On Feb. 26 the Omaha, Neb., Board of Elections informed Maura DeLuca, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor, and Jacob Perasso, candidate for City Council, that they are on the ballot. Inset, a week earlier, the socialist candidates submitted more than double the required number of signatures. At left is Perasso.

DeLuca met Debra Tomlin, who works part time as a nurse’s assistant, when she, Perasso and supporters campaigned door to door Feb. 24. Above, Tomlin, left, and DeLuca in Tomlin’s house. She bought a subscription to the Militant along with two books—The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform Under Capitalism and Women and Revolution: The Living Example of the Cuban Revolution—and donated $3 to the campaign.

After talking with DeLuca, Tomlin said she supports the jobs program the candidates raise, which urges workers to come together to fight for a massive government-funded public jobs program to provide millions with work, building housing, hospitals, schools, child care centers and other things workers need.

“When we call the police they don’t come,” Tomlin said. “They call them heroes, but they aren’t. When they do come they harass people. They came to my home and told me I couldn’t smoke on my own property.”

Tomlin told DeLuca she hadn’t heard of the SWP before, but after hearing what the party has to say she wanted to do what she can to help.

—JOHN STUDER  
 
 
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