Max & Murphy: Statewide Candidates on Gun Rights, Corruption, Animal Welfare, Climate Change

Climate change is a threat to humanity that New York State should be investing to stop, not to promote. The best government is no government at all. Animal cruelty is a gateway offense to violence against humans and other social problems. Individual Americans should have access to any weapon short of poison gas and nuclear bombs. The major parties are incapable of cracking down on the corruption that taints public service in New York State.

That these viewpoints were all articulated by third-party candidates for state office on Wednesday’s Max & Murphy Show on WBAI does not make them equally persuasive, substantive or plausible. But for voters who are unsatisfied with the Republican and Democratic options for the posts of attorney general and comptroller, or citizens who merely want to know all their options, they are all worth listening to.

Mark Dunlea, the Green Party candidate for comptroller, is running primarily on the principle that the state’s pension funds have a moral and financial obligation to get out of carbon-related stocks. My talk with him begins at 2:38, below.

Cruger Gallaudet, comptroller candidate for the Libertarians, is seeking power in order to reduce the power of government. He can be heard beginning at 13:25.

Nancy Sliwa, Reform Party nominee for attorney general, says she would use the post to promote animal welfare, which she sees as fundamental to the health of our larger society. Hear her beginning at 23:00.

Libertarian attorney general nominee Chris Garvey believes that no one should be prosecuted for possessing any conventional weapon, that the best antidote to mass shootings is mass arming, and that the chief reason New York’s murder rate has dropped despite our restrictive gun laws is that the police are covering up murders. Hear it for yourself starting at 36:13.

And Michael Sussman, whose brief appearance begins at 46:14, brings lots of experience as a civil-rights lawyer to the race for attorney general, where he is the Green Party candidate. He takes issue with how the major party candidates have described the job of AG, and with what he says is the lack of public-law experience one brings, and the excess of insider connections the other carries.

Max & Murphy previously heard from the major party candidates in these races: Comptroller competitors Tom DiNapoli (D) and Jonathan Trichter (R) and attorney general hopefuls Letitia James (D) and Keith Wofford (R)—as well as the Republican (Marc Molinaro), Green (Howie Hawkins), Libertarian (Larry Sharpe) and Serve America (Stephanie Miner) candidates for governor. We’ve invited Andrew Cuomo, but his campaign has not replied.

Those conversations, plus our series on big issues facing the state and the City Limits/Gotham Gazette/WNYC voter’s guide are good resources for voters trying to make up their minds.

If you’ve made up yours, join City Limits’ “people’s endorsement” conversation: Text “choice” to 646-916-3930 or click here to tell us whom you are voting for and why.

And please consider joining Ben Max and me on Tuesday, November 6–Election Day–from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Commons Cafe for our special, two-hour, live audience edition of Max & Murphy. RSVP today right here.

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