In the Rochester mayoral race, Democrat Tom Richards, who was favored to win the race all along, squeaked to victory with just 6 percentage points to spare, over the WFP's Bill Johnson.

Coming in with 8 percent of the vote--enough to have put Johson over the top--was the Green Party candidate, Alex White.

(Richards, the Democrat, got 11,952 votes, or 48.99 percent. Johnson, the WFP candidate, got 10,307 votes, good for 42.25 percent. And Alex White, the Green, got 2,133 votes, or 8.74 percent).

"Had they been with us, that would have been great," WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor told me.

TJ Helmstetter, a spokesman for the WFP, was more forceful in his chest-thumping.

"Polling had Richards up by nearly 30 points at the start of race, so closing it to 6 is testament to the WFP's focus on doing the unglamorous but essential work of talking to voters about issues," Helmstetter emailed me. "It helped balance the spending advantages that the Democrats had and countered Richards narrative of 'inevitability.'"

Helmstetter went on to say, "We understand the frustration in African-American and labor circles that the Green Party chose to endorse another candidate. We support the freedom of parties to endorse whomever they choose, but from our point a view, a unified WFP-Green-Independence ticket would not only have produced a major upset, but also would have sent a clear message to Democrats that pro-corporate candidates are a liability."

In the second special election, the Democrats and WFP backed the same candidate, Sarah Anker. The Green Party didn't field anyone, and Anker won by about 220 votes, with 356 votes coming from the WFP line.

"In a close election like this one, we've once again demonstrated the power of the Working Families Party endorsement," said Suffolk County WFP co-chair Michele Lynch.

Conversely, it underscores how problematic an election can be when the left-leaning Green Party fields their own candidate, who, most likely, siphons votes away from the WFP candidate.

Politically, the WFP and Green Party agree on many of the same issues--taxing the rich, expanding entitlement programs, protecting labor rights--but they differ in important, strategic ways.

The WFP is a labor-backed outfit dedicated to bringing the Democratic Party back to their progressive roots. The Green Party has a philosophy of mounting their own candidates, in an effort to form a viable third party.

One WFP source said the Green Party is "on the outside, throwing stones. We have a seat at the table."

After the 2010 governor's race, which determines permanent ballot positions for political parties in New York, the WFP moved up from Row E to Row D (after they grudgingly endorsed Cuomo). But the Green Party, who went with the surprisingly compelling Howie Hawkins, got more than the 50,000 votes needed to establish a permeant ballot line, landing them on Row F.

So, the WFP moved up, and so did one of their main rivals. And it shows.

One political operative who asked not to be named, said that for the WFP, "It's like one step up and two steps behind."

In announcing the move, the party noted "Votes on the WFP ballot line have been the margin of victory for Democratic Congressional candidates in New York five times since 2002: Tim Bishop (2002), Brian Higgins (2004), Eric Massa (2008), Bill Owens and Scott Murphy (2009)."

Before the announcement was made, one of Bishop's G.O.P. challengers, Chris Cox, called on Bishop to oppose the bill and stand up against the "liberal interests in Washington."

Rose will pay the W.F.P. about $8,000 more, nowhere near the $1 million figure Mastro had touted in his suit.

Here's the statement from Dan Cantor, the W.F.P. executive director:

Let me be crystal-clear: DFS did not undercharge the Rose campaign – or any other – by a single dime. DFS settled this case for one reason and one reason only: the enormous cost of battling a gigantic corporate law firm in a “nuisance” suit.

As this incredible shrinking case comes to a close – no million-dollar conspiracies, no massive fraud – there is only a penny-ante dispute over bridge tolls and some part-time campaign workers.

For now, we are pleased that we can return to the serious work of advancing “common-sense progressivism.” Stronger rent regulation. Living wage jobs. Energy efficiency and mass transit. Paid sick days. Lower property taxes on the middle class and higher income taxes on the wealthy. Nothing more, but nothing less, either.

