"Third Party Politics in New York"
Raymond B. Harding

October 28, 1998

The Public Issues Forum
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
Taub Urban Research Center
New York University

Thank you for the nice introduction, Marty. But it was incomplete … since Commissioner Stern is here, I have to say my Parks Department name is "Gorilla." So… greetings. Because Henry is so imaginative, he gave Liz Harding, my wife, the name "Primate." Get it? "Prime Mate."

I repeat what Marty Begun said… so many distinguished people, and so many knowledgeable people, so when I saw who was in the audience, I said to myself: "Who am I to cover some basics?" With people here like Fred Ohrenstein, Richard Kahan, etc. They know it better than I. But then I was told that there are some students here also. So bear with me while I do a little thumb-nail sketch of third parties, and the Liberal Party, and then we'll get into some details.

Everybody assumes that this republic is a two-party nation: the Democrat and Republican national parties, which are not national parties at all. They're an amalgam that come to the fore quadrennially as a national party, but actually there are 50 state parties of one party, and 50 state parties of the other party. But throughout the last century, and in the early part of this century, especially in the western part of the country, there have been sporadic third parties which came to life, existed for awhile, and then expired, each rising to life and then dying around a particular issue. And when the issue became no longer relevant, these parties expired. But here in New York, we have a public policy which is reflected in the laws of the State, particularly in the election law of the State, which nurtures and protects the existence of third parties. Some people say: "A curse on all third parities: They interfere with the political aims and aspirations of the major parties." Others says that historically the existence of third parties in the State has been beneficial to the people of the State.

In 1936, there was organized in the State of New York a third party - the American Labor Party - which by 1943 became the object of a Communist takeover. Certain leaders of the ALP in objecting to that, and in protest to the Communist takeover of that party, staged a walk-out. And in 1944, they were sought out by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was on the verge of running for a fourth term. Roosevelt called them to the White House, asked them and encouraged them to form a new party in the State of New York - people like Alex Rose, David Dubinsky - and they did. So the Liberal Party formed in 1944, now 54 years later is the oldest and I like to say the most enduring third party in the history of the nation.

There is an example in the State of Minnesota of a third party which actually might be judged as the most successful third party in the history of the country. And that is the Farmer Labor Party of Minnesota. A person who was instrumental in the formation of the party was Hubert Humphrey. And the reason I say it may well be the most successful third party ever, is that in due course that third party enveloped the Minnesota State Democratic Party. And after that occurred it changed its name to the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. Those are my secret aims, you see. But I wouldn't change the name…

How do you judge a party? One way is the fruits of its labors in terms of the candidates it projects. I'll describe quickly candidates of the Liberal Party at three levels.

First of all, at the national level. Since its formation, in each and every instance except for one, the candidates of the Liberal Party for President were those individuals who had already garnered the Democratic Party's nomination for President. The one exception was in 1980 when Jimmy Carter, whom the Liberal Party had as its nominee when he was first elected in '76, sought reelection in the midst of double-digit interest rates, double-digit inflation, and in our judgment a failing and failed foreign policy, a weak foreign policy. So that we rejected his bid for our nomination, and instead, for the only time in our history, did a third party independent candidacy for President, namely John Anderson.

With respect to State office, we've always done successfully, when we did it, Democrats for Governor. What I want to say with respect to that, namely, the successful candidacies of Averell Harriman in '54, Hugh Carey in '74, Mario Cuomo in '82. It's not just that the Liberal Party supported them. But it's that the Liberal Party was in many ways the architect of their victories. Because in each and every instance - either due to the political sagacity of the leadership of the Liberal Party, or to the pressure exerted by the election law calendar - in each of those instances, the Liberal Party had to do its thing under that year's political calendar, months prior to the holding of the primaries in the Democratic Party. By way of example, I'll tell you a story that occurred in 1974, when the then-leader of the Liberal Party - Alex Rose - made a judgment that in the gubernatorial primary - the Democratic Primary - a contest between Howard Samuels and Hugh Carey, that the Liberal Party would secretly - non-publicly - support Hugh Carey. And publicly, the Party nominated its own candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor. A fellow by the name of Edward A. Morrison, who had been a Deputy Mayor under Mayor Lindsay was nominated the Party's candidate for Governor, and I was the Liberal Party's candidate for Lt. Governor. But the truth was that starting in February of the Year 1974, there was no evening, no evening at all, without any exception, that when Hugh Carey was in the City of New York campaigning, that he didn't wind up at Cabrini Boulevard, visiting the home of Alex Rose. So I can't think of a single situation in the history of the Liberal Party - maybe with one exception - that the Liberal Party or its leadership was more the architect of an outcome that publicly is reflected as the outcome of the Democratic Primary.

