Soon after getting the state's Democratic nomination, Hillary won the endorsements of two of New York's third parties. She picked up the support of the Independence Party, which was "inspired" by the man who helped put Hillary's husband in the White House in the first place, billionaire nut-case Ross Perot. The N.Y. Independence Party has approximately 340,000 members in the state, so this was a solid pickup for Mrs. Clinton. Interestingly, Hillary tried to stay as far away as possible from New York's third largest party in 2000, since it was tied to controversial firebrand Lenora Fulani. But the I.P. learned its lesson and has apparently "purged" unseemly characters like Fulani from its midst, and now Hillary has come knocking. "Six years ago, I made it very clear my desire to accept your nomination if you took real and decisive steps to reject anti-Semitism and extremism within the party," said the senator in a statement to party delegates. "Today, I am pleased to say that under the bold and courageous leadership of Frank MacKay [the party's chairman] you have done just that."
Hillary also won the endorsement of the Working Families Party over the weekend, which is heavily union-influenced and has 33,000 members. So in the span of one Saturday, Hillary probably picked up as many votes as her Republican Senate opponent will win this November.
New York is different from most other states in that a candidate can be the nominee of multiple parties, and now Hillary's name will be listed several times on November's ballot. In theory this "electoral fusion" is supposed to help candidates in close races, but in practice all this is doing is allowing Hillary to pile up as many votes as possible to make her election look even more impressive.
There are still several more political parties in New York who could yet endorse Hillary's Senate candidacy. For example, the state's Communist Party, Liberal Party, Socialist Party and Green Party are all supportive of abortion and gay rights, higher taxes, universal health care and more government spending on everything but the military, and they are all, as of this writing, looking to lend their considerable influence to a candidate who is sympathetic to their cause.
