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Socialist rhetoric encourages the collaboration of working class people across state and national borders. But socialist candidates in New York seem to have a hard time coordinating their efforts in just one state.
Two different socialist candidates are running for Senate. Neither has the support of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), which has traditionally supported the Greens, sparking some controversy in far-left political circles. This year, they are behind Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins.
Hawkins’ opponent on the Socialist Equality Party line, William van Auken, is one of those protesting these endorsements. In a June web article, van Auken wrote that the ISO “is aimed at promoting a ‘left’ variety of bourgeois politics, in the form of the Green Party, which can serve only to divert a mass movement.”
Before this year’s race, Van Auken ran for president in 2004, but only made the ballot in five states. A long-time political writer and activist, he has been a member of the socialist movement for more than 35 years.
He is not the only socialist running, though. Roger Calero, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) candidate, has never held an elected office. But he does have political experience. Calero is not a U.S. citizen, but in 2004 the Nicaraguan native ran for president, an office he could not constitutionally hold. He has worked as a writer and leader in the party for many years.
Van Auken’s party is small, with only six candidates running for national and state representative spots across the country. Van Auken is his party’s only candidate in New York. The SWP, on the other hand, has more than 20 candidates running in gubernatorial and national congressional races in six states. Though they are arguably more radical, they seem to have a much more established national support network.
When asked to explain the difference between the two parties, van Auken said he did not want to speak for the SWP. He defined his own platform. “We’re campaigning on the quest of social equality,” he said. “Equality in housing, education, jobs, and salaries.”
Maura DeLuca, chair of the New York Young Socialists, who calls herself “a garment worker” is the SWP gubernatorial candidate. The statewide SWP slate also includes Ben O’Shaughnessy for lieutenant governor, Martín Koppel for attorney general, and Willie Cotton for comptroller.
Both parties present themselves as the working class people’s alternative to what they consider the corrupt institutions of the Democratic and Republican parties. Both groups, along with the Green Party “Peace Slate” and several Libertarian candidates, advocated immediate withdrawal of America’s troops from Iraq. The SWP also supports immediate amnesty for illegal immigrants and nationalization of the health care and energy sectors.