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Vol. 77/No. 29      AUGUST 12, 2013

 
Thousands sign to put socialist candidates on New York ballot
(front page)
 
BY BERNIE SENTER  
NEW YORK — Dozens of volunteers fanned out across the five boroughs here, collecting more than 3,000 signatures in the first week’s effort to put the Socialist Workers Party candidates for city offices on the ballot — Dan Fein for mayor, John Studer for comptroller, and Deborah Liatos for public advocate. Campaign supporters are on a two-week drive to get 7,500 signatures, double the required number.

Miriam Canales, a retired teacher and longtime resident of the Dyckman Houses in the Inwood area of Upper Manhattan, has collected 60 signatures from friends and neighbors, and is working to get more. “I’ve called up my friends and told them about Dan Fein’s campaign. I say, ‘I want to talk to you about a candidate for mayor I’m supporting, from the Socialist Workers Party. I tell them he’s a factory worker, like us, and he knows the problems we’re facing. He doesn’t promise anything, except that he will fight with us.’ So people sign, and sometimes they go next door and ask their neighbor to sign too.

“Then I went over to the CVS pharmacy and signed up the clerk there that I know. And I signed up the sales girl in the Plum boutique and also the owner of the shoe store. I’ve lived here for over 40 years, so I know a lot of people in the neighborhood.”

“I haven’t been paid in two months,” Tammy Swan said as she signed the petition being circulated by Sara Lobman, SWP candidate for Manhattan borough president. “I keep calling and they tell me to be patient,” said Swan, who works for the city government as a child care worker. “I can’t be patient. This is my only income and I’ve already gotten two eviction notices.”

Mel Walker, owner of Finally Mel’s barbershop in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, plays a video interview with Dan Fein on the shop’s TV screen for customers to see. Eleven people signed Walker’s petition the first day.

During most of the petitioning drive, Fein is in Cairo, Egypt, part of a team of worker-correspondents for the Militant showing solidarity with the millions of Egyptian workers whose mobilizations toppled the unpopular government of Mohammed Morsi.

Twenty-three people signed up at a meeting here to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the July 26 assault on the Moncada army garrison in Santiago de Cuba led by Fidel Castro that opened the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and culminated in the Jan. 1, 1959, victory of the Cuban Revolution.

Supporters of the socialist campaign have set a meet-the-candidates event with a dinner, program and social open to the public on Saturday, Aug. 3. The event starts at 6 p.m. at the Manhattan campaign offices, 307 West 36th Street, 10th Floor.
 
 
Related articles:
Socialist Workers in Omaha respond to political break-in: Organize campaign to defend workers rights
US socialist candidates talk with fellow workers in Egypt
Help put the socialist candidates on the ballot in Des Moines
 
 
 
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