Who says political party names don’t matter anymore?
While no officials of note have been elected on the Toga Party ticket, in New York you can run for office on the name of any party you
want. One caveat: you need to get the
required petition signatures from eligible voters designating you, the name of
your party and its symbol. So it’s
easiest to make up your own party in a small community holding a local
election-- where you would only need a small number of signatures. Hundreds of New York villages hold their
elections this Tuesday—and in some of them, candidates shun major party labels
for homegrown partisan flair.
There is a super hot election in Nassau County's Freeport. Mayor Andrew Hardwick, a registered
Democrat who has controversially claimed support from President Obama, is in a tough battle for
re-election on his “Freeport First” line.
His fellow Trustee, Robert Kennedy, has accused him of being an autocrat
in a pitched campaign.
Kennedy’s party certainly aspires to big ideas—it’s called the
“Freeport Unity Home Rule Party" and has a Thomas Jefferson-quoting page on Facebook. I’m
not entirely sure who the party wants to declare independence from, but the
name was a welcome flash from the staid labels on many Long Island
municipalities. In Saddle Rock, the “Independent
Party of the Village of Saddle Rock” faces off against the “Saddle Rock Village
Party.”
A Head of the Harbor candidate on Long Island’s North Shore says he thought long and hard about the name of his party in the village's first contested election in a dozen years. Daniel White is running
for Mayor on the "Box Party" ticket in this Suffolk County community. He faces the "Village Party" candidate.
White told the Three Village Patch his party "encourages thinking about both in and out of symbolic political box" and "is an affectionate reference to the Box Wood plant that my great grand father planted at my family home."
That’s all too boring for Grandview-on-the-Hudson Mayor
Larry Lynn. Lynn told me he started his
optimistic “Life’s A Party” Party in 2001.
He said that in Grandview “by law or tradition” candidates do not run on
major party labels. He picked a musical
note as its symbol and has run on the party’s line every other year since,
including in this Tuesday’s election, where he is unopposed.
Village Clerk Julie Pagliaroli says in even-numbered
years, when two trustees run without the mayor's seat up for election, the
candidates run on the “Block Party” line.
Lynn says that party got its name because one of its candidates, Trustee
Joe Abrams, used to throw a big block party for the village.
The real musical party though is in Grandview’s neighbor,
South Nyack. Forget the Democrats and
Republicans. The endorsement you want there
is from the “Village People’s Party.” The
mayoral election is uncontested; there is a battle for the Trustee seats
though, with Cliff Weathers and Catherine McCue both endorsed by the Village
People. I guess YMCA can get a crowd
going at a village board meeting.
The South Nyack conversation has focused on the impact of
the new Tappan Zee Bridge, Governor
Cuomo’s fast-tracked infrastructure initiative.
The bridge lands there, connecting it to Westchester County on the other
side of the Hudson. Trustee Tom Neff, a
long-serving village leader, is fending off the newcomers’ challenge.
But Rockland’s Upper Nyack takes the party name cake. Jennifer Chaitin is challenging longtime Mayor
Mike Esmay in an energetic battle for the unpaid post in this high-end community. Chaitin is under the banner of the “Girls
Gone Green” Party, apparently named after the landscaping business she owns. She has a detailed platform on her website.
Esmay is running on the stately “Bell Tower Party” ticket, which is promoted in a frequently updated Facebook page. The party was formed in 1995 and takes it name from the bell tower on top of the Upper Nyack firehouse.
Esmay is running on the stately “Bell Tower Party” ticket, which is promoted in a frequently updated Facebook page. The party was formed in 1995 and takes it name from the bell tower on top of the Upper Nyack firehouse.
There are a number of Westchester elections with familiar
partisan divides. In Port Chester, a
diverse village with a growing Latino community, incumbent Democrat
Dennis Pilla faces off against Republican challenger Neil Pagano. The race has focused on the pace and scale of development, with accusations of campaigning at taxpayer expense. (Port Chester is the only
municipality in New York to offer early voting).
Tarrytown’s Mayor Drew Fixell , a Democrat, is running
unopposed, as his community also considers the impact of the new Tappan Zee
Bridge on it’s Hudson River shore. But there the major parties there all run under the banner of Tarrytown United.
Perhaps the waterfront community will get a local branch of the
Pirate Party, formed to reform patent laws.
The Pirates hope to avoid the fate of Delware’s “Blue Enigma Party” which faded
from view despite winning statewide ballot status. Rhode Island’s “Moderate Party” does not seem
to have excited anyone either.
Israeli politicians do innovate with their labels. In as display of egoism thought possible only
in New York, incoming Minister Tzipi Livni named her party in Parliamentary
elections this past January the “Tzipi Livni Party.” The poll tested “Yesh Atid” or “There is a
Future Party” won second place out of two dozen parties in its first election.
Maybe the way to rejuvenate our democracy is to throw out
our existing party names and come up with new ones. I can imagine the crowd a rally for the
Tupperware Party.
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