Third Party Organizing Under Obama
"As a politician, Mr. Daschle often struck a populist note, but his financial disclosure report shows that in the last two years, he received $2.1 million from a law firm, Alston & Bird; $2 million in consulting fees from a private equity firm run by a major Democratic fundraiser, Leo Hindery Jr. . . and at least $220,000 for speeches to health care, pharmaceutical and insurance companies. He also received nearly $100,000 from health-related companies affected by federal regulation."
-N.Y. Times, Feb. 1, 2009, page 1 story, "Daschle Knew of Tax Issues As Of Last June"
The nomination of Tom Daschle for both White House "health czar" and Secretary of Health and Human Services is in trouble. It's in trouble because information has come out that Daschle, former Democratic Party leader in the U.S. Senate, didn't pay until very recently $128,000 in back taxes owed for "the use of a car and driver provided by a private equity firm," the same one which gave him $2 million in consulting fees.
Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, is quoted as saying, "The president is comfortable with Senator Daschle's variety of experiences and backgrounds. It's why he believes he's best suited to the efforts to reform our health care system."
Is this really the best President Obama can do when it comes to change we can believe in as far as our seriously-flawed health care system?
It has been like a breath of fresh air to have Obama in the White House. I don't miss at all reading in the newspaper each morning about the latest Bush/Cheney outrage. Some mornings over the last two weeks there has been truly good White House news to read about: an end to torture, pro-labor initiatives, support for renewable energy, a reversal of Bush's anti-choice family planning policies internationally.
But the Daschle fiasco, coupled with other problematic Cabinet appointments, particularly Robert Gates, James L. Jones, Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, underlines the importance of continuing efforts to build a consistently progressive political alternative-a "third party"-in this country.
The last eight years for those efforts have not been easy. Under the neo-conservative Republicans, the predominant sentiment among progressive-minded people, both activists and the broad swath of voters, has been that it is essential that we get the Republicans out of office. And since the winner-take-all, corporate dominated U.S. electoral system, and the corporate mass media which reports on it, are structured to make third parties seem like little more than "spoilers" (spoilers of a rotten system), it has been a hard, upstream row for groups like the Green Party and the Labor Party, the two surviving, national, progressive third party organizations.
At a local level the Green Party has been able to maintain and strengthen its presence in many, a large majority, of states. It has been electing a slowly growing number of people to local offices like city council while maintaining an activist presence on issues. The vast majority of those local electoral victories, however, have been by Green Party members running on a non-partisan ballot line. Very few of the currently 250 or so elected Greens won office by running on a Green Party ballot line.
On a national level, in both 2004 and 2008, the progressive third party movement was divided between those who supported non-Green Party member Ralph Nader's independent campaigns and those who supported the candidates chosen by the GP's internal democratic processes, David Cobb and Cynthia McKinney. In both Presidential election years, Nader got a small percentage of the 2.8 million votes he had gotten in 2000 -460,000 (2004) and 730,000 votes (2008)-and Cobb and McKinney got between 120,000 (Cobb) and 160,000 (McKinney).
It seems to me that if we are ever going to open up the U.S. electoral system to the participation of those who rightly feel very excluded, if we are to ever have a genuine multi-party democracy instead of a two-party duopoly, there are a number of things which must be done by those who support this objective, those who are currently active in groups like the Greens or the Labor Party, as well as those working in or close to the Democratic Party who clearly understand its serious limitations:
-We need to keep building our independent electoral/activist efforts, organizing on issues and running candidates on local and, where it's strategic, state levels.
-We need to be people who can be counted on to support the struggles of communities of color, labor, young people, women, environmentalists and other progressive-oriented constituencies around the issues they are most affected by. We need to be reliable allies. We don't have the money and access to corporate media that the Dems and Reps do, but over time we can compensate for that with solid personal and political connections at a grassroots level.
-Along these lines, there is a need to firmly reject sectarian, narrow and divisive approaches toward third party organizing which would isolate us from our natural allies. There are some individual members of the Green Party, for example, who attack as sellouts other Greens who are working with Democrats, as well as non-Green independents and maybe some Republicans, on issues. They have no appreciation of the need to be known not just for having good ideas about what needs to be done to bring about genuine change but for demonstrating in practice an ability to organize effectively through alliance-building.
-Finally, there is a continuing need for the development of arenas for discussion and relationship-building among those who have similar programmatic ideas about what needs to be done but have differences over the political tactics to achieve them-i.e., between progressive Democrats, progressive third partyites and those who see themselves as primarily issue-oriented activists. It may well be the case that such discussions could develop into something more substantial as far as regularized communication and coordination. And perhaps, as we get the mixed bag of results-- some positive, some negative, some somewhere in between--that we can realistically expect from Obama and the Democrats, we'll figure out how to advance toward an effective, consistently progressive, activist and electoral, national political vehicle we can all be part of.
