A Progressive Voice in 2000?

The year 2000 Presidential sweepstakes has gotten underway. As the candidates for president go about their work of raising the millions needed to be seen as serious, there's one presidential “horse” that is not even mounting up to be in the race: good old progressive.

The Republicans have their center-right to far-out-right stable of horses: Dan Quayle, John McCain, Elizabeth Dole, Steve Forbes, Lamar Alexander, George Bush, John Kasich, Patrick Buchanan, Gary Bauer, and Robert Smith. The Democrats have only two: center-rightist Al Gore and centrist Bill Bradley.

The left has none. Paul Wellstone and Jesse Jackson, the two most prominent progressive Democrats, have both officially withdrawn from consideration.

On the face of it, you'd think that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party had run up the white flag and surrendered their party to the Clinton/Gore/Democratic Leadership Council crowd. This is so despite the election of an additional 15 or so self-described “progressives” to Congress in November 1998. According to Karen Dolan, National Director of the Progressive Challenge, which works closely with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, “the number of progressives comes to 90 out of 216 House Democrats.”

What has happened to our progressive leaders in the Democratic Party? There are certainly a number of reasons to explain this abysmal state of affairs, but there is no escaping the conclusion that the single most important reason is the mishandling of the sex, lies, and videotape scandal we were subjected to from December 1997 to February 1999. Clinton has done it again: in addition to the damage he wrought, at least temporarily, on the Republican Party, now internally divided and wounded as it has not been for a long time, Clinton also diverted and deflected progressive Democrats to such an extent that they are now virtually invisible and even less effective than usual when it comes to national politics.

Keeping Hope Alive

The sentiment in the U.S. in favor of alternatives to the two corporate-dominated parties has grown and deepened as a result of the bi-partisan debacle in Washington, DC. The percentage of registered independent and third party voters in the United States has climbed from about 2 percent of eligible adults in 1964 to about 15 percent in 1996. Earlier this year Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, noted that, “Party allegiance is getting weaker every year, and there are no signs that will change. It had a major impact in these latest [1998] elections, with Jesse Ventura being the most obvious example. But it's happening all around the country.”

There are three national progressive parties that have been growing and developing over the course of the 1990s. The oldest of these is the Green Party. Actually, there are two national Green organizations, the Greens/Green Party, USA and the Association of State Green Parties. The Greens movement began in the early 1980s, inspired by the success of the German and other European Green parties.

The Greens were aided significantly by Ralph Nader's “campaign” for president on the Green line in 1996. State Green organizations got Nader on the ballot in about half of the states, and he received close to 750,000 votes despite spending less than $5,000 on the campaign and fairly serious political and organizational problems. However, despite these problems, the campaign brought new people, new energy, and new organizations into the Green movement. It also exacerbated internal tensions, leading to the emergence of the Association of State Green Parties as an alternative, more electoral-oriented formation as compared to the Greens/Green Party, USA.

State Green organizations now exist in 28 states. They have ballot status in 12. Planning is underway for the running of presidential/vice-presidential candidates in 2000.

The Labor Party recently held a successful national convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in November 1998. This was their First Constitutional Convention following the founding convention in 1996 in Cleveland. At this convention the Labor Party decided to  run candidates for office. A series of requirements were approved that must be met before local chapters can run candidates, which will mean that the number of candidacies that eventually emerge, probably beginning in 2000, will be limited. The Labor Party's primary focus at this point is on the development of national campaigns in five areas: Just Health Care, Defend Social Security, a Workplace Bill of Rights, a 28th Constitutional Amendment Right to a Job, and a Working Class International Trade Policy.

Unions with memberships approaching one and a half million members have affiliated with the Labor Party, and there are about 40-45 chapters or local organizing committees.

The New Party is going through some changes. Its two co-founders, Joel Rogers and Dan Cantor, formerly board chair and executive director respectively, are no longer in those positions, although they continue active involvement. Cantor has become the interim state coordinator of the Working Families Party, created in 1998 when a coalition of community groups, some unions, and other progressives ran Democratic Party machine boss Peter Vallone for governor.

Last fall the national New Party adopted a permanent constitution and governance structure and held its first election of officers. A permanent National Executive Council replaced the previous Interim Executive Committee.

The New Party's major focus continues to be on the running of local candidates for office. Since their founding in the early 1990s, approximately 250 candidates have campaigned with New Party local chapter support. The vast majority has run either in non-partisan races or as Democrats. A small percentage, about 5 percent, has run on an independent, third party line. The New Party claims a membership of 20,000 and local chapters in about 10 states.

In addition to these three main national groups, there are other important organizations: the African-American led Unity Party and Campaign for a New Tomorrow, the California Peace and Freedom Party, the Progressive Party in Vermont, the DC Statehood Party, the Socialist Party, USA, and the Independent Progressive Politics Network, which links a number of these efforts and is working toward an eventual unified party or an alliance of parties.

Finally, it is important to note the growing political strength and some concrete local victories for two important electoral reform movements: the movement for voluntary (for now) public financing of elections and the movement for proportional representation in the way government officials are elected. In the opinion of many third party activists, the building of a viable third party movement in this country is directly connected to the growing success of these two fundamental electoral reform movements. A big money-dominated, winner-take-all electoral system is a virtual graveyard for third parties, as we have seen in the United States for over 100 years.

