“We’re asking supporters of the socialist campaign to join us in the streets, starting May 7, to put Angela Lariscy on the ballot for governor of New Jersey and Michael Ortega for state assembly in District 28,” said state SWP campaign director Ved Dookhun.

The socialist campaign in New Jersey plans to collect 1,600 signatures for Lariscy and 200 for Ortega—twice the required number. Lariscy, 40, is a garment worker and unionist. Ortega, 19, is a student and a Young Socialist.

“We’ve already found a good response to our stance on the importance of workers using union power to defend their interests, and to organize a union where we don’t have one,” Lariscy told the Militant. “It strikes a chord for a lot of workers who face the bosses’ assault on our wages, working hours, pace of work, safety conditions, and social gains.” She added that fighting workers can also understand more readily the need to organize independently from the bosses’ parties, and ultimately “to take political power out of the hands of the ruling capitalists and establish a government of workers and farmers.”

“A lot of working people also appreciate the fact that our campaign starts with the common interests of working people around the world,” the socialist gubernatorial candidate noted. This stands in contrast, she said, with the “we Americans” pro-imperialist stance of all the big-business candidates, from Sen. Jon Corzine, the liberal Democratic front-runner and former Wall Street executive, to the various Republican contenders.

“The ballot drive kicks off Saturday, May 7, at the Socialist Workers campaign hall in Newark, with a breakfast for the petitioners at 10:30 a.m., orienting the teams at 11:00 a.m., and then a full day of petitioning,” Dookhun reported. “We’ll end with a barbeque at 6:30 p.m. On Sunday, teams will start at noon for another big day of signature-gathering and leafleting—from working-class districts in Newark to the Cinco de Mayo celebration in Passaic.” Teams will also go out on weekdays, including an all-day team, he added.

Lariscy said Young Socialists and other campaign supporters have maintained a regular presence at the Rutgers University campuses in both Newark and New Brunswick. They have also been campaigning in Morristown, where immigrant day laborers are fighting against harassment by cops and capitalist politicians. Several workers involved in that fight have expressed interest in the platform of the socialist campaign.  
 
Boston petitioning campaign
In Boston, supporters of the Socialist Workers Party slate—Margaret Trowe for mayor and Laura Garza for city council at-large—will be fanning out throughout the city to put Garza on the ballot. They plan to collect 1,000 signatures, double the requirement, as they campaign in workers districts from East Boston, where the campaign hall is located, to Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and South Boston.

“Our campaign calls on the union movement to oppose the recent arrests of Brazilian-born and other airport workers in Boston by the immigration cops,” Garza said.

The Boston campaign will focus on three Saturdays and two weekday efforts of petitioning, with a big push on Saturday, May 14, when campaigners will cap a day of petitioning with a meet-the-candidates barbecue.

On April 23 Garza spoke on a panel during a teach-in at Roxbury Community College, called to oppose the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

Most speakers on the panel presented a radical or liberal perspective, attributing the Iraq war and occupation to the Bush administration. In contrast, Garza explained why the U.S. ruling class is impelled by the economic decline of its system to transform its armed forces to be able to fight one imperialist war after another all over the world. She pointed to the working-class struggles and broader mood of resistance in the United States today, and why this points to the potential power and capacity of workers and farmers in this country to take on the ruling rich and win.

Two students participating in the teach-in were particularly interested in the perspective presented by the socialist candidates and signed up to help campaign for them.
 
 
Related articles:
2005 Socialist Workers Party election campaigns
Vote Communist League in UK!  
 
 
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