Ralph Nader, of course, was sullied as a “spoiler,” and not just by Gore-supporting Democrats and liberals, but by elements of the left also. They claimed that the Nader vote put Bush in office because, had not been for Nader, the 2.74% of the electorate that voted for him would’ve voted for Gore, thus clearly giving Gore the Electoral College votes he needed. Of course this ignores that at least some of those who voted for Nader might not have voted at all in 2000, but rationalizations and recriminations have no room for logical subtleties. I voted for Nader in 2000 because I had no Gorillusions, and certainly not because I wanted to see George W. Bush in office. Nader addressed well the “spoiler” issue in an interview then on CNN, dismissing it with “Only Al Gore can defeat Al Gore.” If anything, Nader might’ve gained votes for Gore because, with a sharp-tongued opposition to his left, Al Gore got bolder on the campaign trail than he’d been initially. I received the same criticism from some labor Democrats who claimed that I’d really voted for Reagan when I told them I voted for Barry Commoner of the Citizens Party in 1980. No, not so in either case—I voted for Barry Commoner in 1980 because I wanted to support the politics and platform of Barry Commoner, and the same with voting for Nader in 2000. I didn’t want to buy into the “lesser evil trap” in either election.
But in looking back on it, while realizing that Al Gore would not have been either an effective President, as such things go, or a consistent champion of progressive politics and truly-needed social change, he certainly would’ve been better than George W. Bush, and perhaps better for the left as well had he won the Presidency. George W. Bush’s harshly rightist policies and practices in office did not galvanize the broad left—ranging from those mildly left of center to committed radical socialists—into sustained protest, resistance and concerted action; rather, it demoralized vastly, and drove many to eschew independent and third-party politics altogether and always vote for the Democrat as the only “realistic” alternative. And actively urge others to do so as well.
In 2004 I formally voted for John Kerry; but actually I didn’t vote for Kerry, I voted against Bush. In Indiana where I live, neither Nader nor the Green Party made it onto the ballot, and the only way to cast any kind of third-party protest vote was to go through the onerous process of casting a write-in vote for the Socialist Party candidate, a process which, at least in Indiana, meant filling out paper ballots for all races up for grabs, even if one leaves them blank—one just had to go through all those pieces of paper. In 2008 I voted for Obama, not because I had any particular Obamillusions, but mainly because at the time he was an unknown quantity who spoke well and seemed to be saying, albeit vaguely, all the right things; also because, like many Americans, I was scared to death of John McCain and especially of Sarah Palin, having that queasy feeling in my stomach that, because of McCain’s advanced age, I might wake up some morning and have President Palin to contend with! (Should this have come to pass I would’ve much preferred President Tina Fey—a clear case where the copy was far superior to the original.) Further, and once again, there was no Nader or Green Party candidate on the ballot, due to Indiana’s ballot access laws being among the most restrictive in the nation. As for the Socialist Party write-in option, the numbers tell the general futility of that—in 2008 the Socialist Party candidate got a total of 12 votes statewide.
Now it’s 2012, and I have even fewer Obamillusions than I had in 2008. I need not dwell on all the flip-flops, rotten compromises, broken promises, and even dangerous moves Obama has made since he became President—just pointing out his support of NDAA, use of lethal drones in Pakistan, compiling a “hit list” of persons targeted for assassination, advancing no serious jobs or economic recovery program, and the refusal to even consider single-payer in the healthcare debate will suffice. As has now long been pointed out, Obama, far from being even a liberal, is a pro-business centrist who clearly supports Pax Americana and regards the Wall Street crooks and big business CEOs as “savvy businessmen” (as he once stated) whom he wants on his team; and of course, surrounding himself with Wall Street types, Clintonites and Democratic Party flacks as advisors, key aides, and cabinet members while driving out, or forcing out, all those of a more progressive bent who originally came on board. But on the positive side, such as it is, he is ending active US military presence in Iraq and has set a deadline for US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. And though there is strong and concerted opposition to Obama’s policies from the left, the overwhelming opposition comes from the right, especially from the hard right, and has often been overtly racist in character.
Mitt Romney’s opposition to Obama is not at all based on Obamacare not going far enough (though it is clearly modeled on the healthcare program Romney supported as “moderate” Governor of Massachusetts), or because Romney sees the NDAA as a threat to civil liberties, or because he opposes drone warfare or official assassination lists as fundamentally unethical and disregarding of innocent lives—no, Romney’s stated opposition to Obama’s policies is all from the hard right, as his campaign rhetoric, overt appeals to the Tea Party, and choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate have amply shown. Further, very similar arguments apply to Democrats in House of Representatives and Senate races against Tea Party-supported Republicans (which is, all Republicans).
