Vol. 72/No. 30      July 28, 2008

Militant/Eddie Beck

Luis Martínez (center) collects signatures in Harlem to place socialists on ballot. Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for vice president, is at left.

Campaigners have also collected more than 4,700 signatures to place Martín Koppel, the SWP candidate for Congress in the 15th District, on the ballot.

Campaigners have found wide interest in a working-class alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. They have distributed thousands of copies of the new color campaign brochure, in both English and Spanish. The brochure outlines the SWP campaign’s course of action for workers and farmers to defend themselves from the devastating consequences of capitalism’s deepening economic crises and wars.

Another big mobilization of campaign supporters takes place the weekend of July 26-27, when supporters are aiming to make their goal of 30,000 signatures for the presidential ticket and 7,000 for Koppel—doubling the state requirement, with petitioners hitting the street every day this week.

Over the July 19-20 weekend, one four-person team collected 637 signatures at a music festival at Coney Island. Another team signed up 606 people attending an All Colombia Day celebration in Queens. Thousands of signatures were collected in Harlem.

Alyson Kennedy joined a team of campaign supporters petitioning on 145th Street and Broadway in Harlem, the district where Koppel is running for Congress. Luis Martínez, who lives in the area, joined the effort. Martínez works in a garment shop with Maura DeLuca, the SWP candidate for Congress in the 16th District. He took Kennedy and DeLuca around the neighborhood to introduce them to workers he knew.

The socialist campaign created quite a debate among one group of workers playing dominos in a local park. Some said the petition is for “the communists” or “I’m for Obama” and would not sign. But others signed, including one worker who told everyone that “the working class has no homeland.”

On another block, they were introduced to Héctor Nina. He signed the petition and told them he had recently met Róger Calero at a meeting about Venezuela. After putting Calero/Kennedy campaign buttons on his shirt he took blank petitions and campaign brochures and said he would collect some signatures.

Campaigners also petitioned in the Buffalo and Albany areas of upstate New York. A full-time team in New York City of 15 to 18 campaign volunteers is bringing in an average of 1,300 signatures each weekday for the presidential ticket, and 600 a day for Koppel.

Some 85 people attended a rally here July 19 to celebrate the success of the ballot effort in its first week. Speakers included the SWP ticket in New York State: Calero and Kennedy and the four SWP candidates for Congress: Koppel, Ben Joyce in the 7th District, Dan Fein in the 10th District, and DeLuca. Participants donated more than $1,400 to the campaign.  
 
Certified for ballot
At the rally Fein reported that the socialists are already certified for the ballot in New Jersey, Delaware, Washington State, and Colorado. They will soon file for ballot status in Louisiana and Florida. Petitioning efforts in Iowa, Minnesota, and Vermont are slated to begin as soon as New York is completed.

Fein described some of the responses campaign supporters have received in New York City. “At 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, Gezel Rodríguez, a student, came over to the campaign table and said she wanted to get classmates to sign,” said Fein. “She took a petitioning board and returned with 31 signatures that day, and then took additional blank petitions, promising to return with more next week.”

In his remarks Calero pointed to the campaign’s central message of extending and using union power to defend working people in their fight for safety and dignity on the job. The SWP candidates fight for unionization and legalization for all immigrant workers, he emphasized.

Calero will be traveling next to join a July 27 demonstration in Postville, Iowa, against immigration raids and to bring his campaign to workers in meatpacking plants in Waterloo, Iowa, and Windom, Austin, Long Prairie, and South St. Paul, Minnesota. He will speak at campaign rallies in Des Moines, Iowa, and Minneapolis during this campaign swing. He will be campaigning soon also in Delaware where the party has recently been certified for the ballot.

Kennedy spoke about her recent participation and campaigning in the National Organization for Women (NOW) convention in Bethesda, Maryland (see story this page). “The attack on women’s rights has been a central part of the employer offensive,” she said. “We spoke to NOW members about extending and defending affirmative action programs and supporting a women’s right to choose abortion, as well as the importance of opposing the anti-immigrant raids taking place.”

Kennedy announced she will be campaigning next in Vermont, Iowa, and Louisiana.

“From Buffalo to Coney Island, our campaign has been receiving a great response as we present our program to working people,” stated Koppel. “The capitalist rulers claim that higher wages lead to inflation, but the fact is that real wages have been dropping for seven years in a row. Our campaign explains that when prices go up, wages should automatically rise. This is something we’ve gotten a big response to during petitioning.”  
 
For shorter workweek
Koppel said that to counter unemployment, legislation should be put in effect to shorten the workweek with no cut in pay. Millions more can be put to work at union-scale wages, he said, through a federally funded public works program to build and repair homes, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and public transportation.

Joyce pointed to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s visit to Afghanistan. Like McCain, Joyce said, Obama calls for sending thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The SWP campaign calls for withdrawing all U.S. and coalition troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the other countries where U.S. forces are stationed.

“Another construction worker died in Queens a few days ago, bringing to 20 the number killed on construction job sites in New York in 2008,” stated DeLuca. “Our campaign says no worker has to die and SWP candidates call for strengthening unions and using union power to effectively defend safety rights.”
 
 
Related articles:
SWP vice presidential candidate participates in NOW convention
 
 
 
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