On the city side, meaning New York City, historically the Liberal Party's political activities-while its enrollment has evolved into a third in the city, a third in the suburbs, a third upstate-the center of gravity of the Party's political operations have always been in New York City, and the Party has always considered the mayoralty of New York City as an important office in its political operations. So that what you should know, and I'm willing to bet that maybe Henry Stern is the only person who knows the following that others of you may not know - with the exception of the Rubins, of course - is that if you go back to Day One of the ALP in 1936 and then its successor party - the Liberal Party, you will see that with respect to the mayoralty here, Liberal Party nominees have been more often Republicans and Independents than they have been Democrats.

Now when I hear stories, or I hear remarks, or I read stories: How could the Liberal Party do Giuliani? It has this umbilical cord-historical tie to the Democratic Party and Alex Rose would be turning in his grave. Sheerist nonsense… said by people who don't understand history, don't understand root causes of political action, and misrepresent the facts. The facts are that until some years ago, when you had a general diminution of party power across the board - whatever party - and the rise of the Age of Television, the Democratic nominees for the mayoralty of New York City were the products of the five county regular Democratic organizations, products which the Liberal Party invariably opposed. So, the candidacies of Fiorello LaGuardia, fusion candidacy: Liberal Party. John Lindsay: Liberal Party. Bob Wagner, part of that three terms: Liberal Party. Rudy Giuliani: Liberal Party. With an asterisk next to Wagner's name, all these candidates and office holders I just mentioned, were the opposite in polarity of the product of Democratic machine county leader selection process, typified let's say by a person like Bill O'Dweyer. Historically, we have always opposed candidacies like that.

What's the role of a third party? The role of a third party is to lead the way. If a third party lacks the courage, lacks the wisdom, lacks the political experience and sagacity to lead the way, it's not fulfilling its proper role. You either lead the way in the formation of successful coalitions that result in winning candidacies, or during other periods, when you're not able to be successful at election, you push and prod the successful candidates of the major parties. But if you are in a reactive mode, let the Democrats do their thing first. And then the detractors whom I quoted earlier say: "Then the Liberal Party should join in." That's not the role of a third party. The role of third party is to be a leader, is to be an architect. If membership in a third party didn't allow for that, I wouldn't be in the Liberal Party. I consider myself - pardon me for saying this, because you might think I have an ego and nothing could be farther from the truth - if it weren't for that I'd be in the Democratic Party. After all, I agree with the Democratic Party national philosophy more than with Republicans. For all I know, I might have wound up as the leader of the Democratic Party. I don't know. I went to CCNY. I took ROTC there. There was a fellow who was with me in ROTC: Colin Powell. If he had played his cards right, he might have become the head of the Liberal Party.

So "lead the way" is one historical function of a third party. The other is… You say: "Lead the way towards what?" What litmus test do you use in candidate selection? Well, identifying the problems. What are the problems facing the State? What are the problems facing the City. Who's out there that you can encourage to run? Who's out there that you can form a coalition around, and make it a winning and successful candidacy, who can address and solve these problems? I'm not paranoid about my relationship and the Party's relationship with Rudy Giuliani. I'm happy with it. What I react to in a negative way is when people say - let's say, in the number of comments by David Dinkins - "How could the Liberal Party have nominated Rudy Giuliani?" To which I say: "What sane New Yorker would trade Giuliani's first term for a Dinkins' second term?"

