Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Take nothing for granted, plan to vote on Primary Day, Tuesday September 7
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The Democratic Primary on Tuesday, September 7, 2006, where registered Democrats will choose their candidates for national and state offices, may be taking interesting twists, chiefly as the result of Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s loss of the electorate’s nod for a fourth term in representing Connecticut. The “kiss of death” he received from President Bush had to be the clincher in his defeat by the well-heeled anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. Now, NY Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is also facing a “bring the troops home now” opponent, labor activist Jonathan Tasini, whose treasury, when last counted was at $132K level (Clinton has $33M) . Although his program is equally thin and futuristic, and the campaign run largely on Internet, he has persuaded at least one local club, the Tilden Democrats, to withhold endorsing any senatorial candidate.
To explain, we are part of the 74th Assembly District, which covers a large portion of the East Side from Delancey Street in the Lower East Side up to East 48th Street. There are four Democratic clubs in the district – the Samuel J. Tilden Democratic Club, Gramercy –Stuyvesant Independent Democrats, the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club to the north, and CODA (Coalition for a District Alternative) south of 14th Street. Candidates come to the clubs to declare themselves and seek endorsements (by membership vote), which assure them of a volunteer petition-signature gathering force.
For a close-up of Tasini, he is a writer , political consultant and former president of the National Writers’ Union (a Teamsters’ local), and also president and treasurer of the Creators Federation, a group that seeks to protect the creators—actors, screenwriters, songwriters, musicians, book authors, freelance journalists, photographers, illustrators, visual artists and fine artists—whose remuneration is declining, benefits are evaporating and rights are being taken away by large media companies.
Tasini’s political program ‘s main points, besides “bringing the troops home now,” encompass Control of Corporations, who have “set the rules for too long —and they’ve been helped by politicians, in both major political parties, who do their work because of a corrupt electoral system.” His Medicare For All declares that “it’s the most efficient health care coverage program we’ve ever had—better managed than any private insurance company, let’s give it to every man, woman and child, today.” Real Trade, Not Corporate Trade means to stop giving away our country to large corporations and dictatorships like China. (“:we’re for trading with other countries—but let’s set the rules up to help people, not corporations.”); Democracy at Work declares that every person should have the real right to join a union; “our democratic values, going all the way back to the American Revolution, tell us that workers must be free from harassment, intimidation and fear.” Pensions for All means that we should and can live out our retirement years with dignity and security; “we have a new system called Universal Voluntary Accounts to supplement the current system, which is under increased attack from large corporations.” Make It All Cost Less declares that “we want to make your paycheck last a lot longer by eliminating waste in the economy, adopting a real health care plan, pursing a real energy program, doing some better planning about where we live and how we get around, and creating a national wireless Internet network. “ As for Immigration Policy, the bi-partisan Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 “comes the closest to adhering to our campaign’s two core principles because it brings families together, charts a clear path to citizenship, creates legal avenues for immigrants to work in our country, establishes logical enforcement policies and, most important, embraces the idea that immigrants should participate fully in society.“ Wow!
On the NY State Governor level, AG Eliot Spitzer’s challenger Thomas R. Suozzi has not made much of an impression on the neighborhood The Republican challenger of the party’s Gubernatorial candidate John D. Spencer, former Mayor of Yonkers, Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland, has received a surprising 37% support of the Republican Convention, assuring her a place on the Republican Primary ballot. In the Attorney General primary, Andrew M. Cuomo is the party’s choice, with Mark Green, Charles G. King and Sean Patrick Maloney contesting (the latter is an Internet campaigner, watch the results).
Now for the big local event, the 74th District Assembly race, pitting the winner of the special February election following Steve Saunders’s resignation, Sylvia Feldman, against a challenger, attorney Brian Kavanagh, 39, former chief of staff of Upper West Side Councilmember Gale Brewer. Kavanagh has been endorsed by the Tilden contrarians, some unions, and, as of recent date, the New York Times and former Assemblyman and ST/PCV resident Steve Sanders, also receiving the highest rating from the Citizens Union and the nod from the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, a key gay political organization. Friedman, a local leader since the 1970s, has the endorsements of the other local clubs and key elected officials, including Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, State Senator Tom Duane (who will have a ST/PCV opponent , Dan Russo, in the November election) and Liz Krueger, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver , Councilmember Rosie Mendez and a number of unions. There is also a political newcomer Esther Yang of Tudor City, a yoga teacher and single mother, who wants to reform Albany.
