The Working Families Family

Edward-Isaac Dovere has run a series of articles at City Hall on the New York Working Families Party, a political party in New York that, with strong ties to unions and ACORN, helps progressive Democratic candidates win under New York's fusion-voting setup, which allows candidates to run on more than one party ticket at once. In the last installment, Dovere outlines the broader family--the network of Working Families-affiliated and -inspired parties and organizations in Missouri, South Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Delaware, and New Jersey, all with personal and/or monetary connections to the broader movement.

Turns out it's quite a family.
Is it an octopus-like network of influence and quasi-concealed connections, or an organic movement focused on the cause of progressive politics and the utility of a Democratically-aligned (yet separate) political party to advance those working-class liberal goals? It probably depends on your politics: connections sound more like conspiracy when one is opposed...but the contracting of party employees through Citizens Services, the progressive consulting firm that shares an address with ACORN and the New York Working Families Party in Brooklyn, does sound a bit like an extra layer of onion. If nothing else, the series is instructive in how a political movement can appear in different places at once, under different names, and how money can move around.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/12/the-working-families-family/31378/