Simply put, while Obama and almost all Democrats are bad, very bad, the Republicans are worse, even much, much worse. And that’s a good part of the rub in terms of how leftists should vote in the 2012 elections, and whether it’s better, simply as a tactical measure that has some chance of effectiveness, to hold one’s nose and vote for Obama or other Democrats; or whether it’s better as a matter of principle to vote for Jill Stein and the Green Party, or Rocky Anderson and the Justice Party, or Roseanne Barr and the Peace and Freedom Party, or the Socialist Party, as possible. (Jill Stein, Presidential candidate of the Green Party, is on all state ballots except Oklahoma’s, but only as a write-in in Indiana and Georgia; the Justice Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the Socialist Party are on even fewer state ballots, though they may be write-in options wherever not formally listed.)
Socialists have stated it well both ways: Eugene Debs said famously, “Better to vote for what you want and not to get it than to vote for what you don’t want and to get it;” while Greg King, union activist in SEIU Local 888 and New Politics online contributor, said to me in an e-mail on October 24, “Those Democrats aren't much better than the Republicans in Indiana or nationally, but the Republicans, especially the Tea Party aligned ones, are SO bad that it's worth voting for the Democrats.” (King’s remarks were part of a comment on an article I’d written for the online Examiner.com newspaper, “The Tea Party and the 2102 Indiana elections,” where conservative Democratic candidates for Governor and Senator are running against openly Tea Party-backed Republicans, http://www.examiner.com/article/the-tea-party-and-the-2012-indiana-elections?cid=db_articles.)
Further, it isn’t only the left that has third-party movements attempting to appeal to those disaffected with both the Democrats and the Republicans. The Libertarians, and further right that the Libertarians (yes, it is possible), the Constitution Party, as well as a gaggle of openly racist and neo-Nazi splinter parties, are all trying to build opposition parties of the right that oppose the Republican Party, the right’s traditional home.
There is also the practical matter that no third party or independent Presidential electoral challenge since early in the 20th Century has ever broken through the magic 3% barrier, i.e., getting 3% or more of the total national vote; most of the time it’s been less than 2% and often less than 1%. That was true of Nader in 2000, as noted above with 2.74% of the vote, and even the actively-organized and widely-publicized run of Henry Wallace as the Progressive Party’s Presidential candidate in 1948, which garnered 2.4% of the vote—same percentage of the vote as the segregationist States Rights Party Presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond, garnered that year, but with fewer votes than the States Rights Party. The last third party to become a major party in the US was the Republican Party in 1860, but only because the two major opposition parties in the traditionally two-party American system, the Whigs and the Democrats, had either disintegrated (Whigs) or split (Democrats, with one Presidential candidate in the North, and another in the South), due to the highly divisive issue of slavery. Another aspect of that much-maligned on the left, but factually true, “American exceptionalism.”
As it is, the case on the left for voting for Obama has been compellingly, but not fully convincingly, advanced in three important articles seen by many who consider themselves left-of-center. The most forcefully pro-Obama one was by Tom Hayden, September 4’s “Saving Obama, Saving Ourselves,” http://tomhayden.com/elections/saving-obama-saving-ourselves.html; less sanguine, but still urging a vote for Obama from the left, were Achy Obejas’ “Voting Obama with no illusions” in the November 2012 In These Times (not available online until November 5) and Daniel Ellsberg’s October 18 “Progressives: In Swing States, Vote for Obama,” http://rootsaction.org/news-a-views/534-progressives-in-swing-states-vote-for-obama, also reprinted in the Huffington Post and carried by the left news listserve Portside. All three articles raised the specter of a Romney/Ryan victory as a tremendous setback for the left and enshrinement in practice of far right policies: a refrain of my argument stated above, that while Obama may be bad, Romney would be far worse. Hayden further brings up an interesting point for the overwhelmingly white anti-Obama left to consider, that persons of color, particularly African Americans and Hispanics, are for Obama by margins of 70% or greater. These are not arguments easily slighted, especially in our highly polarized winner-take-all, damn-all-those-who-didn’t-vote-for –us American political system we of the left face in 2012, and will face beyond 2012.