Which is to say this… I'm still at the stage now of: "You want to lead the way, but towards where, to do what? It's to solve a problem. Take a look at what was going on at the end of Koch's third term, when he sought reelection for a fourth term. His third term, starting 9 days or 10 days after his inauguration, he was inaugurated for his third term, January 1, 1986, 9 or 10 days later was the occurrence of Donald Mannes' first unsuccessful attempt at suicide. Starting with that date, for the rest of Koch's third term, that period was marked by the revelations of the greatest scandals in the City's history. At the same time, leaders of the Liberal Party made a judgment that there was occurring a gradual breakdown of the societal compact governing the conduct of New Yorkers. So between mounting evidence of huge scandals and this assessment out there in the streets of the condition of the City, important leaders of the Party came to the conclusion that a historical dynamic was at hand, which occurs in New York City with regularity, every 20 or 24 years, that the hegemony occasioned by the Democratic Party's 5-to-1 enrollment advantage, the hegemony or strangle-hold of that Party's control of City Hall, every 20 or 24 years can be successfully challenged to bring in something new, to bring in a period of reform. We thought that time was at hand in the Fall of '88, in early '89, and that explains the Party's linkage to Rudy Giuliani.

I wanted to talk about three specific situations so as to give, by way of example, actions of the Party that maybe summarize what I have said thus far. With respect to one of these, I already did, which is the situation: "How did Hugh Carey become Governor?" The only thing I left out was an interesting vignette which has become part of Liberal Party lore, having to do with our great prescient prior leader, Alex Rose. After Carey beat Governor Wilson, and was elected Governor in November of '74, and it became known that Rose was working with Carey ever since February, they said to him - we said to him, some of us didn't know that - how did you decide to go with Hugh Carey. So he gave an example like this, he said: "In February, we had a poll taken in New York County, in Manhattan, Samuels-Carey, and the result came back: Samuels 39%-Carey 6%. From this I knew it would be Carey." So we said: "How did you know that? Samuels 39-Carey 6. How did you know it would be Carey?" So Rose said: "Simple. At that time, New York County was the bastion of Howard Samuels' strength. If in the top county of the 62 counties, all he gets is 39%, then he is a loser." So I learned something from Mr. Rose.

I'll tell you a story about How and Why Rudy Giuliani. In the fall of '88, I always have either drinks or lunches with Roy Goodman at the Harvard Club, the reason being - you remember I told you I went to City College? So when I go with him to the Harvard Club, I always make the offer: "No, it's my turn to pay…" In any event, so he and I were talking in the summer… drifting into conversations like: "Is the time at hand to do a fusion candidacy for the next year mayoralty in '89." And that's the genesis of what subsequently occurred.

The next thing I knew is that Tony Calavita (who I knew as the head of the Republican Party in Westchester, but he may have been at the time the head of the State party) asked the leaders of three parties - the City's Republican Party, the City's Conservative Party, and the City's Liberal Party - if these leaders would meet. So there was a meeting at the Sheraton Center and the idea was that the three parties would join in a fusion candidacy. Now, when we first met there, I was already then a proponent of Giuliani for Mayor, because by then I had already issued a public call for him to resign as U.S. Attorney, and I didn't know him. So I placed two calls to that office, but he had his assistant, Dennison Young, return the calls, each time returning the calls after 6 p.m. And Denny Young would say: "I'm calling you after 6 p.m. because this is the end of the business day…" Or whatever… typical Denny Young type of stuff. I had never spoken to Giuliani, but I had already said this man should resign and run for mayor. So there were these three party leaders meetings at the Sheraton and it started as a Giuliani situation that the three parties would get together and issue a call on this man to resign and run for mayor. There was a second meeting; there was a third meeting. At the third meeting, it was as if things had changed from night to day. There was no more mention of Rudy Giuliani. Now, all of a sudden, the beneficiary of these three parties' efforts, was starting to drift into the direction of Richard Ravitch maybe, Roy Goodman himself maybe… So I'm scratching my head, I'm trying to see, something happened between the second and third meeting, because a week earlier we were all talking Rudy Giuliani.

I had the impression that there was a heavy hand - a mysterious heavy hand - that reached into the Conservative Party leadership, the Republican Party leadership, that turned their heads away from Rudy Giuliani. It turns out later I learned that I was right. There was Al D'Amato. When he heard that there was this kind of an effort, the first thing he did was he blocked it in the Conservative Party, blocked it in the Republican Party. We were alone in staying with the Giuliani situation. Finally, he did resign on January 31 of '89 - I remember it because that was my birthday - let's say it was a Tuesday. He and I had lunch on Friday, say February 3, three days later. It's the first time he and I ever met. I think we started to take to each other. But for the next many weeks, 6-8-9 weeks, he and I would meet for breakfast or for lunch. …so that I'm overweight is no secret, right? Certain political reporters like to do little jobs on me because of my girth. So at that time, Mickey Carrol was still a reporter etc. They would say of these "get to know one another" meetings, Giuliani-and-Ray Harding - "Ray is trying to eat his way into City Hall…" You see.

