Election Debate continued: Election Plan? by Michael Albert

Election Plan?

By Michael Albert

Between now and U.S. election day, and for some time thereafter,
there will be an intermittent stream of leftist discussion, debate,
exhortation, and sometimes recrimination about what to do, when to do
it, and with what methods and means.
I think reasonable people committed to justice, democracy, peace, and
even - as in my case - uprooting every last vestige of corporate,
racist, sexist power and greed - can disagree.
Certainly now, but even as we get closer to the election, I doubt
that any single approach will be so evidently correct that
disparaging those with other approaches will make sense.
That said, can we at least settle on some criteria for what we would
like to achieve by our electoral approach? And if we can come up with
criteria, maybe we can even suggest an optimistic scenario worth
considering.

What is important about the election is not the time between now and
the conventions. It is not the convention weeks, themselves. It is
not the time between the conventions and the vote. What is important
is the time between the vote and the rest of history. It is the
future.
This claim - which seems uncontestable - doesn’t tell us precisely
what to do, but it does suggest how to sensibly assess different
electoral proposals. We must ask, what will be their lasting effect,
post election?
To make a case for election 2004 strategy, we will have to describe
the proposed approach, including the steps it implies for the pre-
election period, of course. But our argument must rest on claims
about post election impact.
If so, here are two simple thoughts.

One post election result we want is Bush retired. However bad his
replacement may turn out, replacing Bush will improve the subsequent
mood of the world and its prospects of survival. Bush represents not
the whole ruling class and political elite, but a pretty small sector
of it. That sector, however, is trying to reorder events so that the
world is run as a U.S. empire, and so that social programs and
relations that have been won over the past century in the U.S. are
rolled back as well. What these parallel international and domestic
aims have in common is to further enrich and empower the already
super rich and super powerful.
Seeking international Empire means war and more war - or at least
violent coercion. Seeking domestic redistribution upward of wealth
and power, most likely means assaulting the economy via cutbacks and
deficits, and then entreating the public that the only way to restore
functionality is to terminate government programs that serve sectors
other than the rich, cutting health care, social services, education,
etc.

These twin scenarios will not be pursued so violently or aggressively
by Democrats due to their historic constituency. More, the mere
removal of Bush will mark a step toward their reversal.
Think about election night. Think about watching the returns. Think
of your heart and soul’s reaction if Bush wins. Think of billions of
other people plummeting into passivity from despair over the same
picture. Think of Bush and his coterie savoring victory and deciding
that they can do anything for four more years. We want Bush out.
Second, we want to have whatever administration is in power after
Election Day saddled by a fired up movement of opposition that is not
content with merely slowing Armageddon, but that instead seeks
innovative and aggressive social gains. We want a post election
movement to have more awareness, more hope, more infrastructure, and
better organization by virtue of the approach it takes to the
election process.

Can we chart a course likely to promote both of these outcomes at the
same time?
Here is a proposal. The Greens are the clear-cut vehicle for a
leftist electoral campaign in the U.S. They have grown in membership
and state chapters steadily and are now a relatively formidable
entity able to muster considerable visibility and communicative
pressure in nearly every state.
Suppose the Greens nominate Michael Moore for President? Or maybe
Barbara Ehrenreich, or Ron Daniels, or Ralph Nader, say. How about
running their candidate aggressively in all states where the final
ballot is simply a foregone conclusion? Moore running in Texas and in
Massachusetts seeking as many votes as possible in those and in
similarly uncontested states is not going to impact the broader
election because were Bush to lose Texas or were whatever Democrat is
running to lose Massachusetts, the whole election would be a gigantic
stampede uninfluenced by our project. And there are many other such
states.

Perhaps the candidate is Ehrenreich, not Moore. Regardless,
Ehrenreich’s message as candidate in every state, like Moore’s or
anyone else’s, is vote smart. Vote for impact. In the cut and dried
uncontested states, do not waste your vote, vote Ehrenreich. In the
closely contested swing states, Ehrenreich tells the electorate to
vote for the Democrat, but also support Ehrenreich and the Greens.
That is, everywhere - and perhaps it is Daniels who runs - Daniels,
or Moore, or Ehrenreich says, whoever wins, we must persist as a
social movement forcing the new Washington regime to respect and to
serve those in need, those who work, those who endure and persevere,
by way of the program the Greens have put forth. And put it forth
Daniels does.