And while it is true that there is little difference of substance between the Democrats and Republicans, it is sheer hyperbole to say there is no difference, especially given the open support of the Tea Party and corporate money for the Republicans; and it is accurate to say that, on all issues of concern to the left, while the Democrats usually waffle and often strongly disappoint, the Republicans advance a clear far right political and social agenda on all these issues, from civil liberties to foreign policy, economic and jobs issues to gay and women’s rights, that we of the left can consider truly dangerous, especially if enacted. And also, that too many of the anti-Obama left not only cavalierly dismiss the threat of Romney and the Tea Party-backed Republicans, they actually portray Obama as somehow worse than Romney, a greater danger to the left and to meaningful progressive social change than Romney. This smacks me as indulging in a blind ultraleftism reminiscent of Germany in 1932, when the Communist Party denounced the Social-Democrats as “social fascists” worse than the Nazis, were openly dismissive of Hitler and the Nazis as a mere flash in the pan, and advanced as their chief political slogan, “After Hitler, our turn!”
No, not after George W. Bush can we of the left categorically say there is no real threat from a corporate-supported hard right in public office; and we certainly can’t say that in light of the deadlock imposed on all progressive legislation and political appointments, no matter how tepid or unsatisfactory, by the victory of Tea Party-backed House Republicans in 2010. I don’t much like the slogan advanced for years by the Communist Party, “Defeat the ultraright,” and the strategy flowing from that, elect Democrats no matter what they are; yet I can’t categorically dismiss it either. There is some realism embodied in it, especially in view of the US’s winner-take-all political system and, in terms of the Presidency, the paramount role of the Electoral College, not the popular vote, in determining who becomes President.
Still, I can’t say that definitely rules out voting for third-party candidates of the left in protest, even though, as a matter of practicality, voting for them will have no discernible political impact in the short term. (Though it might serve as a base from which to launch an independent left electoral movement at a later date, if the left can reach out effectively to all those disaffected who voted for left third-party candidates.) But when I raised the question of who I would vote for in 2012, saying I might hold my nose and vote for Obama, or I might vote for Jill Stein as a write-in, I was excoriated by one Ed Griffith of the New Progressive Alliance, a pro-third party of the left group that does consider Obama a greater threat than Romney and talks only of the Democratic and Republican “uniparty.” Griffith, with whom I had become friends due to his support of my short-lived independent candidacy for Lt. Governor in Indiana (more on that in Part II), turned viciously against me after I’d posted an anti-Romney (but not pro-Obama) video on Facebook excoriating Bain Capital’s role in the outsourcing of jobs from a business in Freeport, Illinois to China. Griffith wrote me this final livid e-mail:
You have chosen to openly support evil and the very people who are oppressing you. You may not have the mental capacity to chose, but I am through making excuses for you. I believe we all have free will and you have made the cowardly choice to support evil even though it goes against your interest. The blood of all the innocents that Obama is killing in his many wars is on your hands. No relationship with you is possible. I will ignore all future communication.New Politics online editor Stephen Shalom commented trenchantly on Griffith’s vitriol and its political import, "I guess Ed G. has just broken off all communication with 99% of the American population: a real good strategy for achieving social change!" Because on November 7, no matter what the outcome, we of the left will need to talk to those at the grassroots who supported Obama if we are serious about building a significant third-party electoral force. Because on November 7 we are going to wake up either to a re-elected President Obama, or a President-elect Romney, period, and not even remotely to a President-elect Stein, or a President-elect Anderson, or a President-elect Barr, or the Socialist Party nonentity as President-elect—and that alone will impact what we of the left do, and can do, for at least the next four years.
I still haven’t decided who I am going to vote for as President on November 6: whether it will be reluctantly for Obama; whether it will be futilely for Jill Stein, who advocates what I really believe in; or whether I will just ignore the Presidential race entirely here in a state that is considered a shoo-in for Romney; nor does my one vote make much difference in Indiana or nationally. So all I would advise my fellow leftists is simply and rather vacuously, “Vote whatever you think is best.” But I do know that the left is going to have to do more than dabble inconsistently in electoral politics, as it is doing now and had done for decades, if it wishes to be a serious political force; and that if serious independent left electoral third parties are to be built, they will have to be truly grassroots-based and be able to command considerable support and be able to actually win, or have a realistic chance of winning, at least some elections, even if at present only at the local level (not even statewide, because presently that simply is not possible, despite the visible, yet small, presence of the Peace and Freedom Party in California). I will be addressing how to seriously build left third-party electoral movements in a later post.
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