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The
Fire This Time: Why Kucinich May be the Right Guy at the Right
Time
July
7, 2003
By Daniel Patrick Welch
Editor's
Note: Democratic Underground welcomes articles promoting
individual Democratic candidates for political office. Publication
of these articles does not imply endorsement of any candidate
by the editors of Democratic Underground.
Kucinich may be the only guy who can win this [US Presidential]
election. Sounds far-fetched, right? What the Brits would
call Loony Left delusional thinking. The U.S. press would
just ignore the whole thing, naturally, until it's no longer
possible. Just plain crazy. But is it? Every finely tuned
ear has recorded the spike in interest every time someone
has had the guts to speak up about various aspects of the
nascent fascism we are confronting. From Gore's early comments
breaking the taboo of criticizing Bush to Byrd's articulate
blasts, mainstream politicians have received a grateful roar
from the rabble with each thrust, the bolder the better.
Of course, political parties have never been comfortable
with movement politicians, and the Boy Mayor of Cleveland
is no exception. But these, of course, are no ordinary times,
and along the political spectrum, from Chomsky to, say, Chenoweth,
people would be hard pressed to say the old rules will work
this time around. Along with positive notes from Chomsky,
Studs Terkel, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's, Lynn Woolsey of
the Progressive Caucus, and left/liberal websites like Democrats.com
and Citizens
for Legitimate Government, the Kucinich
campaign crossed new threshold when he took second place
in the Moveon.org
online primary, itself a fascinating exercise in online
democracy.
It's a remarkable surge in just a few days, and with the
resultant influx of sorely needed cash, it is only a matter
of time before people start voting where they really want
to - the buzz is that Dennis is people's "I would, but..."
candidate. And all the notables who take note of Kucinich,
even some who overtly or implicitly endorse him, concede that
he doesn't have a chance.
I think they may be selling their man short. My answer to
those who say we can only win by playing the same game is
that - what seems completely logical to me - it's the only
way we can lose. The money and the media will always
favor the right - unless we can learn to run an insurgent,
Kucinich-type candidate and campaign and win successfully,
we are screwed. Why is this news? Why should U.S. elections
be so special - they are some of the most corrupt and money-polluted
scams in the world.
We need to look elsewhere for models and quit whining and
focusing on old-school gamesmanship. It is nothing new for
progressive populists to run against moneyed candidates with
"only" the Truth and the People on their side. Why should
this be a losing proposition? Lula did it in Brazil. Chavez
did it in Venezuela. Allende did it in Chile before the CIA
mowed him down. Not only is it possible - it may be the only
way to win, especially as time goes on and the demographics
further favor such insurgency. It's still Jackson's model:
without bringing millions of new people into the process,
by energizing and mobilizing base constituencies, the left
is suicidally following the right's game plan and ignoring
its own overwhelming strengths. The Emerging Democratic Majority
may well be ours - but we have the power to blow it by convincing
future generations of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and others
that their growing numbers are not of interest to us and they
have nothing to gain by participating. The right is quite
justifiably following a smart strategy which is the only way
they can win. They have even succeeded in getting most Democrats
to follow a strategy which is the only way they can lose.
The last insurgent populist campaign the Democrats dispensed
with was Jesse Jackson's, and his math is still sound. Consider
this equation from his 1984 convention speech (still
a great read-isn't it amazing what you can find online?):
"If Blacks vote in great numbers, progressive Whites win.
It's the only way progressive Whites win. If Blacks vote in
great numbers, Hispanics win. When Blacks, Hispanics, and
progressive Whites vote, women win. When women win, children
win. When women and children win, workers win. We must all
come up together. We must come up together."
Those who think that campaign never set off alarm bells
in the halls of power need only remember the Newsweek cover
four years later, when Jackson managed to break 50% in the
Michigan primary by mobilizing tens of thousands of African
American youths to vote in their first electoral experience.
Somebody found a fairly scary close-up of Jackson in the throes
of an intense speech, face contorted and sweaty in a way reminiscent
of Hitler or Sun Yung Moon. The one-word caption, in large-type
yellow letters, served as headline, heads-up, and horrified
call-to-arms: Jesse?! It was apparently the moment when the
establishment, although still dismissive, actually considered
that he might win, and began to contemplate what it might
mean.