Wally greatly appresiates the input from Democratic club sources, Internet web logs and sites, and the Paper of Record
The Democratic Primary on Tuesday, September 7, 2006, where registered Democrats will choose their candidates for national and state offices, may be taking interesting twists, chiefly as the result of Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s loss of the electorate’s nod for a fourth term in representing Connecticut. The “kiss of death” he received from President Bush had to be the clincher in his defeat by the well-heeled anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. Now, NY Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is also facing a “bring the troops home now” opponent, labor activist Jonathan Tasini, whose treasury, when last counted was at $132K level (Clinton has $33M) . Although his program is equally thin and futuristic, and the campaign run largely on Internet, he has persuaded at least one local club, the Tilden Democrats, to withhold endorsing any senatorial candidate.
To explain, we are part of the 74th Assembly District, which covers a large portion of the East Side from Delancey Street in the Lower East Side up to East 48th Street. There are four Democratic clubs in the district – the Samuel J. Tilden Democratic Club, Gramercy –Stuyvesant Independent Democrats, the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club to the north, and CODA (Coalition for a District Alternative) south of 14th Street. Candidates come to the clubs to declare themselves and seek endorsements (by membership vote), which assure them of a volunteer petition-signature gathering force.
For a close-up of Tasini, he is a writer , political consultant and former president of the National Writers’ Union (a Teamsters’ local), and also president and treasurer of the Creators Federation, a group that seeks to protect the creators—actors, screenwriters, songwriters, musicians, book authors, freelance journalists, photographers, illustrators, visual artists and fine artists—whose remuneration is declining, benefits are evaporating and rights are being taken away by large media companies.
Tasini’s political program ‘s main points, besides “bringing the troops home now,” encompass Control of Corporations, who have “set the rules for too long —and they’ve been helped by politicians, in both major political parties, who do their work because of a corrupt electoral system.” His Medicare For All declares that “it’s the most efficient health care coverage program we’ve ever had—better managed than any private insurance company, let’s give it to every man, woman and child, today.” Real Trade, Not Corporate Trade means to stop giving away our country to large corporations and dictatorships like China. (“:we’re for trading with other countries—but let’s set the rules up to help people, not corporations.”); Democracy at Work declares that every person should have the real right to join a union; “our democratic values, going all the way back to the American Revolution, tell us that workers must be free from harassment, intimidation and fear.” Pensions for All means that we should and can live out our retirement years with dignity and security; “we have a new system called Universal Voluntary Accounts to supplement the current system, which is under increased attack from large corporations.” Make It All Cost Less declares that “we want to make your paycheck last a lot longer by eliminating waste in the economy, adopting a real health care plan, pursing a real energy program, doing some better planning about where we live and how we get around, and creating a national wireless Internet network. “ As for Immigration Policy, the bi-partisan Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 “comes the closest to adhering to our campaign’s two core principles because it brings families together, charts a clear path to citizenship, creates legal avenues for immigrants to work in our country, establishes logical enforcement policies and, most important, embraces the idea that immigrants should participate fully in society.“ Wow!
On the NY State Governor level, AG Eliot Spitzer’s challenger Thomas R. Suozzi has not made much of an impression on the neighborhood The Republican challenger of the party’s Gubernatorial candidate John D. Spencer, former Mayor of Yonkers, Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland, has received a surprising 37% support of the Republican Convention, assuring her a place on the Republican Primary ballot. In the Attorney General primary, Andrew M. Cuomo is the party’s choice, with Mark Green, Charles G. King and Sean Patrick Maloney contesting (the latter is an Internet campaigner, watch the results).
Now for the big local event, the 74th District Assembly race, pitting the winner of the special February election following Steve Saunders’s resignation, Sylvia Feldman, against a challenger, attorney Brian Kavanagh, 39, former chief of staff of Upper West Side Councilmember Gale Brewer. Kavanagh has been endorsed by the Tilden contrarians, some unions, and, as of recent date, the New York Times and former Assemblyman and ST/PCV resident Steve Sanders, also receiving the highest rating from the Citizens Union and the nod from the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, a key gay political organization. Friedman, a local leader since the 1970s, has the endorsements of the other local clubs and key elected officials, including Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, State Senator Tom Duane (who will have a ST/PCV opponent , Dan Russo, in the November election) and Liz Krueger, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver , Councilmember Rosie Mendez and a number of unions. There is also a political newcomer Esther Yang of Tudor City, a yoga teacher and single mother, who wants to reform Albany.
Wally greatly appresiates the input from Democratic club sources, Internet web logs and sites, and the Paper of Record
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 10:22 AM 
