted some of his reasons why "you do have to support someone" simply because they particularly resonate for me):

Now, I think activism apart from elections is even more important than elections and even more neglected. I think voting for the lesser evil can sometimes be a mistake. I think monitoring elections and conducting honest exit polls with which to check election tampering is just as important as casting your vote in our high-tech faith-based elections. I'm convinced that our election system is on its last legs, drowning in corporate money and propaganda, staggering into thuggery and fascism. But none of that presents a reason not to vote. In fact, failing to vote aggravates all such problems.

Sure, it makes no sense to vote just because people died for the right, if the right has become meaningless. Of course it's offensive to deify one candidate and demonize the other, picking sides as if you were joining a religion rather than choosing an elected representative. But there's a danger, just as in philosophy school, of being too smart for your own good. You don't have to hide the flaws in the candidate you choose to support. But you do have to support someone, and I'll tell you why.

* Because your activism, including in reforming the system, will be more powerful if you have voted.
* Because your monitoring of the fairness of the election must begin with voting in it.
* Because if the smart people do not vote, you know who that leaves to do the voting.
* Because only close elections can be plausibly stolen.
* Because there are enough good and decent people who fail to vote to swing every election in the best possible direction if even a fraction of them would turn out.
* Because there is a real value in not allowing things to get any worse than they have.
* Because elected officials will never believe you will vote them out if you don't vote.
* Because progress will not come from greater crisis but from greater space to maneuver in.
* Because if you think the Democrats made too many excuses when they had complete power and kept the filibuster rule in place by choice, you really don't want to see how things go when they don't have power.
* Because there's a Republican running for Congress in North Carolina who openly admits no regrets about shooting two innocent and unarmed people dead at point-blank range.
* Because our political events are turning violent and supporters of that violence are candidates for office.
* Because it's simply not true that "first they came for . . . " each group and no one spoke up; on the contrary, FIRST they were elected.
* Because whatever you think is more important than voting (I can think of 1,000 things) you'll have more success getting people to work on those things if you can honestly tell them that you voted.
* Because offering neighbors a ride to the polls can enrich your life.
* Because it's much more fun to complain about things together than it is at home alone.
* Because if you get five friends to vote and they get five friends to vote and so on, we will all be able to enjoy the immense satisfaction and hilarity of watching all the TV talking heads explain how all their predictions were wrong.

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