Outrage, Hope and Action

On December 11, progressive Congressman Dennis Kucinich announced that he would again seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2008.

Having previously run for the nomination in 2004 on a platform of opposition to the war in Iraq, repealing the USA PATRIOT Act and promoting universal healthcare, and considering that I spent months fighting for him then, you might think I would be happy to welcome the Congressman from Ohio into the race for the White House. I'm not.

And you shouldn’t either.

I’m not going to pretend to be a mind-reader or that I have any special insight into Kucinich’s motivations for this second tilt at the Democratic windmill. I can’t say with 100% certainty what he hopes to accomplish with this primary challenge. But I can tell you what the result will be, regardless of his motivations.

It will be a distraction to progressive voters, most of whom are too smart to believe that Kucinich has any real shot at winning the Democratic nomination, and will serve to run interference against them organizing a true progressive, anti-war opposition to the same old vanilla neoliberal, pro-war, factory model that the Democrats will undoubtedly hand their nomination to.

The end result is that progressives will waste their time, money and enthusiasm on a campaign that will never be on the November ballot, save in one of two instances: (1) The Democratic Leadership Council and the party bosses in the DNC implode -- not likely -- or (2) Kucinich abandons progressivism altogether and reassures the bosses that he’ll play ball and back their agenda.

Waiting until Kucinich’s inevitable loss and then jumping ship to a third party alternative like the Greens leaves less than six months to build an effective campaign to build our party, energize voters and push a progressive agenda, all the while Kucinich will be campaigning for a nominee that stands against everything he ran on during his primary run and encouraging his supporters to do the same.

Looking into my crystal ball, I see him following his 2004 formula:

(1) Stake out principled and progressive positions on healthcare, Iraq, civil rights, workers rights and the environment and telling the unvarnished truth about his Diet Republican opponents.

(2) Turn his underdog status into an endearing trait, jokingly referencing it, while stoking the “it could happen” flame and using his progressive credentials to energize people who’d never bothered voting before and get them involved. During this time, he’ll be totally ignored by the Democratic leadership and the media.

(3) As the primary season evolves, he’ll start downplaying his definition of “success” for the campaign until, eventually, it’s no longer about winning the nomination, but fighting pointless and losing battles over the national party platform, with the stated long term goal of “taking the party back”, but deciding to hold his criticism until after the election.

(4) In the lead up to the convention, he begins toning down his criticism of the presumptive nominee and begins employing “big tent” rhetoric. He tells us that there’s a place for people like us in the Democratic Party (albeit at the kiddie table) and calls upon his supporters to circle the wagons around the nominee and resist the desire to support a progressive third party candidate like a Ralph Nader and tries to convince what few delegates he has not to actually vote for him at the DNC Convention.

(5) He loses the nomination and then campaigns full-time for the corporate nominee, trying to bring what organization and volunteers he has to bear on the task of fighting for the very things he went into the race opposing.

And during this 18 month primary battle, what is the real cost?

Those progressives who supported his bid will have wasted their talents and their hopes on a wild goose chase that demoralizes them, lowers their expectations and will leave them believing more and more the long-taught, but largely unspoken Democratic mantra: What you really believe in can never win, so why even bother?

And after it’s over, what will the Kucinich 2008 campaign have accomplished? A good place to start would be to look at what it accomplished in 2004:

Without winning a single state’s primary, Kucinich failed to force Kerry or Edwards to answer a single direct question put to them during any of the televised debates or alter their agenda in any way, shape or form. He failed abysmally at getting even a single one of his progressive planks in the national platform and was largely ignored by the very party he was trying to change

I cannot imagine a bigger waste of a year and one-half.

Historically, how would it differ from the aborted Democratic primary campaigns of Eugene McCarthy, Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Jerry Brown and countless others? Candidates who -- whatever their motivations -- wooed the progressive voter with a lot of hopeful talk and delivered them en masse to nominees far less progressive than themselves.

And if we are honest with ourselves, the end result of the Kucinich campaign will be to seduce progressives away from their own potential relevance, to distract them from building a genuine and independent progressive party like the Greens and away from that party winning votes in the only election that really matters: November 2008.

We Greens will have our work cut out for us in the next two years. We’ll have to fight the Democratic machine for access to the ballot in several states. We’ll have to find a dynamic candidate that will run a strong independent run for the White House in all 50 states and weather the insults and denunciations that stem from running outside of the corporate two-party duopoly. We’ll need to raise money and register millions of new voters and fight to promote the Green message of peace justice and sustainability.

And we’ll have to do it with people like Dennis Kucinich actively working against our efforts to reach and convince voters to cast their ballots for a progressive Green alternative.

If you look back at U. S. history, which political parties were most responsible for the abolition of slavery, the right of women to vote, the end of child labor, the Social Security Administration, the 40-hour work week, unemployment insurance and the right to form labor unions?

These victories were only won because of activist members of the Socialist, Progressive, Labor Greenback, Liberty and Equal Rights Parties, not because of quixotic primary exercises and impotent platform battles.

They were won because dedicated women and men, upon whose shoulders we proudly stand today, realized that they had more important things to do than waste 18 months -- and beyond -- on futile efforts like supporting another Kucinich bid. They used their time to forge a movement built on their values rather than on trying to force parties opposed to those same values to adopt them against their will.

They were willing to fight and lose and fight and lose and fight and lose, until their agendas won.

And we will do no better unless we adopt that same philosophy of stubborn independence and long term perseverance on ending the occupation of Iraq, repealing attacks on our civil liberties and creating a system of universal healthcare for all.

The clock is ticking on 2008 and we’ve got real work to do. Let’s not waste a single second on Dennis Kucinich and what amounts to little more than political masturbation.

By Mike Gillis

An odd post from a DFA member.
I am heartened that Edwards seems to sweep any straw poll held by progressive radio hosts. But there is something wrong with a system that seeks to minimalize Kuccinich or Gravel.