The Politics of Fear : Do you really want to reward yet another Republican campaign based on lies and fear? That's what the McCain/Palin campaign is reduced to. Pure slime, from Bill Ayers and "palling around with terrorists," to Rashid Khalidi and "socialism." If McCain loses, maybe we'll get a different politics. If he wins it's Karl Rove on infinite replay.
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But the differences go beyond particular issues to how the respective presidencies would shape a broader context for progressive change. It's easy to dismiss Obama's community organizing background. But three years in south Chicago neighborhoods, plus several more representing the same community groups, is a serious involvement whose legacy has shaped Obama's campaign in a powerful way. No previous president has been a community organizer, or anything close to it. No major party campaign has encouraged supporters to act with as much autonomous initiative. And none since Roosevelt have brought as many new people into politics--people who represent a huge potential voice for ongoing progressive change. When Obama consciously asks volunteers to think of themselves as connected with a tradition that goes back to the abolitionist, union, suffrage, and civil rights movements he gets them thinking not only about a single campaign, but about their long-term ability to join together to shift America's history, and that, unleashed, can be a powerful force.
It's a force we can work with not only to help pass Obama's legislation, but also to push him to take stronger stands. Those newly mobilized might just play a role akin to civil rights movement participants who worked to get Kennedy and Johnson elected, then set their own agenda, dragging Kennedy and LBJ into overcoming initial resistance and taking genuinely courageous positions --like LBJ staking all his political capital on civil rights and voting rights bills that he acknowledged would lose the Democrats the south for a generation. Going back further, progressives turned out to elect and reelect FDR, but also organized unions, occupied factories, worked block by block in their communities, and fought in every possible way to create an autonomous voice. Progressives can do the same with Obama, so long as we keep speaking out after the election and working to engage those who supported him. Given the massive ability of a president to shape the national agenda, I'd rather fight for the Obama proposals I support and push him further in areas where he falls short, than spend another four years trying block an endless succession of horrific Republican initiatives.
As an abstract list of stands, I'd take many of Nader or McKinney's positions over Obama's. But they have to get passed in the Senate and Congress and if I could snap my fingers and install one of them as president, I'd take Obama without hesitation. If I'm looking for someone who's going to pass legislation and lead a country of three hundred million diverse people, I want someone who can work with well with those they disagree with, who's reflective and doesn't just shoot from the hip, and who's willing to be self-critical and self-reflective about their own choices (in a way that Nader, for instance, never really has been about the strategic choices he made to campaign in Florida in 2000). Obama passes that test, Nader and McKinney, though both have taken valuable stands and have wonderful positions do not. I'd like to push Obama in some more progressive directions, although much of what he's proposing as is as strong as any legislation that's passed in 30 6ears. But particularly in a time when we're facing so many multiple crises, I like that he'll step back and think before he acts. I like that he's going to listen to different voices. I like that he's a pragmatist who's going to look at a situation closely before imposing some abstract solution.
You may think the election's already won, so your vote won't make a difference. That may be true in California, New York, and Illinois, but as in 2000 and 2004, Nader's campaigning in states most at risk, with an effort in every major swing state and a final week's focus on Florida, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Obama's four or five point lead in key battleground states is certainly better than being five points down. But if you knock out two or three percent for voter suppression, two or three for last-minute slime ads and potential racial backlash, and two or three because not all the new voters will show up, he could still well lose the election. As Tom Hayden points out in the Progressives for Obama blog, "Kerry won Wisconsin in 2004 by 0.38 percent, New Hampshire by 1.37 percent, Pennsylvania by 2.5 percent; he lost Iowa by 0.67 percent, New Mexico by 0.79 percent, Ohio by 2.11 percent and Nevada by 2.59 percent." That doesn't count the official Florida 2000 margin of 537 votes and New Mexico margin of 368 votes. As someone who's considering Nader or McKinney, you could well make the key difference.
Even assuming Obama does win, the margin of his victory will be key to his leverage following the election. Wavering senators or congressional representatives aren't going to add in third party votes when they decide how far to go to support (or improve) Obama's initiatives. But the more he wins by, the more mandate he has for shifting America in a fundamental direction from everything Bush has represented.
Maybe none of this matters to you. Maybe you feel, "the worse the better." and are gleefully cheering as American (and global) capitalism melts down. Maybe you like the idea of dancing at the apocalypse, and assume that the revolution will follow. But crashing empires get ugly. Real people get hurt and even die--witness Katrina. Add in climate change and a McCain administration would mean gambling with global catastrophe.
It may feel pure to vote for a candidate who will never get in power, so will never disappoint us. But this election isn't about abstract purity. It's about finally halting a Republican machine that wages preemptive wars, smashes unions, purges African Americans from the voting rolls, puts Exxon in charge of energy legislation, passes over a hundred billion dollars a year of regressive tax cuts, and brands everyone who disagrees with them an ally of terrorism.
Either we stop these trends or we don't. And the ballot's the most direct way to do this. If we place all our hopes in awaiting some future popular uprising, we throw away a concrete opportunity to stop the disastrous path of the past eight years. We also give away a chance to elect someone who has actually been part of our progressive movements, from Obama's anti-apartheid student activism, through his community organizing, to his speaking out at the Chicago anti Iraq-war rally. We can cast a symbolic vote for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. Or vote for Barack Obama and actually help shape the political landscape. It would be a tragedy if because of our own desire for pure and uncomplicated stands, we helped throw away a historic chance to move forward.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly, email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
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