Successful state referenda in Maine, Massachusetts, and Arizona over the last year and a half have led to the creation of statewide, voluntary public financing systems. There are thousands of activists in every part of the country working to replicate this accomplishment in their state or locality via legislation or referendum.

Although the movement for proportional representation (PR) is newer and younger, two important recent developments portend what could come to pass in the relatively near future. In February the New Mexico Senate passed a bill which would provide for “preference voting,” a form of PR, for all federal and state offices. Also in February, Progressive Party legislator Terry Bouricius, with the co-sponsorship of four Democrats and four Republicans, introduced a bill to use “instant runoff voting” for all state elections. The bill has a realistic chance of being adopted into law.

Prospects for Unity in 2000

Taken together, all of these groups probably have a combined active membership of 20,000-30,000 people or more, many of them activists with years of experience. If all of this organizing, energy, and resources came together into some kind of a mutually respectful alliance, one in which each group continued working and developing on its own but also found ways to communicate and coordinate with the others, there's tremendous potential. Is anything like this on the immediate horizon?

Unfortunately, no. Some of these groups are interacting with each other to some extent. The Independent Progressive Politics Network's (IPPN) primary mission is to help bring all of these, and other, groups together into one unified party, or an alliance of parties, and it is having some success. However, the fact is that no breakthrough has yet taken place in which the leaders of all these important efforts have even sat down together in the same room just to dialogue, much less set up an alliance or engage in concerted action.

What about a viable independent presidential candidacy in 2000? Because of activity taking place within the Greens, the answer to this one is, yes. An ad hoc grouping of Greens from around the country has approached Angela Davis to see if she is interested in running.

The Association of State Green Parties, which links 28 state organizations of varying strength and experience, has established an organized process to reach out to possible candidates. Ralph Nader is a definite possibility, although if he became the candidate it would be because he agreed to run a serious campaign, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and speak to the wide range of Green platform issues that, by and large, are not substantially different than the platforms of all of the other progressive third parties. Other individuals who have been approached include Jerry Brown, Lester Brown, Noam Chomsky, Ron Daniels, Ron Dellums, Lani Guinier, Dan Hamburg, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Winona LaDuke, and Toni Morrison.

The Greens/Green Party, U.S.A, the oldest and more direct action-oriented wing of the Greens (although not exclusively), recently called for a unified national convention bringing together the ASGP, the G/GPUSA, state Green parties, and non-Green groups like the IPPN, Socialist Party, Peace and Freedom Party, Campaign for a New Tomorrow, and others. Out of the convention and the work leading up to it, a presidential/ vice-presidential slate would emerge, one that would hopefully have a broad base of active support from both Greens and non-Greens.

There are a number of questions posed by these developments. The immediate one, of course, is whether or not the Greens will be able to unite their efforts behind one candidate. My guess is that, yes, although somewhat messily, this will take place. Even with the internal differences and the two national Greens groups, there is enough overlap and enough maturity within the Greens generally that there is virtually no possibility of anything other than one president/vice- president slate.

A bigger question is whether the Greens candidate would be able to garner significant active support from the other third party efforts, from non-Greens. The answer to this one will depend to a great extent upon who the candidate is. A Ralph Nader, Ron Dellums or Jim Hightower, for example, would present the Labor Party and New Party with a difficult problem. Do they stand aside; stay silent, as a “name-recognition,” widely respected progressive faces off against Al Gore (or Bradley) and Bush/Dole/whomever? Would the New Party again implicitly support the Democratic candidate, as they did in 1996? Would the Labor Party, which invited Ralph Nader to speak at their November 1998 national convention, sit on their hands and do nothing to help him mount a credible showing?

There is also the question of political breadth to the campaign. The social base of the Greens tends to be white middle class. There are people of color and working class people involved and in leadership of the Greens, but, particularly for people of color, they are very distinctly in the minority. One way the Greens could deal with this problem (on a short-term basis; longer-term more is necessary) would be to run a person of color/white person for president/vice-president (or vice- versa) as well as a slate of “cabinet officials” that would demonstrate breadth and inclusiveness.

This article is written at the end of a period of massive civil disobedience led by progressives in the African-American community against Rudolph Giuliani and the NYPD following the Amadou Diallo murder. Over 1,000 people have been arrested so far. Anyone forecasting such a development from the dispirited and fractured New York City progressive movement would have been seen as delusional. Today, it's a whole new political world in New York City.

Giuliani is on the defensive and is plummeting in the polls. African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and whites are marching together and getting arrested together, going to the 7th police precinct station in paddy wagons together. Something important is happening in this city. And it shows no sign of going away anytime soon.

So let's keep plugging away, doing the best we can, looking for that spark that can light a prairie fire. It's happened before and, sooner or later, it will happen again. Let's do our best to make it sooner, make the year 2000 the year that we begin to emerge onto the national scene with a loud, unified, independent voice. History is calling.                      Z

Ted Glick, National Coordinator Independent Progressive Politics Network 7003,  indpol@igc.org, www.ippn.org.