Accounting for Bill de Blasio’s victory in last fall’s mayoral election, New York press paid homage to the Working Families Party — a small Brooklyn-based party with roots in community and labor organizing. For many on the Left, however, the WFP is fatally compromised by its strategy of nearly always endorsing Democrats, even when there are third-party alternatives.

Pragmatism trumps principle, and there can be no credibility without principle. This complaint is familiar, and threadbare. Present developments are demonstrating its inadequacy.

New York’s austerian Governor Andrew Cuomo is scrambling right now to come up with a bill to establish a comprehensive system of public funding for all New York elections, which would make New York only the fourth state to do so. The proposed system is modeled on New York City’s outstanding program, which has led to the takeover of the City Council by the labor-left. (Mandatory paid sick days for one million workers and laws curbing stop-and-frisk are fruits of clean elections.) The only state to pass such a system through its legislature was Connecticut, the year after its erstwhile governor was sentenced to prison on bribery charges.