The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 72/No. 33      August 25, 2008

 
(front page)
Socialist Workers win ballot
spot in six states, four to go
 
Militant//Jacquie Henderson
Louisiana Director of Elections Nancy Underwood (right) congratulates SWP electors Eloise Williams and Mike Howells with SWP vice presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy (center).

BY JACQUIE HENDERSON  
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana, August 12—The Socialist Workers Party became the first to place its presidential ticket on the November 4 ballot in Louisiana yesterday. The party is running Róger Calero for president and Alyson Kennedy for vice president.

The socialists are now certified for the ballot in Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Washington state. Completion of efforts to get on the ballot in Florida, New York, Minnesota, and Vermont are under way.

Kennedy filed here along with Eloise Williams and Mike Howells, from New Orleans, two of the party’s nine electors.

Following the filing, campaign supporters joined Kennedy, Williams, and Howells for a press conference on the capitol steps.

The Baton Rouge daily the Advocate covered the news conference. “Kennedy, a former coal miner, said the other candidates say they understand the hardships caused by rising gas and food prices,” the paper reported. It quoted Kennedy saying, “They don’t suffer the brunt like working class people do.”

Kennedy said that her trip to New Orleans made clear the urgency of the SWP’s proposal for a massive public works program to put people to work at union-scale wages to build homes, schools, hospitals, and public transportation.

“Mike Howells of New Orleans, one of the party’s electors, said he witnessed firsthand the bipartisan failure to address the most rudimentary needs after Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” reported the Advocate. “Republicans and Democrats only offer problems, not solutions,” Howells said. “They all let the people down.”

Williams, a civil rights activist and retired health-care worker, said, “Our schools and hospitals are closed. Housing is being demolished, not built. The politicians have done nothing for working people. This is why we are running our own candidates.”

Campaign supporter and oil worker Derrick Morrison said the Socialist Workers candidates are the only ones supporting immediate legalization for undocumented immigrant workers and the expansion of unions to protect wages and working conditions.

The Advocate article noted that the SWP supports the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all military troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. “We’re the only campaign saying that,” Kennedy said.
 

*****

BY ANDREA MORELL  
ALBANY, New York, August 13—Socialist Workers candidate for president Róger Calero filed nominating petitions yesterday containing some 30,000 signatures to place his name and that of Alyson Kennedy on the November 4 ballot. The SWP candidates were the first of the parties required to petition for ballot status to submit their completed petitions.

Today Martín Koppel, SWP candidate for Congress in the 15th District, submitted more than 7,000 signatures to the New York City Board of Elections to obtain a spot on the ballot.

The socialists filed the day after New York governor David Paterson made public a plan to slash the state’s budget this year by $1 billion, with the lion’s share of the cuts—more than $500 million—to come from Medicaid.

Calero said there should be no cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or workers compensation payments. The federal government should guarantee lifetime medical care and retirement pensions for all.  
 
 
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