Newspaper Shows Obama Belonged to Socialist Party
By Aaron Klein
October 24, 2008
Something New Here
By Stanley Kurtz
October 20, 2008
What if McCain Had Been Palling Around with a Terrorist?
By Diana West
October 16, 2008
Obama, Joe the Plumber, and the Democratic Socialists of America
By Warren Throckmorton
October 16, 2008
Barack Obama's Campaign of the Lie
By Selwyn Duke
October 15, 2008
Obama's Three Strikes
By J.R. Dunn
October 13, 2008
The Stealth Candidate
By David Limbaugh
October 10, 2008
Why Ayers Matters
By Michael Reagan
October 9, 2008
Barack Obama, Socialist?
By Powerline
October 8, 2008
Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
By James Simpson
September 28, 2008
Obama's Red Roots
By Investor's Business Daily
June 17, 2008
Obama and the New Party
By Erick Erickson
June 10, 2008
Obama-file 5 Barack Obama Courted Chicago Marxists, Peace Activists
By Trevor Loudon
January 19, 2008
Obama-file 4 Obama Was Endorsed by Far Left "New Party"
By Trevor Loudon
January 18, 2008
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- Marxist political coalition
- Was active from 1992-1998
- Endorsed Barack Obama for Illinois state senate seat in 1996
Co-founded in 1992 by Daniel Cantor (a former staffer for Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign) and Joel Rogers (a sociology and law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), the New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials -- most often Democrats. The New Party’s short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist third party.
Most New Party members hailed from the Democratic Socialists of America and the militant organization ACORN. The party’s Chicago chapter also included a large contingent from the Committees of Correspondence, a Marxist coalition of former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA members.
The New Party's modus operandi included the political strategy of “electoral fusion,” where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth. By so doing, the New Party often was able to influence candidates' platforms. (Fusion of this type is permitted in seven states -- Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont -- but is common only in New York.)
Though Illinois was not one of the states that permitted electoral fusion, in 1995 Barack Obama nonetheless sought the New Party’s endorsement for his 1996 state senate run. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers. By 1996, Obama had become a member of the New Party.
In 1996, three of the four candidates endorsed by the New Party won their electoral primaries. The three victors included Barack Obama (in the 13th State Senate District), Danny Davis (in the 7th Congressional District), and Patricia Martin, who won the race for Judge in the 7th Subcircuit Court. All four candidates attended an April 11, 1996 New Party membership meeting to express their gratitude for the party’s support.
The New Party's various chapters similarly helped to elect dozens of other political candidates in a host of American cities.
One of the more notable New Party members was Carl Davidson, a Chicago-based Marxist who became a political supporter of Barack Obama in the mid-1990s.
In 1997 the New Party's influence declined precipitously after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that electoral fusion was not protected by the First Amendment's freedom of association clause. By 1998 the party was essentially defunct. Daniel Canto and other key party members went on to establish a new organization with similar ideals, the Working Families Party of New York.
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