Two national alternative electoral parties 

In last Tuesday’s election Democrats did better than Republicans and the Libertarians did better than the Greens. Analysis: I think when the Republicans are in power a lot of progressives get enthusiastic about the Democrats as “the alternative,” while many conservatives get disappointed with what they see and some turn to the Libertarians as an alternative. Conversely, when the Democrats are in power conservatives can get enthusiastic about the Republicans as “the alternative,” while many progressives get disappointed with what they see and some will turn to the Greens as an alternative.

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It could be argued that the “Libertarian factor” in the state of Montana gave the Senate to the Democrats. The Democratic Party senatorial candidate polled 49%, the Republican (incumbent) polled 48%, and the Libertarian got 3%. In a certain sense it has become a four-party system, because there are two minor parties that consistently have the potential to impact outcomes. The Reps and Dems are going to have to get used to it.

After the ferment of the nineties where there were a whole bunch of new electoral initiatives, the smoke has cleared: The New Party, Labor Party, Reform Party, Natural Law Party, and Constitution Party have all faded away. There are some local alternatives - like the Working Families Party in NY, Independent Progressives in VT, American Independent, Peace and Freedom in CA - but there are only two alternative parties that have a full national presence and any degree of impact: the Libertarians and the Greens.

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The Green Party races of 2006 in many states served to get the focus off of the divisions of 2004 and back on to party building for the future. I think the Greens are here to stay and I think we’ll have surges of forward momentum, especially at times when the Democrats are in power demonstrating how inadequate they are vis-a-vis handling the crises of our times.

Below is an interesting letter from the longtime Socialist Party leader David McReynolds. He was the Green Party of New York State senatorial candidate in 2004 and this year he supported Malachy McCourt and Howie Hawkins in their race for NYS governor and senator.

It’s interesting to me to see how others desiring a progressive political alternative, even people of a different ideological orientation, like McReynolds, will tend to gravitate toward the Greens over time.

Also interesting to see how you never can tell where others will fall in any particular debate ... I would have thought McReynolds, a colleague of Howie Hawkins, would have been pro-Nader and anti-safe-states, but “ya never know” ... and that’s why we - Greens in particular and progressives in general - need to recognize the fact that we will disagree with each other at different times, yet converge at other times. This means we shouldn’t pigeon-hole each other, shouldn’t write each other off with labels, shouldn’t foment divisions, but rather strive to “do a better job of damping down” divisions, as McReynolds says.

SW

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11/08/06

From: David McReynolds

In the immediate situation, I’m deeply sorry that the Greens didn’t get their 50,000 votes for Governor [in New York State]. As you know, and everyone on the Green list should know from other postings, I am a member of the Socialist Party (and of Democratic Socialists of America and of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism). I did change my registration from the Democratic Party to the Greens, but I do not consider myself a member of the Green Party and do not want to play an active role in it. (At 77, it would be unrealistic for me to think otherwise).

What disturbed me in this election here in New York was that I did not get the impression that the Senate and Governor’s races were linked, nor that enough was made of reaching liberals with the simple fact that even if they didn’t agree with McCourt and Hawkins, they could vote against the war only by voting Green, that they could do so safely because the Democrats were sure to win, and that there was a civil liberties issue for liberals who might not agree with the Greens on any issue except the right to a place on the ballot. I know that my friends in NYC were probably bored stiff by last night because of the many posts I sent urging a vote for the Greens - but I really don’t think the Greens made the arguments clearly, and too often only to those already converted. (One radical friend who was here last night as we watched the election results said he had gotten nothing on email on the Greens except for my posts).

We all agree that the Working Families Party played a terrible role, that their willingness to support Hillary Clinton for Senate makes them the “Liberal Party of 2006”. I understand that some of the better parts of the union movement put money behind the WFP and had hopes of doing something positive. My hope is that the Greens make an effort to reach out to those unions, get them to consider involvement with the Greens. And I hope this election last night will help sober up some of those in the Greens who keep substituting conspiracy theories for real politics - I don’t know how many emails I read before last night which were so damn certain the GOP wouldn’t “permit” the Democrats to win, had already fixed the ballots, etc. Conspiracy theories are a diversion from serious politics.

