Changing the face of New York Politics

I've heard many arguments for and against the NY rules on Third Parties. New York is a unique political entity in that:

its registered Conservatives are actually equal to the National Republican Party

its registered Liberals are supposedly the centrist New Yorkers and if you're really a "Leftist" you should be with the Working Families or Greenies.

its registered Republicans are a mix bag. Many are from the old "progressive" Teddy Roosevelt wing, many from the "good government" Rockefeller wing, and many joined the Party in the last twenty years because of Ronald Reagan.

its registered Democrats are also a very big mixed bag. In fact, there are so many different ideologies in the NY Democratic Party, the one thing that brings them together is the fact that Democrats frequently have Primaries and field candidates from the far left to the middle-right. If you live in NY, in order to participate on a yearly basis, joining the Democratic Party seems like the smart thing to do.

its registered Independences signed up with a make-shift pseudo-party of reform when they thought they were trying to tell the Board of Elections that that they want to be "independent" from political forces.

I am actually a supporter of Third Parties though I am not to pleased with how many of them run their current committees.

Four years ago, three big parties were knocked off the statewide ballot by not getting 50,000 votes for their gubernatorial candidate.

The Green Party (or is it this Green Party) gained ballot status when they backed Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) for Governor in 1998. By having statewide status, the Green Party was able to enroll more than 37,000 members. By not having statewide status, the registration cards for the past four years do not have a checkbox for the Party.

The Liberal Party really goofed when they cross-endorsed a candidate who dropped out of the Governor's race. The Liberal Party, led by Henry Stern, is hoping to return to the ballot next year. They have over 71,000 registered members so they should be able to get a volunteer staff together to petition for a ballot line. The Liberal Party reminds me a lot of the Rockefeller-wing of the Republican Party. Unfortunately, there are some issues of their platform which don't come off as "centrist." If they wish to distinguish themselves from Working Families, they need to moderate their platform.

The Right-to-Life Party became a strong party with ballot status from 1978 to 2002, but when they finally failed to get 50,000 votes, they got bumped off. When RTL was knocked off, it was a good time for the Conservative Party to try and coopt registered RTLs into their party. However, cross-endorsing George Pataki in 1998 and especially in 2002 may have made it hard for RTLs to consider joining the Conservative Party. Also, many RTLs are liberal democrats and even though the Democratic Party has outcast them, they cannot imagine joining the Conservative Party based on one issue that even the CP hasn't adhered to in recent years.

This year should prove interesting. Will the above three minor parties get ballot status again? Will one of the three minor parties that still do survive the 50,000 vote minimum? Will other third parties, the American Reform party or Libertarian Party get themselves organized to the point of finally getting on the NY ballot? We are months away from learning the end results.