What happened is this: The Liberal Party nominated Giuliani. Alfonse sicced a man with $14 million to spare - Ron Lauder - to spend all of that $14 million to do negative ads - you remember Noriega, etc. - negative ads on Giuliani with the consequence that he did win the Republican primary against Lauder, but was a much weakened candidate during the general election, which we wound up losing by two points. Thereafter, I would chide myself saying: "Ray, putz, that thing about LaGuardia-Lindsay, a political dynamic every 20 to 24 years. You were wrong about the 20, it's 24. We'll try it again in four years." In retrospect, I was not mistaken because I say if it weren't for those Lauder millions that had done the job on Giuliani, I believe that in fact he would have been elected in '89. As it is we lost it by 2 points. We stayed together. It was a natural thing for the party to do Giuliani in '93. The leadership of the party played a major role in that campaign effort. I did what I always do, which is talk. Fran Reiter by then was the state chair of the party. She was deputy campaign manager, but in charge of large segments of the citywide campaign. And the party's secret weapon, its then executive director - Carl Grillo - he ran the entire field operation. We were successful.

You remember last year's race, the contest between Giuliani and Ruth Messinger was not a true contest. And that's where we are today.

The third thing I'd like to do a little vignette about is the current situation. When I came down this morning I saw a New York Times poll that with respect to the current snapshot for Governor shows Pataki 56% / Vallone 21%. Am I surprised? No. I'm surprised by this huge gap, but I'm not surprised at the notion that Vallone is… is and was unsuccessful at gaining traction.

I was the invited speaker at a forum - maybe in October, last October - that Marty Begun, Julius Edelstein and Howard Rubenstein give at the University Club. It was at that time that the gang that couldn't shoot straight, led by Tom Manton and 12 other county leaders, had repeatedly been meeting to try to come up with an agreed upon Democratic Party candidate for Governor. Nobody was reaching out to the Liberal Party. So that day, because there were politicos in the room, I said: "I'd like to make private remarks, without them being reported out of the room…" knowing that that would encourage people to head for the phones. I recounted a story that had occurred in 1966 when Rockefeller was running for reelection. Leaders of the Democratic Party had sent over to Alex Rose - head of the Liberal Party - a list of five prospective candidates for Governor, which included Frank O'Connor, Queens County DA, included FDR Jr., three others, because they wanted to do a coalition. He took that list, struck off one name, that of Frank O'Connor, and sent it back. That was a signal by the Liberal Party that any of the four others would be acceptable, but that Frank O'Connor would not be acceptable. What did the Democrats do? They nominated Frank O'Connor. What did the Liberal Party do? They nominated someone other than Frank O'Connor, namely Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. So he got some 500,000 on the Liberal line. I was recounting that vignette in October in reaction to these meetings of the gang that couldn't put it together for Vallone, saying: "Maybe you'd like to meet."

Peter Vallone is one of the nicest, warmest, most genuine people I've met in all my years in politics. So I don't like to say anything about Vallone the Candidate, because I don't like to hurt Peter. Peter Vallone. If you understand. But having said that, getting back to political reality. If I had sat with these people, these county leaders, I would have told them that a Vallone nomination is lunacy because this man could not possibly gain traction upstate to give a real run to this Teflon fellow up in Albany who had this $20 million coming up to spend.

When the Democrats meeting in Westchester at the Rye - whatever - when they came up with these designations, and the Liberal Party after interviewing five prospective candidates for Governor designated the Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross, then I heard the cry, again, again the same cry, the Liberal Party had some kind of historical obligation to follow the Democrats. Like this party is a tag-on party to the Democratic Party, and we were in breach of our historical role by nominating somebody else.

