Socialist Party Candidate in New Jersey Calls His Platform Not So Radical

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times Greg Pason, Socialist candidate for United States Senate in New Jersey, in the party's national headquarters in SoHo.

“I'm a Socialist, but I'm just like everybody else,” the Senate candidate said. “The only difference is I believe in universal health care, a more fair public education system and in a living-wage amendment. I wouldn't exactly call those ideas crazy or nuanced.”

Greg Pason, 45, the national secretary and only full-time employee of the more
Socialist Party USA and the party's candidate for United States Senate in New Jersey, sat in the una ssuming office in a run-down building in SoHo that serves as party headquarters one recent afternoon, discussing his chances.

“I'll be the first to tell you that we don't have a chance to win any race that we're competing in,” he said with a sly grin. “Getting in the political process is not just about winning the next election. It's about reclaiming the process and making it more democratic.”

Mr. Pason, whose stocky build and buzz haircut make him look more like Joe the Plumber than a Washington insider, is a former house cleaner who joined the Socialist Party more than two decades ago, after, he said, he found himself working two jobs but still homeless.

“I had privately thought to myself before, ‘something is wrong with the economy when you're working your butt off and you can barely get by,'” he said, “and now I found a group of like-minded individuals and it changed my life.”

The party's office on Lafayette Street is decorated with old placards and photos of party rallies that drew hundreds of thousands to Union Square a century ago.

The past appears more glorious than the present. Today, the party apparatus, which accounts for roughly 1,500 paying members nationwide, appears ragtag on the surface. But this election year, it has gained some support from left-leaning Democrats, college students and Occupy protesters, groups that overlap considerably.

While Occupy has helped raise the issue of socioeconomic inequality in this election, another Socialist Party official, Stephanie Gussin, co-chairwoman of the national committee, said, “The Socialist Party has a defined set of alternatives, whereas Occupy still doesn't.”

Ms. Gussin said that while she was not involved with Occupy, “I think it reflects the sentiment of my generation who have become disillusioned with the American dream.”

In recent months, Mr. Pason has used the party's lim ited resources to tap into this growing resentment. He has canvassed in neighborhoods in cities up and down New Jersey; stumped at street fairs in suburban Montclair, N.J., where he lives; and stood in solidarity at Occupy rallies and labor union marches from Newark to Camden.

His platform includes tax hikes for the rich and stronger federal regulation of private enterprise, ideas that have common ground with those advanced in campaign speeches by President Obama, who has been derided as a “socialist” by conservatives. But Mr. Pason laughs at the suggestion that the president may be on his side.

“ He's not a socialist, that's ridiculous to suggest,” said Mr. Pason. “To call him a socialist is more about Republicans vilifying him on what they think has a negative stigma in the American psyche.” The Socialists are also running a presidential ticket, led by Stewart Alexander and Alejandro Mendoza.

Mr. Pason said that he dis not foresee an American Socialist revival anytime soon, but said that a lot of people were paying attention to third parties in this election year, because of partisan gridlock and negative TV ads bought by Super Pacs.

“It won't be easy,” he said, “but when has it ever been easy for us?”