As this issue went to press, campaigners in New York had collected just under 28,000 signatures to put the SWP slate of Róger Calero for president and Arrin Hawkins for vice-president of the United States, and Martín Koppel for U.S. Senate, on the New York state ballot. At this rate, Sandler said, campaigners will have collected about 29,000 signatures when the drive is completed July 22 after 13 days of petitioning.

Socialist Workers campaigners in New York are now building on this success by expanding soap-boxing in the streets and other campaign activities, including book and pamphlet sales and speaking engagements for the party’s candidates. During the July 24-25 weekend, for example, SWP campaigners will be leafleting and getting some additional signatures at the Harlem Book Fair. They will also be doing the same at a Saturday night event sponsored by a coalition of groups in the city to celebrate 51st anniversary of the July 26, 1953, assault on the Moncada barracks, the opening act of the revolutionary war that led to the triumph of the Cuban Revolution half a decade later (see calendar on page 11).

“We are now in a position to put the SWP ticket on the ballot in 15 states and the District of Columbia,” Sandler told the enthusiastic crowd of more than 80 campaign supporters packed into the New York campaign center. In each of these states, petitioning will be the launching pad for effective campaigning through the November elections, he added.

“By Friday, July 23, we will begin petitioning in Washington, D.C., to collect some 5,000 signatures to put the party on the ballot there,” Sandler said. “We will launch an effort the same weekend to put the party on the ballot in the three Midwestern states besides Iowa where the resistance in the meatpacking plants has been the greatest: Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.” The SWP ballot drive in Iowa was completed in late June.

Most people at the rally had campaigned that day on the streets of New York City’s five boroughs, as well as Hempstead, Long Island, and Yonkers in Westchester County, passing out thousands of campaign flyers and getting petitions signed for the SWP candidates.

The success in New York rested also on the mobilization of party members, supporters, and Young Socialists across the state—from Buffalo to Lackawanna, Albany, and Binghamton.

At the July 17 rally, campaign supporters contributed $1,100 to pay for the printing of petitions, tens of thousands of flyers with the campaign platform, and other expenses for the New York ballot drive.

A team also stepped forward to help with the paperwork necessary to prepare the petitions to be filed with the state, making it possible to maximize the number of campaigners on the streets.

Sandler pointed out that the number of successes the SWP cadre, party supporters, and Young Socialists have had over the last six months is a sign of the bubbling working-class resistance to the bosses’ offensive and the increased integration of the socialists in the working-class vanguard, and of the effectiveness of the party.

These gains, Sandler said, include a genuine worldwide campaign, anchored by several generations of SWP members, to finish on time and within budget the construction of the new party headquarters in New York early this year; the doubling of the subscription base of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial this spring and simultaneously selling quantities unprecedented in recent years of Pathfinder books and pamphlets in the process of building the April 25 women’s rights march; and holding the SWP convention in June with the largest and most attentive participation since the turn of the new millennium. The success of the ballot drive in New York, and its implications nationwide, are part of this picture, Sandler said.

“This is how we learn and relearn what it means to be a campaign party,” Sandler told the rally. He invited participants to actively back the ballot drives beyond New York and thanked the army of petitioners who have given the SWP campaign great momentum.  
 
Undemocratic ballot requirements
To get on the ballot, socialist campaigners have to overcome a host of undemocratic restrictions. Requirements in many states to collect tens of thousands of signatures, pay fees, and meet special distribution requirements are designed to keep working-class parties off the ballot so the two-party system of the parties of capitalism—the Democrats and Republicans—remains unchallenged.

State authorities have so far certified the SWP slate for the ballot in three states: Colorado, New Jersey, and Washington State. SWP supporters have also filed petitions seeking ballot status, or are about to do so, in Iowa, Mississippi, Utah, and Vermont.

In addition to New York and the states where ballot drives are being launched now, campaigners in Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee are also signing up electors to place the SWP slate on the ballot in those states.

A by-product of the work to get the signatures needed to be on the ballot is the visibility the socialist campaign gets as thousands of leaflets, copies of the campaign newspaper, and pamphlets get into the hands of those who are interested in the campaign. The pace and scope of the effort in New York has had a noticeable impact in this regard.

“I was petitioning yesterday at Broadway and Flushing in Brooklyn,” said SWP vice-presidential candidate Arrin Hawkins, in her remarks at the July 17 rally. “A young guy came up and said, ‘I can’t sign that. I already signed for you in Harlem last week. Then I saw your people at Union Square yesterday.’”  
 
Support for unions gets hearing
“Hey, what’s that all about?” shouted a sanitation worker driving a garbage truck to Karl Butts, an SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in the 11th Congressional District in Tampa, Florida, who came to New York like other socialist candidates to help out the party campaign here. Butts was handing out flyers near a campaign table on 8th Avenue and 35th Street in Manhattan’s Garment District. Butts explained that the socialist campaign supported workers’ right to organize unions and called for the defense of the labor movement from attacks by the bosses and the government. “Talk to the guy at the back of the truck, too,” the driver told Butts after taking a leaflet. The worker riding at the back was very interested in the campaign. “Our contract has expired and the city refuses to negotiate,” he said. The worker got so absorbed in the conversation that the truck was more than a block away before he realized it. He grabbed the leaflet and ran to catch up.

