The following is taken from an article in the October 25 New York Times covering the six candidates appearing on the ballot for U.S. Senate in New York State besides Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Richard Lazio. These are Socialist Workers candidate Jacob Perasso, Mark Dunau of the Green Party, John Clifton of the Libertarian Party, Louis Wein of the Constitution Party, John Adefope of the Right to Life Party, and Jeffrey Graham of the Independence Party. BY DEAN MURPHY  
...Mr. Lazio, the Republican nominee, complains of being at a disadvantage because of Mrs. Clinton’s blinding celebrity. (Who has not heard of the first lady?)

But Mr. Lazio (he has nonetheless raised more than $29 million to her $25 million) can expect no sympathy from the cast of larger unknowns on the Nov. 7 ballot who include the radio talk show host Jeffrey E. Graham of the Independence Party (the third largest party in the state) and the would-be revolutionary Jacob J. Perasso of the Socialist Workers Party. The party offers no membership numbers. Mr. Perasso says it is not looking for votes, but to overthrow greedy capitalists....

Mr. Perasso of the Socialist Workers Party works nights at a print shop for the alternative press in the Bronx, putting him in bed when most other candidates are at least thinking about wooing voters during the daytime.

But skipping the job is out of the question. Mr. Perasso depends on his weekly salary of $200, and, he says, he is more committed to getting into broader circulation books by Malcolm X, Che Guevara and his other favorite authors at the print shop than he is in scoring campaign points.

Shortly after graduating from college in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 1998, Mr. Perasso worked 11 months at a slaughterhouse in Chicago so that he could better understand the hardships of assembly line workers. His most ambitious campaign swing to date was to Australia and New Zealand, where he joined workers on picket lines and did radio interviews in support of "an international revolutionary movement."

He sees no contradiction in campaigning half a world away, he says, because the workers’ cause knows no borders.

"We believe the history of the working class movement is so crucial to the building of our movement," said Mr. Perasso, 24, who moved last summer to the Bronx from Detroit (more meatpacking jobs there) and who would like to see the United States follow the model of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. "If there were no books, I don’t believe a socialist revolution could happen...."  
 
 
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