| Liberal No More |
24 February 2003
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The Strange Death of Liberal New York
New York is different from most other states in the US in most ways. In politics, though, it is truly a multi-party state disavowing the two-party system. The state constitution provides for this with election laws that give certain organizations a semi-permanent place on the ballot. Due to political failure, the New York Liberal Party, the nation's oldest third party according to some, will likely go out of business after this week-end's conference, and with it some history.
Under the New York constitution, any party that gets 50,000 votes for governor becomes a Major Party, entitled to a slot on the ballot for each office in every election until the next gubernatorial vote. And so, New York's Republicans and Democrats are joined by Conservatives, Liberals, Working Family Party-ites, and Right-to-Lifers. What makes this interesting and important is that a candidate can run with more than one party's backing. Mayor Giuliani ran as both a Republican and a Liberal.
However, the critics said that the Liberal Party had lost its way, becoming little more than a patronage machine, trading its line on the ballot for jobs in administrations from New York City to Albany. Disaster struck when Andrew Cuomo won the Liberal line and withdrew from the race after it was too late to replace him. His 7,000 votes were not enough to retain the Major Party label.
What party leader Ray Harding does next with the skeleton of his organization is hard to say; some have suggested a think-tank. The future is unknown, but the Liberal Party of New York seems not to have a part in it.