Super Tuesday. What Now?

Although I would much rather talk about Super Sunday, it seems clear that we have to shift our gaze to the aftermath of that other media-hyped super day: super Tuesday.

As we watch the Republican candidates (almost surely at this point John "I don't know much about the economy" McCain) move further and further to the right to please the Limbaugh wing of the party. Watch them cowtow to the Conservative Political Action Committee this weekend. I think McCain will probably pick extreme right-wing Huckelberry (as my friend Bert calls him) as his running mate. Although it's interesting to watch McCain hold a live press conference with right-wing independent(?) Joe Lieberman (possibly the perennial vice-presidential candidate) peering over his shoulder. Is Romney taking today off to talk to his family (about how much of their inheretance he should spend to tilt at windmills) a portent of dropping out? We now have to figure out how progressives (Democrat or independent) should relate to the two Democratic candidates left standing - Clinton and Obama.

The first thing we have to understand is that they are both politicians and therefore will do whatever they have to do to get elected. Try this on for size: Sam Stein reports on The Huffington Post:

Risking the ire of progressive activists, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced that it has accepted a debate to air on Fox News on February 11, according to her chief strategist Mark Penn. (for more on this)

We have to make it clear that they have to attend to progressive issues if they want our votes. It seems to me that the big mistake progressives often make is to tie our movement to a particular candidate - in other words, to reify electoral politics at the expense of the progressive movemement, to commit ourselves without getting what we need for our support.

A very good friend and comrade has said in an e-mail he sent out explaining his decision to vote for Clinton, even at the expense of angering his Obama-supporting family: "I remain deeply skeptical about Obama and voted for Clinton," he writes. Although I share his skepticism about Obama's tendency to paper over deep and abiding divisions (class conflicts?) within this society. But I don't quite follow the conclusion that voting for Clinton better speaks to these differences. Is she more sensetive to these real differences than is Obama? I think not.

In the same e-mail he questions some progressives who are

very happy that Obama's campaign is bringing young people into electoral politics. I too applaud this altho I do not think that the core issues our society faces can be basically addressed in the electoral or legislative arena. I am only slightly overstating the case when I say that a pre-occupation with electoral politics can draw attention away from more substantive, core, socio-economic issues. I realize that there is some overlap between the two. Participation in electoral politics is by no means an error in and of itself.

The real question it seems to me is why should we applaud young people being brought into electoral politics as individuals rather than as part of a movement that can confront the candidates and say, "if you don't share our values, why should we vote for you?" Drawing young people into electoral politics is exactly what, I think, legitimates a Nader or other small party candidacy.

Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America put it this way this morning on Democracy Now:

the challenge for the progressive movement and the peace and justice movement is to come off the sidelines and continue in this effort to hold the Clinton machine back, to hold back this election to make sure that we get a full accounting of all of the primaries and caucuses, and to try to make Barack Obama a better candidate.

The key, I think, is that we need to do this as a movement not as a bunch of individuals relating to different candidates.

Tom Hayden says about the participation of the peace movement in the electoral process:

hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of voters will make up their minds on which of the candidates is best on ending the Iraq war with little involvement by peace activists in the debate.
There are differences that matter between Clinton and Obama, not as great as between the Democrats and McCain, but significant nonetheless. They are these:

1.Obama favors a 16-18 month timeline for withdrawing U.S. combat troops. Clinton favors “immediately” convening the Joint Chiefs to draft a plan to “begin” drawing down U.S. troops, but with no timetable for completing the withdrawal.
2.Obama opposed the measure authorizing Bush to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, widely regarded as an escalating step towards another war. Clinton voted for the authorization.
3.Obama opposed the 2002 authorization for war that Clinton voted for. Clinton still calls that decision a “close call” and refuses to say it was a mistaken vote.

It’s true that both candidates support leaving thousands of 'residual' American troops behind for a likely counterinsurgency conflict that we should all oppose. Peace activists should demand a shift to peace diplomacy beginning with a U.S. commitment to end the occupation and withdraw all troops.

This is, of course, the point: do we applaude bringing people into electoral politics as individuals or as part of a larger and thereby stronger movement?

Bill Fletcher of The Black Commentator also said on this morning's Democracy Now:

while it’s true that many younger people have been inspired and motivated to the Obama campaign and have been prepared to put race aside in certain respects, we should keep in mind that the Obama campaign has not exactly made racial justice central programmatically to its campaign. So while people may have—or may be prepared to ignore the fact or accept the fact that Obama is black and they’re prepared to vote for him, that’s very different than having a discussion about race.

That's it for now. We could say much the same about the environmental movement, health care, the economy, but ultimately the question is about the dialectic between the progressive movement and the political process. If we jump on a bandwagon too soon we will have no effect on the outcome, but if we stay out of the process we will slso have no effect. You know, they say you gotta be in it to win it, but if you jump in too soon with too much, soon you'll be gambling away the rent.