We won! The IDC is dead. For the past year, we’ve been campaigning intensively against New York’s turncoat “Democratic” faction that spent the last 7 years giving power to the GOP in the state Senate. And this week they folded and rejoined the Democratic caucus. Not 3 months into my campaign in Senate District 53, and I’ve already scored a major victory. But I’m not done yet, and neither are the 6 other anti-IDC candidates.
It turns out that once people started realizing what they were doing, the IDC’s perfidy couldn’t stand up to the scrutiny. Credit goes to True Blue NY and No IDC NY for getting the word out, and for supporting primary challengers like me. And once the IDC members realized we were serious about running primary campaigns against them, they couldn’t take the heat, because they know they have precious few achievements to run on.
Jeff Klein, erstwhile leader of the IDC, said he hoped that their move to rejoin the Dems would cause our campaigns to “dissipate.” But we’re going stronger than ever. It wasn’t really the IDC I was running against, but the cynicism that would lead a politician to think he could run as one thing at home in the district and serve as something completely different in Albany. To think he could say he supported all the Democratic priorities — election reform, ethics reform, immigrant rights, reproductive rights, criminal justice reform, etc. — and then make sure they never came up for a vote. That cynicism hasn’t gone anywhere. This deal is a transparent effort to undercut primary challenges and avoid having to defend the indefensible IDC record.
BUT — and it’s a big BUT — this deal does make it much harder for us to run. The state Democratic Party and the Senate Democrats are now obligated to support IDC candidates, not their challengers. We are running a lean primary that depends on grassroots, volunteer efforts, lots of phoning and door-knocking, no expensive polls or TV advertising, and we can win. But we still need money to do it. Please support my campaign. Thank you!