Progressive Democrat Issue 47: NYC FOCUS

It’s crunch time folks. The mayoral election is in full swing. Mike Bloomberg is the candidate solidly allied with Bush. He has donated $7 million to the Republican Party. That donation goes to support George Bush, Tom DeLay, Joe Barton and the whole corrupt crew. That donation goes to support torture, restrict human rights and make big bucks for Halliburton and Bechtel. That is the crowd Bloomberg hangs with. Not with you and me. In fact, he is so above us, he refused even to debate with Freddy Ferrer in Harlem.

Who does Freddy Ferrer hang with? Well, I for one was walking with him in Union Square and in Park Slope, Brooklyn. At Union Square I saw Howard Dean stand up and in no uncertain terms support Freddy Ferrer for mayor.

This is what Howard Dean has said about the NYC mayoral election:

"Our Democratic values are what make this country great, and right here in New York City is where we take our stand--Freddy Ferrer is the leader we need to take that first step in returning those values to New York City and beyond." --Democratic Party Chairman, Gov. Howard Dean

Ferrer also stood with Letitia James and Major Owens and Chris Owens in Brooklyn when Working Families Party endorsed Ferrer. Here is what WFP has to say in a recent email:

We [WFP] don't often ask our network of supporters to donate directly to a candidate. Usually, we want your money invested in the WFP directly, as that pays longer-term dividends in terms of building our capacity.

Not this time. This time, we urge you to directly back the WFP-endorsed candidate for Mayor, Fernando Ferrer. He needs and deserves your support.

The incumbent Mayor is spending what can only be described as an obscene amount of money. He could just about give every voter another $400 property tax rebate for the amount of cash he is putting into his re-election.

This is called buying an election. It mocks the democratic process. Elections should be about ideas and values and the ability to articulate a vision...

The key thing right now is to increase the number of medium and small donors to Ferrer. He gets matching funds from the city at the rate of 6-1, and even though he'll never have Bloomberg-style dough, he can get enough to get his message out.
We know the incumbent mayor has a bottomless checkbook, and you don't. But PLEASE - open it and send $50 or $100 or $250 to the Ferrer campaign.

Doing so sends a message that the electoral process is not for sale.

Progressive organizations New Democratic Majority (about 60% of membership for Ferrer) and Demcracy for NYC (about 80% of membership for Ferrer) have endorsed Ferrer. The Brooklyn reform clubs, Independent Neighborhood Democrats (IND) and Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats have come out for Ferrer. These groups are actively helping Ferrer. Freddy's Brooklyn field staff is staging out of the IND
clubhouse at 489 Court St. in Brooklyn. Pierre, the coordinator for
downtown Brooklyn plans to deploy people from IND clubhouse from 11:00
AM-2:00 PM on Sat. and 12:00-3:00 PM on Sun. Show up and help out!

Martha is coordinating DFNYC Ferrer volunteers and she
can be reached at mkenton ( at) dfnyc.org. She's one of us who is
making sure that our volunteers actually get utilized by the campaign.
Clearly she has been more effective than I have at getting the Ferrer
campaign calling her back! Going this route also helps DFNYC. If we
send MANY volunteers through this route, DFNYC will be known to be an
effective organization.

The NYC weblog onNYturf has compiled a partial list of local Ferrer campaign offices. Enter your address and find your closest office and give them a few hours of your time.

Show the nation that the word of Howard Dean and of progressive organizations translates to real volunteer hours from people like you. Show them that the Democrats are back and we are planning on taking back our nation.