Opinion

New York’s sleazy party favors

It’s no surprise New York’s most prominent feminist group, the National Organization for Women, has endorsed the only woman in the governor’s race — Democrat Zephyr Teachout.

But why is the new Women’s Equality Party backing Andrew Cuomo? Teachout, is a feminist, and the WEP was supposedly formed to promote women’s issues.

The answer is that the WEP is just what Teachout says it is: a creature of the governor’s re-election campaign. In short, it’s another ­patronage mill masquerading as an alternative.

The WEP has plenty of company here.

For example, the union-sponsored Working Families Party abandoned all pretense to political principle this year by cutting a deal to back Cuomo despite sharp disagreements over his failure to push much of the party’s hard-left agenda. Under state rules, the WFP would have lost its automatic ballot line if it had fielded its own candidate and failed to get 50,000 votes.

As we’ve stated many times, the whole rationale for minor parties is to offer voters an alternative.

But New York is one of the few states that allows them to endorse major-party candidates. That’s good for the candidates who get the extra line on the ballot, but it does nothing for voters.

As things stand, Gov. Cuomo could appear on four different party lines in November. His GOP opponent, Rob Astorino, has also filed for a separate ballot line focusing on opposition to the Common Core.

The only bright side here is that the similarities between the WEP and the WFP might end up confusing voters, with the result that each deprives the other of the 50,000 votes they need to keep their ballot lines.

We can only hope.