NEW ARTICLE
COMING BACK
CHANGES
It is undeniable that a political party without a candidate is no party at all. It is rather like a retail store that's open for business but without anything to sell.
In these years of being what the NY State Election Law calls a non-ballot party, the Liberal Party has been a party of policies and ideas but only one candidate since the 2002 Governor's race when Andrew Cuomo walked away from his first bid for that job. In 2005, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg carried the Liberal Party Liberty Bell on his ballot for his first reelection. We had no interest in his third term.
But something has changed and because of the change, we are coming back.
The change is Tom Allon, educator, journalist, publisher and businessman who has become the Liberal Party's candidate for Mayor in the 2013 mayoralty election. Mr. Allon, born, raised and educated in New York will run in the Democratic Party primary for the job - but win or lose he will be our candidate in the general election.
As we said in the Wall St Journal article that announced the decision, we think it's important that Mr. Allon and the Liberal Party "start early so that we have the time to introduce Tom and his ideas to the public and work with him to rebuild the meaning of a new Liberal Party" to New Yorkers long familiar with the name but negatively impacted by the image developed over the past 20 years.
After receiving his degrees from Cornell and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Tom began teaching English and journalism at Stuyvesant High School. He went on to become the editor and publisher of the local West Side Spirit and then became publisher of Manhattan's largest community weekly, Our Town.
Today he is the President and CEO of Manhattan Media, the largest hyper-local media company in the Tri-state area with publications such as AVENUE Magazine and Dan's Papers. Tom had been the executive vice-president of News Communications, a company which owned 23 newspapers in NYC's boroughs. He was involved in the start-up of the successful Capital Hill daily, The Hill.
Tom helped create two successful public high schools - the Eleanor Roosevelt and the Frank McCourt High Schools.
He has been on the advisory boards of the West Side Crime Prevention program and the Broadway Mall Association and was president of the New York Press Association in 2008.
He knows education, media, business and government and his policies and programs will reflect that knowledge.
Tom told the Wall St. Journal: I can help rebuild the Liberal Party from the bottom up - it's a party that has a proud history going back many, many years. It's a great banner to be able to polish up and to re-establish and rebrand for the 21st Century. The word liberal, which is used so pejoratively in our culture right now, has a rich history and a rich meaning to it.
One of our first jobs together will be to seek and find candidates for local, statewide and Congressional races this year as well as a team of legislators and city officials to run with Tom in 2013. We'll be looking for candidates who recognize that despite some important first steps, Andrew Cuomo will need legislative help to truly overturn the institutional thinking that has made the NY State Legislature the most dysfunctional in the nation.
Part of further 21st Century change coming to the Liberal Party will be less splashy but important - we are preparing a Facebook page so that new and old friends in New York State - and across the country - will be able to reach out and we can reach right back.
Martin I. Hassner
Executive Director
Website Managing Editor
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