councilor.org
| Source | Nathan Newman |
| Date | 99/05/01/22:23 |
| /* Written 11:32 AM Oct 29, 1998 by jdoug@ix.netcom.com in igc:labr.all */ /* ---------- "Fwd: dsanet: Why We Lose Elections" ---------- */ Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 11:52:55 -0700 (MST) From: ANDERSON DAVID ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 13:29:36 -0500 From: Nathan Newman an interesting dialogue between Jeff Cox and Nathan Newman on electoral politics. Dave Anderson --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Cox: >Patterns of campaign finance in which business >groups outspend labor inside the Democratic Party, and patterns of >candidate recruitment which produce Democratic candidates who are either >entrepreneurs or trial lawyers, have produced a balance of forces in this >country that is dangerously weighted against the interests of the >wage-earning majority. In those circumstances, a strategy of: "Support >the progressive caucus, and never, ever, do anything that might endanger >the election of the Clintons, Gores, and Schumers", has produced an >almost complete marginalization of progressives. Nathan Newman responds: I've never understood why progressives feel it is better to lose in November than lose in a primary - since all the complaints you list will apply to November elections as much as Democratic primaries, with the only difference being that the progressive loss in November will end up electing the most rightwing candidate possible. If labor unions, civil rights activists, feminists and every other group cannot mobilize the money and energy to win a Democratic primary, why should anyone believe that the magic of a separate ballot line will suddenly change anything? The reality is that the progressive movement spends relatively little time and effort on electoral politics, preferring to spend its funds on legal battles, lobbying and research campaigns, workplace organizing, direct action and other non-electoral approaches. Maybe that is the correct decision, but there is no reason progressive have to be outspent and outorganized - we have a lot of folks on our side despite the defeatism some people seem to espouse. THe media makes a big deal when the AFL-CIO spends $25 million on an election cycle, but that is just one-half of one percent of the $5 billion raised annually by the labor movement. The environmental movement raises hundreds of millions of dollars each year and the civil rights movement raises tens of millions of dollars. Same with the feminist movement and so on. So why are there Congressional Republicans going unopposed? Mainstream Democrats have bypassed many races, yet you don't see progressives taking the opportunity to drop $100,000 on a worthy candidate to take a shot. It is absurd to argue that shifting the limited resources progressives spend on electoral politics from Democratic primaries to third party ballot lines will make any difference. And if we increase the amount of money spent by progressives on electoral campaigns, then the arguments against fighting in primaries because "we will get outspent" largely disappear. It is progressives who have marginalized progressives in electoral politics by failing to focus serious effort on it. I mentioned money above, but the same applies to people power- there is little serious recruitment for electoral campaigns by progressives compared to recruitment spent on a myriad of other campaigns. Again, that may be a wise choice, but it is a choice and other groups - such as the NRA and the Christian Coalition - have made different choices in recent years and we have seen the results. There is no magic bullet. If we want to do better in the electoral arena, we need to raise more money and recruit more volunteers. Period. The third party argument is largely an excuse to ignore basic bread-and-butter failures of organizing by progressives. --nathan newman |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho