THOUGHTS ON THE SEPTEMBER   12, 2006 PRIMARY ELECTION

The September 12, 2006 Democratic Primary was a masquerade carried out by the Democratic Party machine in collusion with the mass media.  The nominating and electoral processes were rigged so that no independent candidates who represented the people's interests could have a fair chance of getting elected.  The issues of paramount interest to minority communities were deliberately submerged (the Atlantic Yards development proposal, the war in Iraq, minimum wage, single-payer universal health care, repeal of the Bush tax cuts, the export of jobs, immigration, the impeachment of President Bush),and the machine candidates were careful not to call attention to them.

There was only one truly independent and progressive Black candidate running in the primaries who a had a chance to win -- Chris Owens in Brooklyn's 11th Congressional District.  He had three opponents, two Black and one white, who were backed by different factions of the corrupt Democratic Party machine:

The white candidate was David Yassky, an incumbent City Councilman representing a Councilmanic District adjacent to the 11th Congressional District.  Yassky was sponsored by both Democratic senior Senator from New York Charles Schumer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg as part of an ongoing bipartisan campaign to neutralize Black political power.  He was funded with well over a million dollars and had access to as much more as he needed. 

State Senator Carl Andrews, a close associate of Clarence Norman, the former Democratic Party boss of Brooklyn who was recently convicted of multiple felonies.  Andrews has always been a machine-owned political hack.  He spent over a million dollars on a lackluster campaign.  He was endorsed by all of the Black "progressive" political celebrities such as Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Herbert Daughtry, as well as by the machine Democrats led by Charles Rangel, Al Vann, David Patterson and David Dinkins.
Yvette Clarke, who, along with her mother, Una Clarke, has long been on Governor George Pataki's payroll, ran a million-dollar-plus campaign with the energetic backing of wanna-be Mayoralty candidate Anthony Weiner, the "progressive" unions led by Dennis Rivera's Local 1199, all of the local "progressive" Black incumbents headed by State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and City Councilwoman Letitia James, and the self-styled "progressive" organizations "Acorn" and "Working Families Party."

By contrast, Chris Owens, who was by far the best qualified candidate and the only truly progressive and independent politician in the race, was cynically abandoned by the entire "progressive" political establishment of New York City.  This corrupt gang of political opportunists repeated its craven betrayal of Fernando Ferrer's Mayoral campaign of a year earlier.

Owens, left to his devices, was still able to raise $380,000, which was enough to win a one-on-one contest against David Yassky.  However, against an array of three machine candidates who commanded a combined three million to four million dollars, he faced enormous odds.  Even so, he would have had a good chance to win if the Working Families Party had provided him with a second line to run on, and Local 1199 had backed him with its formidable campaign machinery.  Instead, the Working Families Party not only denied Owens their line to run on, as they had with Ferrer, but also refused even to endorse him.  The WFP remained formally "neutral," but let it be known informally that it would provide its line for Yvette Clarke to run on if she lost the Democratic primary.  For its part, Local 1199 threw the full weight of its campaign machinery behind Clarke.

Facing these impossible odds, Chris Owens nevertheless received about 10,000 votes out of the approximately 48,000 total.  Although he came in fourth, there was only a 5,000-vote gap between Yvette Clarke's winning total of 15,000 votes.  (David Yassky received 12,500 votes, and Carl Andrews received 11,000.)  Thus, if Owens had been able to take away just 1,500 votes from each of his opponents, he would have edged out Yvette Clarke by 14,500 votes to 13,500.

For me, the lesson is that for independent congressional candidates to win, they have to have an independent support base that can raise at least one million dollars in campaign funds, and can mobilize at least one thousand dedicated volunteer workers.  Such a truly independent campaign "machine" for 2008 can only be assembled if we begin organizing now on a city-wide basis with clearly defined goals.  I say, "Let's get on with it.!"