"We welcome this inquiry," said Dan Cantor, the head of the Working Families Party, in a public statement. He said the probe will prove "[o]ur work has complied with both the spirit and letter of New York City’s Campaign Finance Law as well as all relevant state and federal election laws, tax and not-for-profit corporation laws."

I called the office of public advocate-elect Bill de Blasio, who receieved crucial help from the W.F.P. during the primary, to ask if he had gotten a subpoena too. A spokesperson confirmed that he had.

"Like many campaigns that purchased D.F.S.’s services, we have received requests for information from the U.S. Attorney’s office," said de Blasio spokeswoman Rebecca Katz. "We will be cooperating fully with their inquiry.”

It looks like de Blasio was the highest-level official to be subpoenaed. Comptroller-elect John Liu didn't use the W.F.P., and the organization was split over whether to back Bill Thompson for mayor. The W.F.P. did also bring more than half a dozen new City Council members to victory.

During the primary, de Blasio's opponents tried sinking his candidacy by raising questions about the W.F.P.'s practices.

In September, challenger Eric Gioia sent de Blasio a letter complaining about "the secrecy and obfuscation regarding your campaign's relationship with the WFP and its affiliated entities."

More recently, the party has come under scrutiny for allegedly floating city campaign rules on spending and reporting requirements.

The W.F.P.'s treasurer, Mike McGuire, abruptly resigned from his position in September when he and the party were unable to reconcile "the differing views" of his role. A lawyer for McGuire said he is not aware of his client being contacted by federal authorities.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office declined to comment on the subpoenas.

Dan Cantor was standing in the lobby of 80 Pine Street behind a giant statue of Sampson, looking supremely relaxed.

It was 1 p.m.—eight hours before the polls closed in the poorly attended citywide run-offs for public advocate and comptroller. But he already knew his guys were going to win.

Cantor, 54, the executive director of the Working Families Party, clung to a slab of yellow paper with words circled and crossed out on it, and he punched the buttons on his Blackberry. Members of his organization had been the field since 4:30 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, September 29, stapling campaign signs onto street lights, pushing voters into booths and ensuring that Bill de Blasio and John Liu would rack up the margins.

After several more minutes juggling his Blackberry and notepad, Cantor was joined by Bob Master, the W.F.P.’s co-chair and legislative-political director for the Communication Workers of America, which has office space on the 37^th Floor of the building.

“This is how you dress,” said Master, in blue jeans and a dark shirt.

“It’s Election Day,” replied an unapologetic Cantor, in a suit and tie, slightly askew.

They’ve been friends since their days growing up in Levittown, Long Island, where they attended the same junior and senior high schools. (Master went to Princeton – something he acknowledges while rolling his eyes. Cantor went to Wesleyan [corrected]. Now these two union operatives live a few blocks away from each other in Park Slope.)

While Cantor’s labor-backed party has won more victories this year than ever before, he and Master still described themselves as the underdogs, and as caretaker of a movement powered from the ground up.

“It’s easier for the media to identify the party with Dan, he’s the executive director, he’s the Mike Long, et cetera, et cetera,” he said, referring to Cantor’s counterpart in the New York State Conservative Party, whose influence over his party’s decision-making process is undisputed.

“The difference is, you know, when Ray Harding was the head of the Liberal Party, Ray Harding could walk into a room and tell [Rudy] Giuliani, ‘You got it.’ Whereas Dan has to say whoever he’s talking to, here are the rules. Here are the list of votes, you go figure it out,” said Master.

Cantor joined in the display of modesty.

“Somebody said to me, one big important person, said REBNY [Real Estate Board of New York] is used to having 95 percent of the power. You have taken them down to 92 percent,” said Cantor. “They are pissed. It’s like, they’re still unbelievably powerful and wealthy forces in New York, and we’d like to take them down a little bit lower, because at the end of the day, we think a lot more people agree with us than with them.”

It’s hard to imagine they still could have been totally in earnest talking about themselves as the little guy up against Big Real Estate, given what they were about to pull off.

When the polls closed, de Blasio and Liu had both won going away.

