NO TIME FOR NADER: A LETTER TO NADER AND MCKINNEY SUPPORTERS
By Paul Rogat Loeb
I'd thought little about Ralph Nader's potential electoral impact until I read recent polls suggesting he was drawing 3% among likely Ohio voters, 4% in Nevada (plus 1% for Cynthia McKinney), 3% in Pennsylvania, and 5% in Missouri. This means he might once again help tip an election.
Most of Nader's supporters suggest their votes won't make the critical difference. Or insist "the lesser of two evils is still evil." Or list Obama stands or votes they disagree with, some of which I disagree with as well.
But let's assume that the current election still hangs in the balance: that between Republican voter suppression, last-minute attack ads, latent racism, and the uncertainties of turnout among new registrants, McCain and Palin just might be able to win. If you're a Nader or McKinney supporter, I'd like to address this article to you, and ask how you'd feel if, by not voting for Obama, you ended up helping electing them.
You may believe that America and both parties are dominated by a corporate oligarchy. I wouldn't completely disagree. You'll probably point out when Democrats (and sometimes Obama) have supported dubious policies backed by these interests, and those examples anger me as well. But after eight years of Bush, it's a dangerous game to assume there's no significant difference between McCain and Obama.
If McCain continues (or even accelerates) disastrous Bush policies that Obama would reverse, that matters. It matters that the Obama campaign has engaged people in a way that could launch a major rebirth of progressive organizing--one that could continue long past the election. Electing Obama also stops a Republican consolidation of power that's fundamentally undermined American democracy--a consolidation that more than a few Nader supporters have called "fascist," though it's not a word I tend to use. So yes, far too many Democrats facilitated the abuses of the past eight years. But given that our president will end up being either Obama or McCain, this question is who will be mostly likely to reverse these trends, and who will create the most favorable landscape for positive progressive change. Here are some key areas of difference:
The Courts: Federal courts can overrule practically any progressive initiative or authorize any regressive one. The Supreme Court justices McCain most admires have consistently extended unchecked corporate and executive power whether voting on torture, reproductive rights, Tom Delay's midnight Texas redistricting, the ability of workers to sue their employers (or for workers to join a union), or the massively disenfranchising Indiana voter ID laws. With three likely Supreme Court retirements in the coming four years, McCain would be able to create obstacles to progressive change for a generation.
Sarah Palin.: Can you say theocracy, with a major dose of ruthlessness? Do we really want someone a melanoma away from the presidency who won her small-town mayor's race by claiming her opponent was soft on abortion and wasn't a true Christian, fired the local officials who'd backed him, and later fired the head of the Alaska state patrol for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law? Since her convention speech, Palin's embodied every character assassination scenario from the past 30 years. If you want a leader who whips up "real Americans" against dissident allies of terrorism, she'd do Dick Cheney proud.
Labor Rights : Led by unions like SEIU and the United Steel Workers, we finally have a resurgent progressive union movement--one that raises broader social justice issues and builds broader coalitions, like with major environmental groups. But Bush's National Labor Relations Board has created obstacle after obstacle for union organizing, including the key "Kentucky River" ruling (upheld by the Bush Supreme court) that employers could challenge the right of employees like nurses to join unions because they acted as supervisors. Obama's approach, which includes strong support for a bill that allows union recognition as soon as a majority of employees have signed membership cards, would be very different. It comes both from his own experience working with unions in Chicago and from the practical value of empowering and broadening a political base of support. Given the labor movement's key role in pretty much every effort for progressive change in America's history, the shift from hostility to supportiveness would be huge.
Taxation and Health Care: Obama's redistributes resources downward, McCain upward. I'd like Obama to go further. But McCain wants to make Bush's disastrously regressive tax cuts permanent, while Obama has explicitly focused on challenging tax breaks for companies like Exxon and on having the wealthiest pay a greater share. He's called the election a referendum on thirty years of failed trickle-down politics. He's also pushing for a major expansion of Pell grants and tax credits for going to school, while McCain supported the ghastly Republican bill that until reversed by the new Democratic Senate cut $12.9 billion off federal financial aid three years ago. While Obama doesn't go as far as you or I might want, he's pushing strongly in the right direction.
On health care, McCain's approach gives total power to the insurance companies and gives companies that do provide insurance every incentive to dump all but the healthiest of their workers from the rolls. I'd prefer single payer, but Obama's plan, would be a huge step forward in the number of people covered (including all children) and the affordability of care, McCain's a vast step backwards.
Family issues and reproductive rights : It's abstract unless you or someone you know is unwillingly pregnant. McCain's explicitly backed overturning Roe vs Wade, and Palin and the Republican platform would support making abortion illegal even in cases of rape or incest. Obama also supports universal voluntary pre-school for all children.
Global Climate Change : Although McCain acknowledges our role in creating it, Palin who embraces the Exxon-funded skeptics (not to mention "Young Earth" creationism). This spring, McCain refused to be the deciding vote that would have ended a Republican filibuster on a bill eliminating tax breaks for the oil companies and using the money to fund alternative energy. While progressives will have to push against Obama's receptivity to the coal and nuclear industries, he still goes far further than any major presidential candidate in pushing green jobs as a centerpiece of his platform, with a $150 billion commitment. Meanwhile McCain supporters are left with "Drill baby drill."
Iraq: I wish Obama would pledge to get out more quickly. But he did speak out against the war before it happened, as part of an anti-war rally that any of us would have been proud to attend. And given that he was about to run for Senate, that wasn't a safe or easy choice. He also does at least have a withdrawal time-table. In contrast, McCain, who helped lead the neo-con charge to invade Iraq since well before 9/11, talks of an indefinite occupation and jokes about "Bomb Bomb Iran." It's another area where we'll need to push, but also another huge difference.
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