EDITORIAL
Play the hand
Who deserves the vote of progressive populists in this presidential election?
We respect and admire Ralph Nader, the longtime citizen advocate who hopes
his candidacy on the Green Party ticket will help build a long-term, independent
populist political movement. [See Brett Campbell's report elsewhere and
Nader's speech
to the Green convention.] Despite his national reputation Nader has
been all but ignored by the corporate-controlled mass media. He has about
as much chance to win the election as Ross Perot, who at least has gotten
occasional coverage. But Nader and Perot, and the other putative "minor"
candidates, despite their ballot status, have effectively been dealt out
of the election.
That leaves us with the hand we are dealt: the Democrat and the Republican.
We cannot endorse Bill Clinton, the "New Democrat" who looked
like an old Republican when he engineered the bipartisan adoption of the
North American Free Trade Agreement and the global General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade. Those international treaties, which were negotiated by
the Bush administration at the behest of multinational corporations, consign
American workers to compete with Third-World labor standards.
Clinton also pandered to health industry executives who ultimately scuttled
his compromises and left 40 million Americans unable to afford health care.
He presided over the erosion of privacy and civil liberties in the name
of fighting terrorism and he promoted the expansion of the death penalty.
He compromised on food quality. He signed a pork-laden defense appropriations
bill that spends $11.2 billion more than the Pentagon even asked for, even
as the welfare repeal bill throws unskilled mothers into the job market
to compete with other laborers. All this while the Federal Reserve Board,
with Clinton's reappointment of Chairman Alan Greenspan, continues an official
policy of maintaining 5% unemployment to keep wages down.
But despite our respect for Nader and our disappointment with Clinton we
cannot counsel any action that would result in the election of Republican
Bob Dole. If Clinton has compiled a record that Eisenhower would be proud
of, Bob Dole has embraced the platform of the extreme right wing. He would
grease the skids for approval of more draconian bills by a conservative
Republican Congress that would make the 104th look like a New Deal replay.
In addition the next president may get as many as three choices for the
Supreme Court.
"Cynicism is chic, but costly," Jesse Jackson recently wrote.
He appealed to readers of The Nation to look past their grievances at Clinton
and consider the damages a GOP White House and Congress with a solidly conservative
Supreme Court might wreak. "At the federal level, this election - more
than most - is about something. It is a referendum on the anti-people, pro-corporate,
antigovernment, radical-right Gingrich/Dole agenda," he wrote. "Surrender
or withdrawal challenges nothing. We must engage, engage, engage to make
things happen."
Going into the last month of the campaign, Clinton appears to have built
up a substantial lead in the polls - a lead he gained after he stood up
to the Republican Congress, even when it meant shutting down the federal
government, to protect Medicare benefits, student loans, environmental protection
and other programs targeted by Gingrich and Dole. But Clinton has continued
to distance himself from progressive congressional Democrats as he reaches
out to conservatives. Ironically, those conservatives are always going to
like Republicans better because the GOP sides with big business instinctively.
At least Clinton has to be persuaded.
Our best advice is to vote for Clinton if the race is close. Alert readers
will know by November 5 whether a defensive vote for Clinton is needed.
If not, a vote for Nader will strike a blow for democracy and help the Greens
stay on the ballot for the next election. Maybe - just maybe - there will
be a progressive alternative then.
Even if you can't muster any enthusiasm for Clinton and you don't think
your vote for Nader will do any good, there are other reasons to get out
to vote. After you get past the presidential race, the Progressive Populist
can endorse, with a few exceptions, Democrats for Congress. Those exceptions
include: Green Party candidates for the Senate in Alaska (Jeb Whittaker),
Maine (John Rensenbrink, although Democrats probably will stick with moderate
former Gov. Joe Brennan in a close race with a moderate Republican) and
New Mexico (Abraham Guttman) are worthy of your vote, at least to help build
that alternative party for future elections.
In U.S. House races, the Progressive Populist endorses Democrats with the
exception of California's 27th District, where we endorse Green Party candidate
Walter Sheasby of Sierra Madre, an occasional Progressive Populist contributing
writer. We don't know enough about the eight other Green congressional candidates
to justify a vote for them over Democrats in Massachusetts, Oregon, New
Mexico, New York and Rhode Island.
Clinton has come under some criticism for not making more of an effort to
win back Congress. Some observers suggest that if he wants to pursue the
centrist course laid out by the business-oriented Democratic Leadership
Council he might be better off with narrow Republican control of both the
House and Senate.