De Blasio, propelled, controversially, by the W.F.P.’s rules-bending field arm Data and Field Services, beat two-time public advocate Mark Green by a margin of 63-37. Liu beat outgoing council member David Yassky 56-44.

The party’s growth has been explosive. And now, after this city election cycle, they’re the big guys.

When state officials first recorded the number of registered voters in the Working Families Party, in April of 1999, Cantor could have probably named them all. There were just three in the Bronx, four each in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. None were in Staten Island. Statewide, there were an additional 95. Most counties had no voters registered in the W.F.P., and none had more than six.

A decade later, the party has grown, with 12,927 registered voters in the city, and 39,111 in the state.

That was before this election. Come November, two of the three citywide elected officials will owe their new jobs to the W.F.P., along with five incoming freshman at the City Council.

The party endorsed 37 candidates for the City Council, but focused on removing at least four weak incumbents who voted to extend term limits (Helen Sears, Kendall Stewart, Maria Baez and Alan Gerson). Each of them lost to candidates backed by the W.F.P., who also put troops behind desired candidates in a handful of open seats. (Brad Lander and Steve Levin won their races; Maritza Davila in Bushwick and S.J. Jung in Flushing did not.)

A few incumbents who voted to extend term limits for the Council and for Mayor Bloomberg, like City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, got the W.F.P. endorsement – a wisely extended olive branch – but were left to their own devices to fend off challengers. Quinn did, but with just 52 percent of the vote. Others, like Darlene Mealy, who won her seat four years ago solely because of the W.F.P., were cut off from receiving any help, and barely scraped by their primary challengers.

The voters in most districts in New York will always vote for Democratic Party candidate in the general election—that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. So the W.F.P. has gone inside, seizing control of the process by which the Democrats elect their own members.

“If you tried to take over, people would be like ‘Whoa, I’m not voting for the Democrat?” said Michael Oliva, a Democratic consultant who worked at different points for two of the losing, non-W.F.P.-endorsed Democratic public advocate candidates, Eric Gioia and Norman Siegel. “So, if they actually tried to be the number one party in the state, it wouldn’t work. But now, the Democratic Party is the label, and they [the W.F.P.] are the apparatus.”

By “apparatus,” Oliva means the party’s Get Out the Vote Operation, which has been lauded as not only better than that of the Democratic Party’s, but the only real one left in New York.

In Oliva’s estimation, the Democratic organizations now amount to “a bunch of clubs with ten senior citizens who get five signatures on your petitions.”

The timing for an enterprise like Cantor’s couldn’t have been better.

2009 was an exceptionally low-turnout election—354,000 Democrats voted in the primaries on Sept. 15 (though not all of them bothered to cast a vote for mayor), and a total of about 228,000 Democrats, or 7-odd percent, voted in the runoffs--with no competitive mayoral primary to speak of, and a feeling of inevitability about Bloomberg’s re-election that’s hard to ignore. Combined with the protracted implosion of the state’s first African-American governor, and public rebuff he received from the country’s first African-American president, there was hardly any ink or eyeballs left for the undercard contests.

A media frenzy, this election isn’t.

Despite the number of Democrats elected to office, there is hardly a unified Democratic apparatus that can claim credit for any of them. New York is filled with Democrats with seemingly unshakable control over their respective corners. Critics say that has led them to put self-preservation over policy initiation, creating a vacuum the W.F.P. has exploited.

As one W.F.P. operative put it, gloatingly, “They became soft, fat and happy.”

The W.F.P. now represents the great new variable in New York elections to come. How effective will they be in statewide contests? How will they leverage their undeniable influence in city elections: By orchestrating the election of the next Council speaker? By branching out into judicial races, and taking over the Democratic Party apparatus, such as it is, ED by ED?

What candidate, who doesn’t happen to have billions of dollars with which to self-finance, will be in a position to defy them?

Depends on who you ask.

“In a statewide election, they may not make a difference,” said Bill Cunningham, a former top aide to Hugh Carey in Albany and, more recently, communications director for Bloomberg.