Ted Glick is a former coordinator and continuing leader of the Independent Progressive Politics Network. His primary work for the last four years has been as a climate activist. More information can be found at http://www.tedglick.com.
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A Different Approach
By Isaacs, Joel at Feb 04, 2009 20:46 PM
Ted, if you haven’t already read it you would value G. William Domhoff’s book: Changing the Powers that Be – How the Left can Stop Losing and WIN. Or at least look at his website. Domhoff has researched this area for over forty years. He explains in detail how third parties don’t work at a national level in the USA, in particular. On this Michael Albert is also in agreement. Domhoff shows however that the electoral system can be exploited in the primaries, because the two parties DO NOT control their own membership. He has a detailed piece on this: Third Parties Don’t Work – How Egalitarians Should Transform the Democratic Party, which you can see at http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_egalitarians.html I recommend it.
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Re: A Different Approach
By Glick, Ted at Feb 05, 2009 03:27 AM
Joel,
I've heard of this book, may have actually seen it at some point many years back. The problem with it begins with the title about "transform(ing) the Democratic Party." That seems to me, based on decades of experience, to be even less likely than the eventual emergence of a powerful independent progressive party. We can see this with Obama: campaigns using progressive anti-war and anti-corporate rhetoric, wins and appoints pro-war and very pro-corporate people to his Cabinet, etc., etc. The story is an old one. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
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Re: Re: A Different Approach
By Isaacs, Joel at Feb 05, 2009 12:11 PM
I basically agree with your reply. In trying to write something short I forgot I could come across as naively hopeful about the Democratic Party. Not my intention, nor his I believe. It’s more about exploiting an opportunity during primaries, when people are somewhat listening, to get out our messages about a participatory society or economy. This might then also force local Democrats to take a more progressive stance and eventually filter up. But the emphasis is on a more effective way of reaching people.
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Another option
By Davidson, Carl at Feb 03, 2009 13:31 PM
There's another option, but it requires a different strategy and tactics.
First, we all know the problem. Our election laws are the most reactionary in the modern world, and until we get at least fusion voting and IRV, we don't live in a multiparty democracy.
So what do we do in the meantime? So far, the Greens have proceeded on the idea that we pretend we have a multiparty democracy anyway. Unfortunately, 'let's pretend' is OK when playing house as little kids, but it doesn't help much here.
My suggestion, rooted in the experience of the Nonpartisan Leagues of the midwest in another era, starts with the Greens, PDA and other left-progressive electoral formations recognizing a common enemy and a common platform.
Defining TODAY's enemy is the hard part. If you say 'capitalism,' 'Democrats,' or 'corporations,' without dividing the house, I don't think you can move forward much.
But if we can define it as mainly low-road speculative capital, from global to local, then we have a chance.
The task then is to pick the five largest problems in every major urban area. Then spell out a package of structural reforms and immediate demands to solve them, along with a spreadsheet on how you plan to pay for them. Then you build an nonpartisan high-road green alliance of all the key players--labor, community, youth, social movements. All that's familiar. Now add in high-road businesses that want the same thing, and what to grow their businesses to provide the green jobs that are part of the package. [Warning: some of these green businesses are incorporated, as are many of the third sector nonprofits you'll want to pull into this alliance. That's why knee-jerk 'anti-corporate' rhetoric won't do.] Not only are they part of the alliance in this way, they can also help fund it.
With a high alliance and a high-road platform, the next task is to pick the ticket, politicians who will pledge to support the platform and run on it. So do some old-fashioned politicking and pick a local combination of Greens, PDA, Labor Party, socialists, labor union staff, community reps and anyone else that makes sense.
This give us a Red-Green ticket in the form of a nonpartisan grassroots highroad alliance that can win seats even given the current reactionary laws. If we win enough of them, we can change the law and move from nonpartisan to partisan forms of electoral engagement.
Finally, elections don't make change; people do. But in making change, people here must certainly proceed through elections, and not simply around them.
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Re: Another option
By minot, Minot at Feb 03, 2009 14:51 PM
C. Davidson's ideas for coalition building might be applicable under the "major urban area" scenario, i.e., a local/state/regional coalition. resumably no one would die as a result of these coalitions taking power.
He fails when he tries to apply his theory nationally, since he has shown us what that means: support for all the things we claim we oppose (see Obama).
I wish Davidson was only playing in his sandbox - unfortunately, instead of opposing war and slaughter, the very wise Davidson was telling us to support it.
Sandbox play - whether voting third party, not voting at all, or actually sitting in a sandbox - would be highly preferable to signing off on all those dead Afghans, Pakistanis, Lebanese, Palestinians, ad infinitum.
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Re: Re: Another option
By Davidson, Carl at Feb 03, 2009 16:08 PM
Sorry, Minot, I don't get your point here.
First, if you can't win some local, citywide and statewide seats, you don't have to worry about national power. You'll never get there. Moot point.
