Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Free at last


I was surprised to hear about this new political party, the Freedom Party, in today's Buffalo News. Fed up with the Democrats and Republicans', this new group feels that both major parties have taken minority groups for granted...

Eva M. Doyle, a retired Buffalo Public Schools teacher who has emerged as the party's candidate for lieutenant governor, says the party aims to put the state's entire political structure on notice.

"If I listen to both candidates, I'm not hearing them address any issues pertaining to the working class, poor people or urban communities," she said Monday. "That's why I'm running for lieutenant governor."

The Freedom Party qualified for the statewide ballot in August when it submitted 45,300 petition signatures for its formation, while only 15,000 were required.

Getting three times the required signatures is pretty impressive. It will be interesting to see if this group can catch lightning in a bottle or just become one of the many other fringe groups (see the Green Party) that have no real affect on anything. I can't disagree with their premise. Both major parties promise everyone the world and then take care of the special interest groups (the guys with the money).

"The idea behind [the Freedom Party] was the time of being ignored is over. When Cuomo picked his group, he totally ignored blacks," Kirkland said. "But Paladino has sort of changed things in that Cuomo thought it would be a cake walk to [Albany], and he didn't need the black vote. Now that Paladino is closing that gap and came out of nowhere, every black vote Cuomo gets, he needs."

While the party is beginning to gain more notice, the Cuomo camp is dismissing Barron and his ticket as "extremists."

If they can get a small percentage of the vote in November, this could only hurt Andrew Cuomo and help Paladino. It will be something to watch out for.


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