My campaigns have brought me into classrooms and newsrooms, onto picket lines and protests and most importantly face-to-face with voters in New Jersey.


by Greg Pason

The Socialist, Issue 6, 2010 - Electoral action and political campaigns can be positive experiences for local and state organizations, when reasonable goals are set and the emphasis is on outreach and party-building. My experience as a candidate has been mostly positive and I think served the state organization well.

My first campaign as a Party member came in 1994. I was just laid off, and Andrea and I just had our son, Trevor. I was drafted as an independent candidate in New Jersey’s 9th congressional district by members of the Socialist Party and NJ Independents to run against Robert Torricelli, one of the prime supporters of the Cuban embargo. The major issue in that election was health care with the Republicans rallying around their “Contract with America.” I was an organizer for the Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN), a major single-payer healthcare organization in the US, gained support for my campaign from the Grey Panthers and got a major endorsement by the state-wide National Organization for Women. The campaign was an organizing success, I learned the basics of election law and the Party got a boost from the activity. We made new connections. I met and worked with Rev. Lucius Walker for the first time, had my first “sit down” with the Central Labor Council and found out a bit more about the “agreements” between the Democrats and Republicans in my state to divvy up congressional districts. We also had the chance to get Robert Torricelli so mad that he started to attack one of his campaign volunteers. They didn’t call him the “flame” for nothing.

I also got my first taste of “progressives” who sup¬ported the campaign, but just couldn’t vote for anyone but the Democrat (even one as bad as Torricelli). I got a lot of “I support you Greg but we can’t let the Republicans take the House” I think I got about 1.5% of the vote and Torricelli got 65%. The district, like many others, was gerrymandered for the Democrats and the Republican candidate had little support, even from his own party. Though Toricelli was certain to win, the progressive movement rallied behind what they argued was the lesser of two evils.

Since this initial effort, the Socialist Party of New Jersey has run many campaigns under the “Socialist Party USA” banner. We’ve contested state, local and federal campaigns with multiple candidates. From 1995 to 2009 I’ve run for Governor, Senate and Congress.

In 2000, we ran into a different sort of situation. The Nader campaign was happening and the Greens were organizing. Activists were convinced they could organize some sort of big tent of liberals and progressives in the Greens and any sort of campaign by Socialists was “counter productive.” But the Greens didn’t run a radical candidate for US Senate and our campaign picked up some Green support. David McReynolds was the presidential candidate for the SP that year and the Party got pretty good publicity until the Bush v Gore debacle in Florida. I think that set back what had been a growing third party movement for a few years.

In 2002, I once again contented for US Senate and once again we had some conflict with the Greens. Their candidate Ted Glick was the director of the IPPN. an organization, which, to this day, proclaims to support alternative parties. The Greens treated the Glick campaign as they treated the Nader campaign in 2000. Our campaign was seen as counterproductive, but even more so this time. They were convinced Glick could win. Glick did make some strides; he had a very moderate platform, so much so that at least one newspaper editorial board endorsed him. We were also in the odd situation where when we began the campaign the Democrat’s candidate was Robert Torricelli. When we ended the campaign the Democratic candidate was Frank Lautenberg (who just retired from the US Senate after 20 years).

The conflict with the Greens increased as Glick used his position in the IPPN to promote his campaign in their newsletter (an organization the SP, at that time, belonged to) while ours was omitted.

There were some major wins for us in the campaign. The Democrat’s replacement of Torricelli by Lautenberg was challenged by all the parties (other than the Democrats) and went to the US Supreme Court. I was personally listed as a plaintiff in that case and we have our information in the US Supreme Court records. We also took part in one of the major televised debates, with all the candidates. The debate was shown nationally on C-SPAN and covered in magazines like LIFE. Lautenberg won that election. We got about 3,000 votes and Glick got about 25,000. Both of us ended up hundreds of thousands of votes behind.

In this most recent election, I once again had the opportunity to campaign for the Socialist Party, this time against Democrat Jon Corzine and Republican Chris Christie. The media did not cover us as it had in the past, but participation in the campaign put us in touch with thousands of activists and gave us a seat in the anti-budget cut coalition “Take Back Trenton.” The Socialist Party is regularly contacted for radio or news interviews as the “Socialist” response to many issues and through campaigning and activism our state party is seen as a “player” in the political scene. My campaigns have brought me into classrooms and newsrooms, onto picket lines and protests and most importantly face-to-face with voters in New Jersey.

At our most recent Northern NJ Local meeting, we were greeted by a dozen local high school students representing the “Socialist Party USA” in a debate in their class. They were disappointed that we did not have congressional candidates in this election but took part in the discussion and I’m sure will represent us well in the debate. They were reassured that the Party will work to have a solid slate of candidates in the 2011 state-wide elections.

Socialist Party candidates are given the opportunity to represent a democratic socialist political movement. Too often we are lumped with Leninists or authoritarian regimes or ideas. Socialists are rarely given the opportunity to illustrate these important differences and to remind US voters of the long history of the Socialist Party in the United States. We should take advantage of those opportunities. Let’s run.



Please Donate to our Union Printer Drive!