Second, you don't ignore global issues even locally, especially war and the war machine. Ending the wars and cutting defense is a key component of funding a depression-busting recovery plans. I'd put it in every city platform, as the 'Cities for Peace' project already has.
Third, even if you're in an alliance with, say, Obama, on some items, it doesn't follow that you're married to the whole White House agenda and platform. You support what's right and oppose what's wrong.
But to do that, you have to think a little on what today's main enemy is. And on what issue. It's called politics. And yes, in my strategy, we don't set out to take on all adversaries at once. Better to crush them one by one, starting with the most dangerous.
But just what in the platform of a high-road alliance is against everything 'we claim we oppose'? Green jobs? Alternative energies? Small schools? Worker-owned coops? Community nonprofit credit unions as local investment banks? Job training and work projects for ex-offenders? HR 676? EFCA? Repairing Infrastructure?
I have little idea want you're talking about, and what your alternative is.
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Re: Re: Re: Another option
By Hazeltine, Jeff at Feb 03, 2009 20:31 PM
I think I get Minot's point.
Many "progressives" took on the "most dangerous" and elected anybody but Bush. Now the most dangerous is Obama and his graciously inherited wars, his new wars to come, and alternative energy (aka nuclear and "clean coal"). Progressive policy has no HOPE of surviving in an "End of torture--unless its really neccessary" , "No more lobyists--unless they are really experienced" , "Hurry up and pass this stimulus package without too much debate just like the bailout package" Obama white house.
That's what we are talking about.
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Re: Third Party Organizing Under Obama
By Barnes, Mark at Feb 03, 2009 06:57 AM
Ted, I think a better idea is to move away from political parties altogether. They are really anachronistic. The Green Party has been a particularly pitiful excuse for a progressive political organization on many levels. It has wasted a lot of people's time, money and energy. In the end it has probably burned out and embittered more progressives than any other modern political entity. The ridiculous and incredibly vindictive attacks by greens on other greens has been not only depressing, hateful and non-productive, but has produced a whole body of folks who have probably dropped out of political life forever. Politically inept, dysfunctional and sociopathic would describe most of the hardcore greens. They should have stuck to the ecology movement. Nader should never have entered politics as well, but that's another story.
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Re:
By Glick, Ted at Feb 03, 2009 08:31 AM
Mark,
No question there's been some very problematic stuff happening within the Green Party, but from my connections to it that seems to have improved for the better in the last few years. Bottom line: we need a strong progressive third party. If you disagree with that, then we just disagree on what's needed to make systemic change. Right now the Greens are the primary organized expression, nationally, of that strategic necessity and, as such, until something bigger, better and broader emerges, they should be supported.
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By Polson, Rufus at Feb 02, 2009 23:03 PM
This is all very fine, but it seems as if some of the "progressive Democrats" active in the Green party are effectively acting as cuckoos, dedicated to ensuring that the Green party does not grow and that its "internal democratic processes" remain at least as undemocratic as those of the Democratic party, derailing any attempts to make it a party of broad-based activism or grassroots control. You are after all formulating the Green party as a challenger to the Democratic party. So do most Greens. I would expect it to be obvious that so too do the Democrats.
The Democratic party is far from dynamic; it has no inspiring ideology, no clear-cut ethical basis for existence, no real cultural centre of gravity, no distinct program. And yet it survives and wins elections. This should tell us it has other things that work; among these very important are corruption and co-option. I'm not necessarily against supping with the Democrats, but blanket claims that we should do so on general principles to avoid divisiveness seem naive. An absolute precondition to supping with the Democrats is bringing a very long spoon indeed. Failure to do so invites destruction as any kind of progressive alternative. It's not as if the environmental movement has never seen any of this; group after group of progressive, grass-roots, effective activists have been taken over by lobbyists and turned into inside-the-beltway, unaccountable, utterly ineffective operations. The only thing that can save progressive movements from this sort of thing in my opinion is an absolute insistence on strong democracy within the movement, both in form and substantive norms.
In the case of the Green party there have been some worrying indications that this sort of takeover has already to some extent happened, particularly at the level of the central leadership. Similar things have happened in the Canadian Green party, which has become a centre-right party trying to save the environment with "market principles". A bid to avoid "divisiveness" by avoiding any confrontation with Democrats in a party that is, after all, supposed to be a threat to the Democrats strikes me as likely to operate effectively as a surrender to Democrat efforts to hijack the party and neutralize it as a threat.
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Re:
By Glick, Ted at Feb 03, 2009 04:51 AM
Tthere is a very big difference between working with individual progressive Democrats, and even PDA, with whom Greens share much in common programmatically and the Democratic Party.
The real issue is how to build a mass third party movement that involves millions. We're not going to get it unless we're out there mixing it up on issues with lots of people, and when you do that you interact with a lot of Democrats.
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