by Mark Gardner
The Free Press
Election night '92 was a heady time for the Democrats, and seemingly for the left in general. Democrats swept into office at all levels as voters passed judgment on the complacent presidency of George Bush. Clinton, although an avowed "New Democrat," had run on a populist platform promising significant change, and had railed against trickle-down economics while promising revolutionary health care reform. All signs pointed to a thaw after the long winter of conservatism.In hindsight, just two short years later, such euphoria seems to have been misplaced. A brief period of legislative openness did bring a few significant changes, such as the passage of the Bush-vetoed Family Leave Act. But that is all in the past. Now, reform legislation is being repeatedly filibustered to death by the minority in the Senate. The left is losing the culture wars as well. Out in the suburbs and hinterlands, shrill radio talk show hosts saturate the airwaves with anti-government, anti-environmental, and anti-human rights sentiment.
In this state, wave after wave of initiatives designed to roll back 25 years of legislative reform have been on the political agenda, keeping the left on the defensive. And a growing "property rights" movement is working to dismantle growth management and habitat protection.
But the left is catching some wind in its sails after years in the doldrums. Most notably for Washington state, the latest spate of initiatives sponsored by the far- and Christian right failed to make it onto the ballot. Two anti-gay measures, a property rights initiative, a welfare rollback initiative, and a measure designed to defang all government regulations fell short of the necessary signatures.
The failure of the anti-gay initiative campaigns provides some instructive lessons for the left. One of these initiatives, 610, rolled into Washington with much fanfare as the nightmare stepchild of Oregon far-rightist Lon Mabon. But a disorganized operation, and effective accusations of carpetbagging by the opposing Hands Off Washington campaign, helped to leave this one DOA. A locally-hatched measure, initiative 608, came much closer to the threshold of signatures, however.
Robert Harkins, communications director for Hands Off Washington, recently pointed out some unique and very effective strategies which helped the anti-initiative campaign keep 608 and 610 off the ballot. According to Harkins, "Hands Off Washington made the decision at the very beginning to organize statewide. We had 24 affiliated coalition councils in 24 different communities across the state, and there were 10 different working committees affiliated to one degree or another with the campaign. That created a structure statewide so that the proponents of the initiatives could not organize or do any work in any community and go unanswered...."
The campaign countered right wing populism by reaching out to groups with a broad base. Harkins noted that "We didn't rely on the usual gang of suspects who support these kinds of issues... The fact that all of the mainstream Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholics and the leadership of the Jewish community stepped forward very early made it very difficult for opponents to organize at all."
Harkins said that the campaign also worked hard to shift the terms of the debate, away from a referendum on gays and lesbians, "... and on to the issue of whether we as a culture want to sanction discrimination." He also claimed that the "bigot busters," who confronted signature gatherers and argued that citizens ought to "decline to sign," ultimately helped keep the initiatives off the ballot by raising the profile of the opposition campaign.
In an air conditioned basement of a Pioneer Square restaurant on July 20, a group of Democratic politicians and campaign volunteers heard two political strategists talk about strategies for fighting the far right. The event was organized as a fund-raiser for State Representative Barbara Holm, who is currently locked in a race against Peggy Johnson, a member of the Christian right.
The group first heard Jonathan Mozzachi, research director for the Seattle and Portland-based Coalition for Human Dignity. Mozzachi provided a brief anatomy of the Christian and far right, noting that the Christian right movement was as recently as four years ago pronounced dead. But despite some embarrassments for its leadership, it quietly organized its way back into power and influence. The Christian Right's most potent electoral organization, the Pat Robertson-affiliated Christian Coalition, is working to moderate its image (a tactic which led to an arms-length relationship to the two anti-gay initiatives). At the same time, it has been running "stealth candidates" for local offices who play down their affiliation with the Christian conservatives. But this does not, according to Mozzachi, equal "a transformation of their fundamental political ideology." The religious right is also trying to build inroads into African-American, Latino, and conservative Jewish communities, and is seeking sympathy from the mainstream by painting itself as a beleaguered minority surrounded by a hostile secular culture.
Jeff Malachowski, Executive Director of the Western States Center, which supports progressive organizing in eight western states, also spoke. He focused on short and long-term strategies to outflank as well as out-organize the right, cautioning that "the right wing is insurgent in the west, and insurgent in Washington despite the fate of recent ballot measures." They are building bridges across issues supported by the property rights, anti-gay, anti-tax, and anti-government movements, and in the process are creating a "comprehensive governing agenda."
Malachowski also noted that right wing organizing frequently occurs in areas of economic distress. He said that while these groups may indeed have manipulating, carpet bagging leadership, and out-of-state funding, they are tapping into real populist sentiment among people who feel that they have lost control of their lives. Much of this organizing is "under radar," occurring in churches, in bars, and in local businesses. The word is being spread by neighbors, by the grocer or the barber. Because of this genuine popular base, strategies which rely on demonizing the right's leadership may fall on deaf ears.
Malachowski argued that liberals and progressives need to move away from a focus on single issues, and away from a short-term focus on election day. The effects of such populist organizing "will not be turned around on Halloween by a media buy," he said. While short term victories against the right are needed, only a long-term strategy centered around social justice, which includes access to jobs and decent incomes, and the rebuilding of communities, can really turn the tide. If the left delivers on long term organizing and provides a successful alternative program, the base available to the right will wither.
The missing pieces of a revitalized left movement may be beginning to fall into place. Significant portions of the labor, human rights, and environmental movements are seeking to strengthen their grassroots base. As reported in the last issue of the Free Press, the Labor Party Advocates movement is organizing with the goal of putting economic fairness back onto the political agenda. Hands Off Washington, in alliance with groups such as the Coalition for Human Dignity, is promising continued vigilance and steady organizing.
Environmental lobbies such as the Washington Environmental Political Action Committee (WENPAC) are beginning to respond to the property rights and other anti-environmental movements by helping to give voice to pro-environment populism. A sole reliance on a strategy of checkbook activism, backed by savvy lobbyists, appears increasingly anachronistic as both ideological and business anti-environmentalism gains momentum. These strategies are therefore being supplemented by real efforts to engage the grassroots. Clear evidence of this is to be found in a mailing recently sent out by WENPAC, which solicited volunteers instead of cash.
These are but small beginnings against right wing movements which have yet to run their course. Harkins of Hands Off Washington predicted that the defeat of well-publicized initiative campaigns may lead the right to move back to its tested strategy, pioneered most successfully by the Christian Coalition, of "getting involved in local elections- city councils, county councils, boards of supervisors, school boards." Malachowski noted that terms limits in Washington will put the entire legislature up for grabs in four years. Said Harkins, "I think we all wish they would just go away, but they're not going to go away."
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Contents on this page were published in the August/September, 1994 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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