The party won victories in “2006 and 2008 and in City Council elections, and some degree in the de Blasio and Liu races, because it was an extremely low turnout,” said Cunningham. “What if the turnout wasn’t 11 percent, but 22 percent, we don’t know if they’d have any impact at all.”

The W.F.P. guys say that, in practical terms, defeating Michael Bloomberg in the general election is a long shot. (“We’ve got to figure that out,” said Master) and even replacing the current City Council Speaker seemed low on their agenda.

“We have a good relationship with speaker Quinn. We endorsed her,” noted Cantor.

In fact, said Master, “She came to our executive committee meeting on Friday.”

“No one ever says oh, the Working Families Party, that’s the patronage party,” Cantor said. “No, those are the unbelievably boring Social Democrats who want to use the power of the state, in some good ways. That’s not a bad thing.”

He turned to Master. “That’s our new slogan: Boring Social Democrats.”

Yeah, right.

(Jerry Goldfeder has been warning about this for some time.)

W.F.P. spokesman Dan Levitan defended his group in an email to reporters:

In order to conform with the law, WFP staff leave the party’s payroll and work for DFS when they are assigned to campaigns. This is very similar to the established practice of government employees in Congress or in the State Senate and Assembly going off staff at election time and transferring onto a campaign payroll, then transferring back again when the election is over.

[skip]

No WFP funds are used to subsidize CFB candidates. No WFP employees or resources are used to subsidize CFB candidates. All work on behalf of campaigns is paid for by the campaigns within the expenditure limits established by the CFB. In addition, there is no independent expenditure being made by the WFP on behalf of any candidate, and Mr. Dovere offers no evidence to the contrary.

At one point in the story, it says John Liu’s campaign, in addition to Richard Aborn’s, did not say whether they would use D.F.S. (It should be noted that Aborn is running for Manhattan D.A., which is not under the auspices of the city campaign finance rule.)

When asked, a spokeswoman for Liu’s campaign emailed me to say that they would not use D.F.S.

Here are some highlights from the story:

Bill de Blasio held a petition drive inside the Working Families Party headquarters, organized by a W.F.P. worker [corrected].

The W.F.P. executive director Dan Cantor said his organization created Data and Field Services to turn a profit, which would then be donated back to the W.F.P.

Debi Rose said she was unfamiliar with D.F.S., even though her campaign manager said Rose was the person who told the campaign to hire them.

Jimmy Van Brammer wrote a check to D.F.S. that the W.F.P. cashed, according to an analysis of city and state campaign finance records.

S.J. Jung’s campaign manager referred to W.F.P. worker Bryan Collinsworth as “our spokesman,” even though the campaign has not paid D.F.S. or W.F.P. for any work.

Danny Dromm’s campaign manager is a W.F.P. employee who is still getting her normal salary from the organization.

John Gutierrez of the Mirram Group, speaking on behalf of Lynn Shulman’s campaign, said they have a weekly conference call with the Working Families Party.

UPDATE: Jerry Goldfeder, an election lawyer whose letter to the city Campaign Finance Board, I reference at the top of this item, called to say, “We sent a request to the C.F.B. to clarify general ambiguities about coordination. We received their response. We didn’t know anything about the City Hall article.”

From a press release by the Working Families Party:

The Working Families Party called today for a 100% state tax on the $165 million in announced bonuses at insurance giant AIG.

 

"If Washington can't find a way to get this money back, Albany should," said Dan Cantor, Working Families Party Executive Director. "The same people who helped wreck the economy are taking home millions in taxpayer-funded bonuses while classrooms, hospitals and homeless shelters here in New York face billions in cuts. It's disgusting in the extreme. AIG got its bailout. When will working families see theirs?"

Cantor continued: "Opponents of Fair Share Tax Reform like to talk about how much the rich have suffered from the economic downturn. But the real pain of this recession is being felt by millions of hardworking New Yorkers who bear no responsibility for the financial shenanigans that got us into this mess."

"The Governor proposes to balance the New York's budget through devastating cuts that would place the burden almost entirely on the backs of working families. Taxing AIG bonuses and asking those who can afford it to pay a little more in taxes is a far better solution."