Ralph Nader accepts the Green Party nomination. Supporters include Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Moore, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Ani Difranco, and Willie Nelson
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July/Aug 2000 issue (#46)
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Ralph Nader accepts the Green Party nomination. Supporters include Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Moore, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Ani Difranco, and Willie Nelson
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Are you enthused about Gore? Would you seriously consider voting for Bush? Let me guess: no, right? Well, there's progressive Ralph Nader, but if you vote for him do you feel like you're throwing your vote away and giving the election to Bush?
"No," says Seattle city councilmember Peter Steinbrueck. "If Nader is a threat to the Democrats, it's the Democrats' own fault."
Steinbrueck is the first local city councillor to endorse Nader's dark-horse run for President, which has also been endorsed by the Green Party of Seattle. "If you base your vote on the viability of the candidate, then mediocrity prevails." Voting for someone other than the candidate you like best is "betraying your conscience," he says.
Steinbrueck says this will produce better long-term consequences than voting for the "viable" candidate Gore. If the Democrats lose because of votes for Nader, then the Democrats will have to start adopting a more Green platform to win in the future, "or else see the Greens emerge [as a major electoral force]."
Five of the nine Seattle city councilmembers are currently members of the Green Party, but many are also active in Democrat circles. In Washington state, a voter or candidate can be a member of more than one political party, although taking part in caucuses of two different parties is not allowed.
Both Steinbrueck and fellow councilmember Nick Licata spoke at the local Green Party nominating convention at Gasworks Park on June 24. Licata in his speech noted the effective cooperation between the Greens and Social Democrats in Germany, where Greens have a substantial number of seats in parliament. --Doug Collins
Why would somebody be running against long-time liberal Jim McDermott, 7th district congressperson who spearheaded the attempt for national health insurance in the early 1990s? Seattle schoolteacher Joe Szwaja (pronounced "Swahya") says that McDermott has become part of the "corporate cocoon," siding more often with Microsoft and Boeing than with grassroots efforts. He is running against McDermott on the Green Party ticket.
Joe Szwaya
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Szwaja says he attempted to work with McDermott's office on the problems in East Timor. "People were getting killed and sterilized there," but McDermott's office was "really lazy on the issue."
Szwaja also criticizes McDermott's legislative record in his current term in Washington DC, citing that McDermott has not introduced any legislation that has even been voted on in Congress.
Szwaja from 1986 to 1993 was on the city council of Madison, Wisconsin as a member of the Labor Farm Party, a traditional progressive third party in that state. Szwaja represented some 7,000 voters in his district, so it was "relatively easy to go door-to-door." Washington's 7th district, containing hundreds of thousands of voters, will present more of a challenge. Still, Szwaja thinks the times are on his side. "As a teacher, I've seen a lot more young people getting politically involved lately." And the combination of the Nader presidential candidacy and WTO activism in Seattle provide fertile ground for progressive campaigning this year, he says.
Szwaja adheres to a platform of Green and other progressive principles, including public financing of elections, democratizing the workplace and removing legal barriers to union organizing, and cutting military spending. He favors local control of schools, in keeping with the Green philosophy of decentralization. --Doug Collins
Besides the Green runs for President and Congress, at least a couple locals are running on non-major-party progressive platforms.
Gregory Gadow
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Gregory Gadow (www.gadow.org) is running for the state House of Representatives for Seattle's 43rd district on the American Liberal Party ticket. Here is an excerpt from his platform:
"As a member of the State House, Gregory will make safe schools, equal marriage, expanded mass transit and a state constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights for all Washington citizens his primary goals. Other issues include increasing the pay of public school teachers, fully implementing the voter-approved medical marijuana initiative and creating a citizen commission on police accountability."
As for the American Liberal Party, it seems to be a rather recently formed Seattle-based group with respectable, clear goals (see www.americanliberal.org).
Kevin McKeigue's website (www.KevinforUSsen ate.com) is a bit reminiscent of Senator Paul Wellstone's initial successful Minnesota campaign because it partly focuses on his status as an Everyman. He gives a humorously complete resume of his odd-jobs in his teens and twenties, for example, which I'm sure many people can relate to. McKeigue's position papers on the website state his dedication to progressive issues like an Equal Rights Amendment and renewable energy, but the writing is high on enthusiasm and low on concrete solutions. Rather than calling for any specific healthcare reform, McKeigue calls for "the total restructuring, from the bottom up, of our healthcare delivery system." True, that probably needs to be done, but the importance lies more in what specific type of restructuring.
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