Vote Democrat

I know the title to this post isn't all that surprising, but it is actually an important message. Over the last few weeks I have heard a lot of people saying that they were going to vote for the Working Families Party ("WFP"). For those of you who don't know, New York has a lot of different lines on the ballot. Besides Democrat and Republican there is also the Conservative party, the WFP, and the Independence Party. Typically, those parties endorse one of the major candidates. Thus, Eliot Spitzer is running on the Democratic line AND the WFP line.

The rationale of the people advocating for voting the WFP line is commendable. In a state as blue as New York voting the WFP line is seen as a good way to influence the party. Their thinking goes that by voting for a progressive party forces the Democratic candidate to the left. I am all for forcing the party to the left, I just wonder if this is the proper methodology.

The importance of voting or not voting for the WFP is that if the party gets a certain amount of votes they are guaranteed a spot on the ballot and do not have to participate in petitioning. For example, I believe that if the WFP gets 50,000 votes for governor, it guarantees that a WFP candidate will be on the ballot next election. That is all well and good if the WFP continues to endorse Eliot Spitzer. But, if the WFP decides it wants to run a WFP candidate and not endorse the Democratic nominee it creates the possibility of vote splitting on the left.

With Spitzer and Clinton ahead by so much, it is difficult for a lot of people to think of Republicans in New York as having any success. I merely wish to remind them that we just survived 11 years of Republican governance. Republicans can, and have, won elections in New York state. I am not willing to take the chance that I might be assisting them the next time around by creating a challenger on the left of the Democratic candidate.

So I went into the booth today and I voted for Eliot Spitzer, and I voted for Hillary Clinton, and I voted for Andre Cuomo, and I voted for Yvette Clarke. But more important than all of that...most important in our two party system...I went into that booth and I voted Democrat.