Abstract

Counterforce in NY

The article focuses on the operations of the Working Families Party (WFP) in New York. WFP engages in year-round organizing and repeatedly demonstrated its ability to move votes in close elections. The defeat of Naomi Matusow by insurgent Adam Bradley, who had the help of the WFP, during the Democratic primaries in September 2002 was the result of her opposition to the sales tax, for being late in joining the call to close down the Indian Point nuclear plant and for voting to sustain the state's drug laws. Bradley's victory gave WFP an important cadre of allies and solid bonds that can be built between working class whites and inner city blacks and Latinos. The dues-paying members and the unions are providing shares to the financial core of WFP.