> McReynolds' Socialist vision provocative
>
> By John Nichols
> August 24, 2000
>
> [The Capitol Times, Madison, WI]
>
> In any other Western democracy, the leader of the Socialist Party would
> travel down the campaign trail with an entourage of high-powered aides,
> reporters, photographers, and the other hangers-on who accompany
> potential leaders of state.
>
> In the United States, however, David McReynolds wanders out of the
> ornate Wisconsin State Capitol in the company of a pair of veteran
> socialists, retired UW English Professor Robert Kimbrough and Milwaukee
> union activist Dave Schall. The trio moves through downtown Madison
> pretty much unnoticed -- an apt metaphor for McReynolds' campaign for
> the presidency.
>
> Like the Socialist Party nominees who preceded him -- Eugene Victor Debs,
> Norman Thomas and Frank Zeidler -- McReynolds deserves better.
>
> By any measure, McReynolds is an abler contender than at least one of his
> major-party opponents -- although the Socialist candidate politely notes
> that George W. "is not a moron'' -- and he brings to this year's campaign a
> track record of personal commitment rivaled only by the Green Party's
> Ralph Nader.
>
> For more than 50 years, as a pioneering civil rights and anti-war
> campaigner, McReynolds has been at the center of every major political
> and social justice struggle that has shaken this country since the dawn of
> the Cold War. Yet, McReynolds is no old warrior telling tales of past
> battles; rather, he is an engaged and intellectually honest participant in
> the debates that will shape America and the world in the 21st century.
>
> "I believe that an election campaign in a democracy should be about big
> ideas, big goals, and I find that, as I travel the country, most people I
> talk to agree with me on this,'' says McReynolds. "The problem is that, for
> the most part, presidential campaigns are more about tactics than ideas. I
> think that's why most people are so turned off by our politics.''
>
> McReynolds offers big ideas. He wants the United States to follow the lead
> of European democracies and adopt federal laws that guarantee shorter
> workweeks, longer vacations and progressive tax structures. He also wants
> to take the anger of burgeoning street protests against corporate hegemony
> and turn it into public policy.
>
> "On this, the kids and I really see eye to eye,'' the 70-year-old candidate
> says of student demonstrators against sweatshops, Wall Street-dictated
> "free trade'' schemes and corporate dominance of the political process.
> "There's a rebellion, a nausea with the extent to which the corporate state
> has taken over our politics, our communities, our lives.''
>
> Socialists have always complained about corporate power, but now even
> Al Gore is banging away on the excesses of HMOs and big oil. To be sure,
> McReynolds says, Nader is the king of the anti-corporate critique.
>
> "Nader is not the enemy. The enemy is the corporate state,'' says
> McReynolds. "I am excited by the fact that Nader has brought new people,
> especially young people, into the Green Party, and I think that, ultimately,
> the Greens can turn red.''
>
> In the meantime, however, McReynolds will raise the red flag of socialism,
> arguing that while Nader's critique is excellent, the Greens' solutions fall
> short. Regulation, antitrust legislation and legal rulings are all fine and
> good, the Socialist candidate argues, but what's really needed is "a
> fundamental reorganization of the economy to make it more fair, more humane
> and more democratic.''
>
> When he gets to talking that way, McReynolds sounds like a dangerous
> man -- not because his Euro-socialist ideas are all that radical, but because
> he makes life tougher for progressives. Left-leaning voters who are already
> struggling to decide between a lesser evil vote for Gore or an idealistic
> vote for Nader probably don't want to know that the most thought-provoking
> and personally engaging progressive option may well be David McReynolds.