Ten races to watch: '98 elections - progressive, pro-labor, and environmentalist candidates

Progressive, The, Nov, 1998 by John Nichols

After the primary, pundits said Fieger had no chance to effectively challenge Engler. They even suggested that Fieger would lose the support of the post-primary state Democratic convention.

Instead, he wowed the convention and his supporters, who identify themselves as "Fieger Tigers." His grassroots appeal suggests that, if more Democrats actually challenged conservative orthodoxies, they might energize nonvoters and start to build winning coalitions.

5. NEW YORK: PETER VALLONE AND THE WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

Why should progressives be excited about the gubernatorial candidacy of a machine politician from the New York City borough of Queens? Because a strong showing by New York City Council leader Peter Vallone could create a serious new labor party in a state where election laws allow it to be a major player.

Vallone is the Democratic Party nominee against popular Republican Governor George Pataki. He is, as well, the candidate of the newly formed Working Families Party. If Vallone gets 50,000 votes on the Working Families line, the party will earn a permanent place on New York ballots--meaning it will be able to influence politics for years to come.

New Party activists, who have long promoted fusion politics (in which candidates are allowed to "fuse" votes gained on different party lines into a winning total), see the Working Families Party initiative as one of the best chances in years to establish an independent third party that will have real influence at the state and regional level.

In New York state, the Working Families Party could eventually force the Democrats to the left. In cases where conservative or centrist Democrats run, the Working Families Party could also run its own candidates, as the old American Labor Party (ALP) once did.

The Working Families Party closely resembles the ALP, which had significant political influence in New York during the 1930s and 1940s before the McCarthyite Red Scare destroyed it. Like the ALP, the Working Families Party has earned broad labor support--from powerful United Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Communications Workers, Hotel Employees, and Amalgamated Transit Workers locals in the New York area--as well as support from activist groups such as Citizen Action and ACORN.

Former New York Mayor David Dinkins is backing the Working Families Party initiative, as are 1997 Democratic mayoral candidates Ruth Messinger and Sal Albanese, openly gay City Councilman Tom Duane, Brooklyn African American community leader Assemblyman Al Vann, and other longtime Democrats.

Says Buffalo Teachers Federation President Philip Rumore: "We will rejuvenate a lot of people who are not voting and who will say, `I finally have a home.'"

6. MINNESOTA: TIM MAHONEY

National political strategists with the AFL-CIO have an ambitious plan to run 2,000 union members for public office at the local, state, and national level in the year 2000. But St. Paul pipefitter Tim Mahoney got a jump on that strategy when he elbowed his way into the race for an open state legislative seat in the neighborhood where he grew up.