The math, stripped of its eloquence, looks something like
this: If minority constituencies could be inspired to vote
in proportionate numbers and in line with their historical
preferences, a populist candidate would need less than 40%
of the white vote to constitute a majority. In other words,
in a 100 million vote election, 12% Black at 90%, 12 Latino
at 65%, Asian at 60%, White Women at 53%...leads to only 25%
of white men needed…. Before you get out your calculators,
remember this is only a rough sketch. The theory is that by
truly energizing the progressive base, we can further effect
this shift to the left.
The problem, of course, is that Kucinich isn't Black, and
it remains to be seen whether he could mobilize the necessary
base constituencies in sufficient numbers. Jackson had a special
charisma, which Sharpton and Braun seem to lack in the same
quantity. It may not only be about race, though white progressives
have been saying this for generations. The difference is that
the African American community still has a cohesive political
consciousness: Black voters enticed to vote can largely be
relied on to support progressive causes. The same can not
be said for the alienated white votership, who occasionally
sneak out in record numbers to vote for David Duke or worse.
And these tendencies aren't changing, much as we are led
to believe otherwise. For one thing, the right would not be
pouring money into vote suppression if they were. Anecdotal
insights may also be instructive. A Latina friend of mine,
recently naturalized, sought my advice on voting, since we
often discussed politics. One caveat, she said, was that she
couldn't vote for any candidate who supported abortion. I
cautioned her that, given her other beliefs, she would probably
find that pigeonholing along these lines might cause her to
vote for some ideas she rejected with greater vehemence. Some
time later, it has become apparent that she is horrified by
the right wing, furious at what she felt was a GOP coup in
2000, and poised to support progressive candidates despite
their reproductive rights stand. Similarly, in California,
Pete Wilson and the state GOP's ugly support for anti-immigration
legislation has virtually guaranteed the further entrenchment
of these gains. And it can only get worse for the right if
the left wakes up soon enough.
Even white people are getting the message. The Nation ran
a piece in May quoting the likes of former Silicon Valley
moguls on how they may have changed their minds about the
need for unions, limits on corporate power and the like. The
Kucinich campaign seizes on one of these transformations,
maybe with a little too much hope of Things to Come (but who's
to say?), a disaffected voter who, after 22 years of being
a libertarian, just switched to Democrat because he finally
found "someone to vote for: thank you Dennis Kucinich!"
The notion of elections actually reflecting the popular
will is at the root of radical democratic thought, and provides
the ground on which elements of radical democratic, anarcho-socialist,
libertarian and anarchist ideas intermingle. Expanding democracy
can only be a good thing. If the people's voice were truly
free to be heard, would people really be against such things
as raising the minimum wage? Providing health care and education?
Limiting the influence of corporations, and the intrusive
power of government in private lives?
The real trouble, of course, to advancing a people-focused,
progressive agenda, is that democracy isn't really in the
offing. The money-drenched, corporate-fixed "process" we stomach
has little in common with the Greek ideal, unless you consider
that women, slaves, and the poor are not included. Even before
the end of American Apartheid, the hypocrisy of exporting
"democracy" was a staple of the American self-perception.
Florida is only the latest chapter in our national self-denial.
It may seem ludicrous to many to think in terms of obtaining
change through a major party candidate in the current system.
Without structural changes like proportional representation,
instant runoff voting and other reforms that would encourage
independent and third-party participation-as well as abolishing
the electoral college and other undemocratic forms of skewed
representation-the bar is that much higher, and the dream
recedes.
But there is no need to choose one path over the other.
The fight is now, and it has never been more important. And
Kucinich just may be the Right Guy at the Right Time. To paraphrase
Jackson, who paraphrased Lazarus, who couldn't have said it
better: "Give me your tired, give me your poor, your huddled
masses who yearn to breathe free, and come next November there
will be a change because our time has come!"
Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, with
his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The
Greenhouse School. Translations of the article are available
at danielpwelch.com.
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