I'm coming to the ending, which is this. That now there is an attempt to form, under the doctrine of "proliferation of third parties," there is an attempt to form a new party called: The Working Families Party. Who they are are three left-left unions, all Democrats, and certain other Democrats, banding together to leave the Democratic Party, to form a new party, and their rhetoric is all anti-Liberal Party. What they say is: "The Liberal Party has failed in its historical role of being that vehicle that is supposed to keep pushing the Democratic Party to the left." That has never been the role of the Liberal Party. When the Liberal Party was founded, its founders said, maybe hyperbolically, but nonetheless we all repeat it for the last 40 years: "The function of the Liberal Party is to keep Republicans liberal and Democrats honest." All right, so it's a hyperbolic thing to say, but we've been saying it for 40 years. But what we've never said, because it historically wasn't true, that the role of the Liberal Party is to keep the Democratic Party to the left.

I might say in commenting on the situation today, after 12 years of Mario Cuomo, that one of the reasons why there is going to be such a cataclysmic election result with respect to the office of governor, is because the State Democratic Party has failed, and it continues in its failure even now, today, to identify what it stands for in the Year 1998. And if I were a member of the Democratic Party, I'd be calling Mario to an accounting: "How come after 12 years you left such a disorganized, dismal operation?" So don't come to the Liberal Party and say: "It's our job to tag along with candidates who are guaranteed to lose." Now comes this Working Families Party, and says its function is to push the Democrats to the left, and their rhetoric sounds Socialistic in its ideal. But then they say in order to get 50,000 votes, we've had to nominate Peter Vallone, who they continue to say represents everything that they're against. Peter Vallone, 25 years of political life, Queens organization, moderate, middle-of-the-road, this is not the flaming symbol of labor marching to the left, which is what these people say they are all about.

Last time I was here, I was here in the presence of Justice John Paul Stevens. Plus this law school is my alma mater. So I don't want to say, in street language, that these people are full of crap… so I won't say it.

That's it.

Q&A

Q: Would you comment on the role of patronage in third party movements?

A: When Hugh Carey was elected in '74, the political plates of the Earth were shaking because it represented a sea-change coming on after 16 years - 15 Nelson Rockefeller / one year, Malcolm Wilson - control of the State apparatus, the State government. Let's say 2,500 nice jobs that the Governor could fill. I'm not going to reveal secrets by engaging in the numbers game, but I can tell you this much, that whatever representation there was by Liberal Party members in the government and in the administration of Hugh Carey was by far less a percentage of those positions than was the party's vote in putting together the Democrat and Liberal vote that went to the election of Hugh Carey. But what did we hear all during the eight years of Hugh Carey? That the 2,400 or 2,500 Democrats who were put into the new Democratic/Liberal administration, they were all Ph.D's who went to Albany to get some further graduate experience in government. But the two-digit number of Liberal Party members who served in that administration… they were patronage hacks! That's the way it is.

Now, there are people whom I keep alive professionally as journalists - Joe Conason, Wayne Barrett, people like that - well, they do other things also: they write contract stories for Sidney Blumenthal about the Clinton situation. But when they opine about the Liberal Party: Patronage! That's it.

Now the notion that here in New York City, Giuliani Mayor, I don't know how many jobs there are, maybe 2,300… somebody else knows… Again, two digits: The Liberal Party, which spends years trying to put a reform thing into City Hall, after 20 years of the Democrats, when we work out of a conviction - clean shop, implement policies, less crime is better than more crime (gee, that's a drastic thought… the betrayal of the Liberal Party: we figured out less crime is better) - and we want to put people into the government who are invited by the newly-elected Mayor to help implement these policies: that's patronage. All these - I used to call them "the thin Republicans from the U.S. Attorney's office…" Denny Young, Mastro, whatever names you name - Giuliani got elected and placed in high level positions, that was not cronyism, that was not Republican patronage. Those were quality appointments. You put Fran Reiter in as Deputy Mayor who served in two separate deputy mayorships. When she left to take over the reelection campaign - here's Phil Lentz, maybe there are some other journalists here, Bob Laird - I'm willing to bet that the consensus among political reporters is that Fran Reiter in her combined deputy mayorships was the best Deputy Mayor during the entire epoch of Rudy Giuliani as Mayor. But it's a Liberal Party hack appointment. The others are all on the merits. Thanks for the question.

 
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