In national terms I don’t know much about the Greens. I supported David Cobb’s general position over that of Ralph Nader, and I’ll be blunt and say that Nader’s greatest contribution at this time would be as an elder statesman, that he should not run again, and should not have run in 2004. Which means that I supported the “safe states strategy” that I know divided so many of us. In New York State I voted for Nader because Cobb wasn’t on the ballot.

The Greens are a “house with many different rooms”. (In Michigan I understand that some of those running on the Green line in fact supported Workers World Party, a pretty traditional Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist group which is far from the key values of the Greens). And I know - as do you - that there are some of the same personality fights, sectarian divisions, etc. in the Greens that we have in the Socialist Party. The difference, of course, is that the Greens have a lot more members than the SP! The Cobb/Nader fight was really terrible (and frankly I thought it was terrible that Nader, who has never joined the Greens, let that fight occur). There is just no way to have politics without personalities, political divisions, etc. But I hope the Greens do a better job of damping this down.

But my main reason for sending this post is to say that I believe independent electoral action is important, and that where the Socialist Party is really able to mount a decent campaign (I don’t mean a winning campaign, but a campaign as serious as that of McCourt and Hawkins) they do so. That we should not get into a contest with the Greens but, where possible, work together. That is a problem with both our groups - the Greens were originally pretty arrogant in some areas. In California, where there was already a left party on the ballot - the Peace and Freedom Party - it might have been wiser for the Greens not to seek a separate ballot line. However . . . I haven’t lived in California for fifty years and folks out there know better what to do.

One thing my years in War Resisters League and the Socialist Party taught me, as someone who traveled widely as an organizer and speaker, was that we are fifty very different states, we are “several cultures” bound together in a single nation, and that the right answer in New York may be the wrong answer in Illinois or Oregon. What I think is a profound mistake is for radicals, socialists, pacifists, etc., to assume that we are doomed always to support the lesser evil, and that this means supporting Democrats. In some cases it does, yes, but while I’ve got problems with some of Bernie Sanders Congressional votes, Bernie has demonstrated that it is possible for a socialist to become a US Senator! Not without compromise - but real politics, serious politics, always involves compromise.

The sectarian position of many in the Socialist Party, and many in the Greens, that supporting any Democrat (or Republican) any time, any where, is the road to hell, is in fact a sure way of isolating ourselves. Most of our best work is not even in the electoral arena but in the street, in education, in “other arenas” - the peace and civil rights movements, the women’s movement, the environmental movement, etc. My disagreements with DSA and CCDS on electoral matters is their tendency to assume that independent electoral action is a mistake or that something as shoddy as the Working Families Party is the only kind of “independent electoral action” that is possible. (ie., voting for the Democrats but on a separate line).

I was very impressed in 2004 by the sense I got here in New York State that the Greens were a “real party”, that despite the disagreements I had with Howie or Mark over the Nader/Cobb conflict, Howie was really running a serious campaign in his area. And Mark Dunlea did a fantastic job at media. That the Greens who worked with me - and I appreciated their support even though I was not in their party - during that campaign understood something of what the “old Socialist Party” did in the days when we could run serious campaigns. The sense of the “party”, a grasp of the electoral technicalities, etc. So in New York State I think socialists - and independent liberals and radicals - should give a serious look to the Greens. In most of the country I think this will prove true.

The role of the various socialist groups - and I’ve named the three I belong to, all of which are committed to peaceful and democratic change - is to put forward the ideological positions of democratic socialism. Sometimes within the Greens, sometimes simply by our publications and actions. I would still want to see and hope to see something like a true Labor Party in the US. It is possible the Greens might become that party - it is abundantly clear that the Socialist Party cannot be that party, that we are an “ideological position” within the US. (And no one should underestimate the importance of that role - during the Vietnam War and the Cold War the War Resisters League, a radical pacifist organization off on the “fringes” of US politics, played a key role and a very important one, both in this country and in terms of international work - and it did so without ever running a single candidate. To the degree the Socialist Party puts its main thought into running candidates I think it is barking up the wrong tree. In the same way, the degree to which DSA and CCDS spend too much time worrying about getting “left Democrats” into office is also to bark up the wrong tree. Socialists need to educate, to work within the community, and - in New York, at least - to look to the Greens as the most reasonable electoral vehicle.

Finally, I think you folks in the Green Party here in New York do need to have a serious look at how the state campaigns were run - and that discussion not be one of seeking where to place the blame, but how to find better solutions next time around.

Peace, David McReynolds

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