The same day, a half-dozen workers from the New Yorker Hotel lined up to sign petitions in the Garment District, after another campaigner explained the socialist candidate’s uncompromising stance in defense of the right to organize unions. They described some of the conditions they face and the need for stronger unions.

“That’s for me, I’m a worker,” said a woman who signed a petition outside the ShopRite in Yonkers, after hearing what the socialist campaign was about. “How they abuse us where I work! The bosses are always accusing workers of things they didn’t do. We need a union.”

In Buffalo, a city in western New York, around a dozen people hit the streets to put the socialists on the ballot the second and third weekends of July, getting a very warm response and bringing in more than 1,800 signatures.

The Buffalo police seemed to have a special dislike for the socialist campaign, shutting down petitioning tables at most of the corners downtown during the day July 17. In response, the team devised a creative signature-gathering method they called “drive-by petitioning.” Driving to the city’s parks and through working-class neighborhoods, they stopped and collected signatures from picnickers, families sitting on their stoops, and others along the streets. Through this method they met their goal for the day.  
 
Greens, Democrats, and tycoons
The socialists weren’t the only ones collecting signatures for their candidates on the streets of New York, but the message of the SWP campaign distinguished it from all the rest.

A young man petitioning to get Abraham Hirschfeld, a real estate tycoon, on the ballot for U.S. Senate, bumped into the SWP vice-presidential candidate Arrin Hawkins in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “How many signatures do you have?” he asked her.

When Hawkins replied that she had 80 signatures about two-thirds of the way through the day, the young man seemed shocked. “We usually get between 30 and 40 the whole day,” he said. “This guy [Hirschfeld] just sold some property in Florida for $50 million and he owns hundreds of parking lots. He pays us $10 an hour to collect signatures. How much do you get paid?” When Hawkins replied that all the socialist petitioners were volunteers, the young man said he was impressed. He then signed to put the socialists on the ballot.

Ruth Robinett spent the day before the July 17 rally campaigning in Union Square. “Some wouldn’t sign, telling me ‘we’ve got to get Bush out,’ but overall the socialist campaign stood out and attracted people to it,” she said.

“I bumped into two young members of the International Socialist Organization who were petitioning for Ralph Nader at Union Square,” reported Martín Koppel, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate in his remarks at the July 17 rally. “They were very defensive, almost apologetic, when we noted that Nader is telling his supporters that in tight races, they should ‘vote their conscience,’ that is, vote for Kerry. I asked them to sign our petition and they did. They didn’t ask me to sign theirs.

“At another spot there were people registering voters at a table with a sign that said ‘Beat Bush,’” Koppel reported. “We’ve seen a lot of people on the streets hustling votes for the Democrats. But a lot of them are not campaigning for Kerry. They’re campaigning against Bush…. Kerry’s campaign doesn’t have much appeal. He’s having a hard time distinguishing his campaign from the policies of the White House. One of his main themes is criticizing the Bush administration’s war policies. But Kerry and other Democrats supported the imperialist invasion of Iraq and the U.S.-led occupation.

“We stand out,” Koppel added, “We say, ‘It’s not who you’re against, it’s what you’re for; Vote Socialist Workers in 2004,’” referring to the slogan on the banner that hung behind the speakers platform. “The socialist campaign is against many things: we’re opposed to the death penalty; we’re against imperialist oppression and exploitation. But we’re not simply against capitalism, which is true of many currents in bourgeois politics, left and right. Above all, we are for working people taking power out of the hands of the capitalist rulers, establishing a workers and farmers government, and joining the worldwide fight for socialism.”  
 
A campaign party
“For me, my first opportunity to campaign like this was this past April, at the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C.,” said Millie Sánchez, the SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in New York’s 8th C.D., speaking at the July 17 rally. Sánchez, who is also a member of the Young Socialists, was referring to the massive march to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion on April 25. “We sold hundreds of books and pamphlets as we worked over the months leading up to the march to make sure the largest number turned out.”

“This is what we are doing with this campaign. Many Young Socialists are joining in this effort,” said Sánchez. “I am not the only Young Socialist who is running as a candidate for the Socialist Workers Party in this election.” She pointed to Chris Barkanik, a Young Socialist from Hazelton, Pennsylvania, who is running for state assembly and Nicole Sarmiento from Miami, who is running for U.S. Senate in Florida on the SWP ticket.

Sánchez reported that at least four Young Socialists at the meeting—Ryan Scott, Bill Schmitt, Alex Alvarado, and Julian Santana—would be hitting the road to lend a hand to the SWP campaigns elsewhere. More volunteers are needed, she said.

For information on how to help, contact SWP campaigners nearest you (see directory on page 8) or the national center of the Socialist Workers Campaign at P.O. Box 380846, Miami, FL 33138; tel: (305) 756-4436; e-mail: miamiswp@bellsouth.net
 
 
Related articles:
SWP campaign appeals for funds  
 
 
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