The Hatch-et Man

"As New Yorkers' ire over the Bush agenda rises, the Working Families Party is upping the ante against the president's friends in Congress with a fresh game plan for the midterm elections."

That's the lede from a nice interview with the WFP's latest and greatest helping hand, Peter Hatch, over at VillageVoice.com. Here's a highlight:

[Q] If I were a Democratic candidate in a tight congressional race, why would I going to seek out the Working Families Party's endorsement over another third party's?

[A] Low-income voters, working families, middle-class voters all share a core set of values, and those, for example, could be an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. These values have just been trashed by this Republican Congress. Other parties have sometimes narrow agendas; other parties sometimes more broad agendas, which can include hot-button social issues, but this is what we focus on - these pocketbook issues that really, really matter to voters.

And here's the WFP press release announcing Peter's role:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 23, 2006

WFP HIRES PETER HATCH TO LEAD HOUSE CAMPAIGN EFFORT
Operative Will Be "Director of Congressional Repo Operations"

The Working Families Party (WFP) has hired Peter Hatch to head up its congressional campaign efforts. The WFP has added a campaign to help take back Republican congressional seats to its 2006 priority electoral agenda. Hatch, an experienced operative, will hold the title of Director of Congressional Repo Operations.

"The Working Families Party has been instrumental in the last two congressional takeaways in New York State," said Hatch. "Votes on the WFP line provided the margin of victory for Tim Bishop (D/WFP-Suffolk County) in 2002 and Brian Higgins (D/WFP-Western NY). The mission of our Repo Operations program is to do that again, two or three times over in 2006."

"I'll be guiding a significant operation to move independent voters to vote for Democratic/WFP candidates in the most competitive House districts in the state, and collecting the resources to support that effort," said Hatch.

WFP State Co-Chair Bob Master said winning congressional seats in November has become a co-equal priority with the party's other fall goals: collecting 200,000 votes on its line for Eliot Spitzer and defending State Senator Dave Valesky’s seat (D/WFP-Central NY). "This November may be the moment when New York becomes the battleground for taking back our country, a moment for us to draw a line in the sand that protects working families from a final two years of Republican rule," said Master.

Hatch's resume includes work for John Edwards (NH, NY), Kerry-Edwards (FL), New York City Councilman Bill de Blasio, and Mark Green '01 (NYC Mayoral).

And as an activist, he has raised money to help progressive groups like Downtown for Democracy and Americans Coming Together (ACT).

The Working Families Party is a grassroots, community and labor based political party. The goal of the party is to make elected officials focus more on issues like jobs, health care and education that affect low-income, working and middle class voters who work hard to make ends meet.

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Update: If you want to interview Peter (bloggers welcome) contact Steve and he'll be in touch as we move forward.

Technorati tags: 2006 Election | Take Back the House | Vote Row E