New York Times Empire Blog

Hillary’s Challenge - to Tasini?

Jonathan Tasini, the antiwar activist running for the United States Senate in New York, has tirelessly traveled the state trying to collect the 15,000 signatures he needs to enter the Democratic primary against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But he says he’d welcome it if the Clinton operation and its allies in the state Democratic Party employed a heavy-handed tactic that politicians frequently use to keep challengers off the ballot in New York: deploying armies of lawyers to question the validity of signatures.

Why would he invite such a challenge? To hear him and his advisors tell it, such a move would elevate his profile in the same way it was elevated when Democratic Party leaders tried to block a resolution he introduced at the state Democratic convention calling for the withdrawal of all troops in Iraq. (While Mrs. Clinton supports the war, many delegates at the convention opposed it.)

“Any efforts to shut us down legitimizes us more than if they were to simply ignore us,'’ said Anna Mumford, a Tasini spokeswoman. “It shows that they are afraid of a real debate on the issues.'’

– Raymond Hernandez