Conservative Southern Democrats are being replaced by Republicans or moderate-to-progressive
Democrats, so Democratic recapture of the House would put senior liberals
in line for key committee chairs. They include Charles Rangel of New York,
ranking Democrat on tax-writing Ways and Means; California's Henry Waxman
on Government Reform and Oversight, Ron Dellums on National Security, George
E. Brown Jr. on Science and George Miller on Resources; Michigan's John
Conyers on Judiciary and John Dingell on Commerce; David Obey of Wisconsin
on Appropriations; William Clay of Missouri on Economic and Educational
Opportunities; James L. Oberstar of Minnesota on Transportation and Infrastructure;
Lane Evans of Illinois on Veterans Affairs; and Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas
on Banking. But Dick Gephardt, who is in line to become Democratic House
speaker, likely would feel pressure to promote more conservative chairmen,
particularly if the Democrats' majority is a narrow one. Gephardt already
has hinted that he would follow Newt Gingrich's example and set aside seniority
in selecting chairs, looking for younger centrist Democrats in an effort
to reach consensus.
If the Democrats regain the House with a slim majority - perhaps five or
10 votes to spare - then the conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats,
with approximately 30 votes, will still call the shots and a progressive
agenda will be shelved. But if the Democrats gain more than 30, the congressional
Democratic leadership can tell the Blue Dogs to go scrounge with the Republicans
and Clinton will be more accountable to the progressive core of the party.
So vote Democratic for Congress. Maybe that will let Bill Clinton be a Democrat
again!
Campaign in Trouble? Try the truth
"So, you're behind in the polls and no one is giving you a chance.
Why not do what you should have been doing all along? If you had been openly
against NAFTA and GATT and for campaign finance reform, by now you would
have gotten all the Perot and Buchanan voters. And if you had advocated
giving tax breaks to those below $50,000 a year - and paying for it by raising
taxes on those making over $120,000 a year - you would have gotten most
of your middle and low income voters on your side. In other words, look
at the realities of our society, tell the truth, and do what's right."
So says Chuck Kelly in "The Truman Strategy: For Honest Candidates
With or Without a Prayer." Kelly, a retired management consultant,
notes that Harry Truman, given up up for dead in his 1948 campaign, beat
a coalition of Republicans and rebellious conservative Democrats by asking
voters: "How many times do you have to be hit on the head before you
find out who's hitting you?" Truman answered the question and won the
election, despite the common assumption that the electorate had been convinced
that conservatives were good for the economy.
"Today's voters appear to have been conned into believing that it is
a good idea to pit workers of the world against American workers, and someone
besides Perot and Buchanan could get a lot of votes by educating the public
about what's going on," Kelly writes. Check out his Internet web site,
In Defense of Democratic Capitalism.
SF gets voting choice
San Francisco in November could become the largest local government in the
United States to switch from the winner-take-all election system to a proportional
representation system for its government.
The referendum is on preference voting, a version of proportional representation
that would let voters rank their top choices for the Board of Supervisors
rather than choosing one candidate per position.
The plan would determine winners by a process of counting first-choice votes,
then transferring surplus votes to second-choice candidates until winners
were established for all seats.
This method would do away with the need for decennial redistricting and
it would allow minorities to win seats in an era when minority-dominated
districts are under assault by conservative courts. For example, in a city
or district with 10 seats, a group with 10% of the voters could win one
of the seats, and so on.
Preference voting could solve the problem of how to encourage greater political
representation for minorities when federal courts in the past year have
struck down pro-minority gerrymandering of congressional districts in Texas
and Georgia, threatening several black members of Congress.
Preference voting would particularly help minorities who are dispersed throughout
a city or region. They could develop slates and form alliances with other
groups to target seats.
Preference voting allows candidates to win without spending as much money
and will put more emphasis on grass-roots support, Board of Supervisors
member Tom Ammiano told the Christian Science Monitor. Supervisors currently
spend up to $250,000 to win races and thus become dependent on monied interests,
Ammiano says. "I raised $100,000, that was considered nothing. That's
criminal."
Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney introduced a bill to allow proportional representation
in congressional elections. It would repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member
congressional districts. McKinney's bill should be a priority of the new
Congress.
For more information on proportional representation contact the Center
for Voting and Democracy, or call 202-828-3062.
- Jim Cullen
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