WFP Gets Credit

In the post-election glow from Craig Johnson's, make that Senator Craig Johnson's, big win yesterday, the accolades are starting to come in. We went to the mat for Craig, canvassing for hours every day in freezing weather, pulling our organizing staff out of the rest of the state and putting them up in a Long Island hotel for 2 weeks to work on the race, and sending all our staff into the field for GOTV - which is why the Times -Union called us "one of Johnson's biggest supporters" - so the kind words are gratifying.

Here's what Newsday had to say the day after:

Winners:

DAN CANTOR (Working Families Party state chairman) The state party has made its mark as an influential political player, having given Johnson his spokesman in Alex Navarro, its ballot line and its support.

The Daily News's blog, 'Daily Politics,' agrees:

WINNERS

The Working Families Party made a clean break with Joe Bruno and the Senate Republicans after years of playing footsie in order to move specific legislative items forward (e.g. the minimum wage increase). As far as I can tell, the party more or less bailed out the Johnson operation, giving 75% of its staff over to the Johnson campaign for 3 weeks -- WFP supplied the campaign with 75 field canvassers, a hyperactive communications director, and support from party-linked unions, proving as always that there is no substitute for seasoned ground troops.

Aw, shucks. We were glad to do it!

Crains (no link) writes:

Winners

The Working Families Party, which broke with Senate Republicans, to endorse Johnson along with private-sector unions 32BJ, RWDSU, CWA and UFCW.

Over at Urban Elephants they're having a tough day, but they're facing facts:

Let me just say this. Check
Submitted by Scott Sala on Wed, 02/07/2007 - 10:07am.

Let me just say this. Check the WFP votes for Johnson. Their frontman ran Johnson's GOTV. I got no less than 10 emails from WFP. Yes, I subscribed long ago.

On the other end, I directly emailed O'Connell's campaign email address off an official email announcement to ask for anything UE could do to help - post GOTV times/dates, etc. I never got a response. I'm not a big street campaigner, but I know there are thousands of Republicans like me. We'll do it if - IF - persuaded. I wasn't in this race.

GOTV Makes and Breaks Campaigns
Submitted by Robert on Wed, 02/07/2007 - 10:45am.

Scott you make a great point. When it comes to get out the vote operations, dems leave no stone unturned, and especially neither does their radicalized alter-ego party the WFP. They will do whatever it takes to make sure their voters get to the polls. This is why they beat us almost every special election anywhere downstate.

Republicans, on the other hand, think it is enough to mail 20 pieces of mail and maybe send a few automated or live phone calls and that people will be motivated to vote. In zero degree weather, few people are naturally motivated to vote.

Heh

From Nassau GOP Watch:

Congrats to all the people on the ground that helped Criag win.

The Working Families Party really helped pull this off and the NYS blogs like the Albany Project lit a fire for this race.

And this from a diary at Daily Kos by Rusty5329:

Some may know that the Working Families Party (WFP) ran the vast majority of the field operations. WFP canvassers knocked on 45,000 doors over 28 days. The goal was to make sure that not a single voter in Nassau County would be able to forget about the election. Turnout, turnout, turnout. This whole race came down to turnout. Whoever could get the masses off their asses was going to win. So the Dem's called in the best canvassers in the state.

That's us.

The New York Times weighed in with an article over the weekend:

The Working Families Party, which helped run Mr. Johnson’s field operations, demonstrated skill and clout.

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