But how? Nader — maybe it is Nader who runs - or Moore, or
Ehrenreich, or whoever it is, doesn’t run alone. The Green
presidential candidate runs with a whole slate of others, one person
designated as his administration’s chief of staff, another person
designated his vice president, a third person designated his
secretary of state, a fourth as Press Secretary, and so on and so
forth, through the whole Cabinet and West Wing. Nader, or whoever the
presidential candidate may be, runs with a pledge that if there is
sufficient support for him and for the Green platform he will
establish a shadow government beginning the day after the election.
This new shadow government will operate alongside the White House and
real Cabinet. It will put forth Green program, analysis, and demands
regarding every major undertaking the real government pursues and
many others we think it ought to have pursued. It will hold teach-
ins, tribunals, rallies, and demos, every month for the entire term
of the real government.

It will shadow and pressure Washington, providing a vehicle for the
immense range of progressive projects and voices throughout the
country to manifest their desires and to organize support and
visibility for them and thereby pressure the government. It will take
seriously what we want for every side of life, and compare and
contrast it with the agendas and actions of the forces of money and
power, and it will show why our way is infinitely preferable, and
fight for its implementation. And imagine running in 2008, on a
foundation of four years of explicitly formulated and explored
dissident program.
How does such a vast undertaking get funded? If Moore, Ehrenreich,
Daniels, Nader, and others were to run as a slate, seeking votes in
some states and in any event seeking support in the form of a
submitted name and slow mail address or when possible email address
submitted to facilitate future communications in every state, how
many people would sign on?

Not how many would vote for the Green Presidential candidate and
slate. Those who are willing to vote Green will certainly sign on.
But how many would vote for the Democrat as the lesser evil, while
still being willing to sign on to a project that allowed them to back
the morally worthy and politically savvy Greens beyond the simple act
of voting, that is, as wanting to support the Green shadow
government? I don’t know the answer. But given the ease of setting up
the infrastructure online to do all this, accumulating millions of
potential allies and participants is not impossible.
So let’s say 3, 5, or perhaps 10 million people say we like Moore (or
whoever). We like what he is saying - even though a very large number
of these, at Green request, vote Democrat. And let’s say all during
the campaign the Green presidential candidate and the ten or twenty
other prominent progressives from every imaginable constituency and
background who are in the proposed Green administration are also not
only communicating and advocating a wonderfully inspiring platform,
but also making clear their commitment to build a shadow government
that will create, elaborate, advocate, and fight for change in the
years to come, with the support and especially the leadership of its
supporters.

How many of the 3, 5, or perhaps 10 million people feeling affinity
for all of this would pledge $3, $5, or $10 a month to support the
shadow government and its undertakings in coming years? Suppose two
million to start at an average $4 a month. That’s $8 million a month
to get started. How much more would effective effort provoke? How
many more people participating?
And the idea needn’t be only national. Couldn’t local congressional,
senate, and other Green candidates where appropriate do something
similar, with their shadowing of their local administration being
part of the national project, feeding it, and being fed by it?
I think something more or less like this is what should have happened
post election 2000, rather than relative dissolution after election
day. Let’s learn from that mistake. Let’s not repeat it. Let’s demand
of our process and its participants a strategy that has staying
power.

We talk about periodic elections not being democracy but being mere
moments of manipulation. Okay, that is a reason why we should create
not only a shadow government, but one that has a rich and highly
interactive set of mechanisms for back and forth communication with
its electorate and constituencies, for guidance and instruction by
that public. If we create that, we will have something so powerful
that, in fact, even were Bush to win the election, it would be a much
diminished victory for him and his minions. Because our movements
would constrain his options and carry on their own agendas,
regardless of his presence in Washington.
I think that for election 2004 something like this makes sense. I
think the country is ready. It can be done without incurring
recrimination and division. It can yield hope and real participation
and progress.

I suggest that when the Greens get together to consider their path
forward for election 2004, they ought to enlist candidates, conceive
program, and establish strategy, not only in light of the diverse
details of the current period and the short term virtues of
potential candidates and program, but to create a lasting project
such as a shadow government.

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