Two cheers for The New York Post’s opposition to fusion voting.

The New York Post almost gets it, here:

In its lengthy report exposing mischief in New York’s political system, the Moreland Commission missed a major target for real reform: the state’s minor political parties.

Because of a quirk in state law, minor parties in New York wield influence far beyond their numbers. That’s because New York is the rare state that allows minor parties to cross-endorse candidates of the top two parties.

It’s an invitation to corruption: Cross-endorsements give minor parties power by allowing them to extract promises — or cash — out of major-party candidates in exchange for giving them an extra ballot line or doing their dirty work.

…but they don’t mention the real problem: the last thing that New York City really wanted to do was to give a political party like the “Working Families Party” (more accurately: the Crazy Progressive Half-Socialist Party*) any real power.  In a rational system – i.e., a non-fusion system, everybody’s partisans would be forced to at least make some gestures towards mainstream politicking in New York.  And I’m not excluding my own side, here: New York’s Conservative and Independence parties are excellent at being spoiled prima donnas, and abysmal at pretty much everything else**.

But the city of New York did give the WFP access to the halls of power, and I admit that I am serenely waiting for them to realize just how bad an idea it is to let hard Left goofballs run things. It’ll be kind of hard on people like @baseballcrank (H/T), and unfairly hard on him, but I didn’t set up this situation and I can’t do anything to stop it directly.  New York state is going to have to learn the problems with crypto-parliamentary politics all on its own.

Moe Lane

*I readily admit that my version doesn’t trip off of the tongue as well.

**Such comments usually elicit a response by someone who will, in full High Dudgeon mode, proclaim that the GOP shouldn’t take them for granted, which pretty much translates to Do everything my way and maybe I’ll get around to helping you out.  Eventually.  Because God forbid that anybody on the Internet ever admit that they might have been wrong about anything…