While calls mount for former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner to withdraw from New York City’s crowded Sept. 10 mayoral primary, one of the disgraced ex-congressman’s Democratic primary opponents is fighting to guarantee that his own candidacy will survive through the Nov. 5 general election, regardless of what happens in the September primary.
Longtime political satirist-turned-politician Randy A. Credico is busy circulating nominating petitions to appear on the November ballot as the nominee of the hastily-organized Tax Wall Street Party, an anti-austerity entity that plans to expand nationally during next year’s mid-term elections — and beyond.
The nascent Tax Wall Street Party will need a minimum of 3,750 valid signatures by the August 20th midnight filing deadline to qualify Credico for a spot on the November ballot. Party activists hope to collect two or three times as many signatures as required.
Credico, whose long-shot mayoral candidacy is beginning to draw national attention, appeared on San Francisco’s KPFA’s “Flashpoint” program yesterday to discuss his bare-bones campaign and his proposal for a Wall Street Sales Tax.
During his 12 ½-minute radio appearance, Credico — the only comedian in the race yet one of the most serious-minded candidates running for public office in America’s most populous city — said that this year’s New York City election was turning into something of a “geek show,” featuring at least two candidates resembling the sideshow freaks that once regularly appeared in traveling carnivals.
“You have two geek shows going on,” he told KPFA listeners. “You have Eliot Spitzer running for comptroller and you have Anthony Weiner running for mayor, and so it’s almost like the elephant man walking around the room.”
Credico was just warming up.
“The only people immune from taxes,” he said later in the interview, “is Wall Street.”
Readers can listen to the full interview here.
Credico, who polled 24,863 votes as the Libertarian nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and publicly endorsed former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson for President last year, is vigorously campaigning for a one-half percent Wall Street Sales Tax that could swell the city’s coffers by an estimated $60 billion annually, enabling the city to significantly strengthen its increasingly imperiled social safety net while improving the lives of its impoverished and working-class citizens.
Among other things, Credico’s forward-looking platform — reflecting an almost Damascus Road Conversion from his left-libertarian economic views of a year ago — calls for free education for CUNY students, free public transportation, and a citywide Medicare-for-All program.
Describing himself as “the most progressive candidate” in the field, the 59-year-old Credico also promises to put an end to the city’s racist “Stop and Frisk” policies, as well as the NYPD’s controversial domestic spying operations. He also advocates a moratorium on rent evictions and foreclosures and supports raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $12.50 per hour.
Randy has the best platform for Mayor of NYC 2013. However he is amazingly lacking in basic basic facts. In 1905, 99% of the sales on Wall Street were stocks. In 2013, a small fraction of sales are stock. Now it is mostly sales of credit default swaps, sales of bundled student loans, sales of exotic derivatives, sales of bundled mortgages & so forth. The sales tax in NYC is 8.875%. The sales tax on Wall Street too is amazingly popular and amazingly easy to understand by everyone. Randy has instead opted to complicate something so easy to understand into a complex tax that few understand that would apply onto only a small minority of sales on Wall Street and at a rate much much lower than the rate that real New Yorkers pay. Why? Why not just make one sales tax for all? One sales tax rate for all? Why a special lower rate on Wall Street and why a proposed sales tax that would only apply to a small fraction of the sales on Wall Street? Randy is unwilling to listen to facts and figures (a trait rather frightening of politician and politician wannabes like Randy). Randy does not have the organizational skills to pull off anything in his political platform. Randy is also unwilling to develop the organization skills needed to make his platform happen. Devoid of accurate facts, devoid of accurate figures, absolutely unwilling to listen to any facts, absolutely unwilling to listen to any figures, absolutely no organizational skills, absolutely opposed to even the thought of developing organizational skills, Randy pisses off 99% of the people that come close to him with the best of intentions. Randy’s campaign is all about Randy, Randy & Randy. Get to know Randy: he is totally out of touch with facts & figures, totally unwilling to listen to anyone, totally uninterested in listening to anyone, has like a depraved indifference to people (hang out with him a few times), profoundly out-of-touch, profoundly disorganized and absolutely absolutely unwilling to develop any organizational skills. In a City of 5 boro’s, Randy has also demonstrated a profound indifference to 99% of the people in New York City: absolutely unwilling to set foot in Staten Island, Queens, most of Brooklyn, all of the Bronx – its like he is trying to run for Mayor of the Village and if elected he will annex Williamsburgh, Brooklyn. Great platform. Worst candidate possible for the job.
I’m glad to see Darcy posting on here. I regularly visit Uncovered Politics and always enjoy his articles.
I’m sorry to say this, but I hope his petition fails. I’m increasingly wary of these vanity campaigns. As a Green, I really wish all of these supposedly progressive-minded independent candidates would just get involved in the Green Party. We could use the help, and they could do more for their issues by working within this party. I generally support permissive ballot laws, but it’s possible to have too many candidate on the ballot. I think what he’s doing is counterproductive.
Why not LP instead?