Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>
> Outside of the Democratic Party, there is no solid political party
> that can marshal enough motivated organizers to make a difference in
> 2004.
>
> Do you have any candidate for whom you don't mind busting your own
> ass doing campaign work for, say, at least 10-15 hours per week?
> --
The question, "Does it make a difference who is in the White House?" is a radically misleading question -- misleading in the sense that it suppresses (as not askable) all the questions that need to be asked. It suppresses, for example, the question: How important politically are the 50% of Americans who will not vote in 2004. And by suppressing that question it objectively denies the humanity of that 50%. The election will be decided by what around 1.5% to 2.5% of the voting-age population do during a 30 second span of time in November 2004.
So, the real question is, not "Does it make a difference who is in the WH?" But "Does it make a difference if leftists quit all other activities to concentrate for the next 18 months on having a momentary effect on how that 2% spends 30 seconds of their time?"
One problem with the WH question is that it invites us to become prophets. Actually, I don't have the least idea what difference it would make, because I don't have the least idea as to what events are going to be important 2005-2008. My best guess, looking backwards, is that we would be rather better off right now if Dewey had won in 1948 or Ford in 1976 or Bush senior in 1992 or Dole in 1996. But it's pure guesswork -- and that is the real significance of the question, "Does it make a difference who is in the WH?" The question draws us away from political analysis and political work into making pure guesses about hypothetical futures.
Will there be a cadre of experienced leftists in the Year X when the next big opening occurs for left politics? We had a window for our politics from 9/11 through the fall of Iraq. That window is closing, and we actually have done very well. Again this month we had 20+ people showing up at the local anti-war group's meeting -- almost all people who had never engaged in political activity before. (There seem, in fact, to be about 30 to 35 more or less permanent new cadre.) At the end of the first Gulf War at the last meeting there were 5 people, all hangovers from the Central-America solidarity work, who showed up, and we closed down shop. Most of the new people are going to campaign for some Democrat, but I and a couple of other people have convinced them that their _main_ obligation is simply to maintain continuity so that we don't have to start out from scratch at the next crisis.
And it seems to me that our most crucial task at the present is preserving cadre. I think that 'punctuated equilibrium' offers a powerful metaphor for how left politics proceed. The 'punctuations' come from nowhere as it were and are not predictable. The main task during periods of equilibrium (such as we are probably now entering) is to maintain and if possible increase the size and quality of 'grassroots' leadership -- to keep local groups going and active. Much of what I know about political organizing came from experience in activities that went nowhere because the conditions for success didn't exist. I want the number of people with that kind of experience to be greater not smaller when the next occassion for growth strikes. And I think that locally (and I hope elsewhere) we are achieving that purpose. The two main barriers to that achivement are (a) the lethargy which is apt to accompany equilibrium and (b) being sucked into merely working for the DP, which can lead to burnout.
I see my own main task as of right now to be introducing and developing the perspective that left achievements must be the work of minorities -- that we simply are not going to be a majority (and we never have been), and that we should plan accordingly. In the case of those who want to work for Kucinich, I'm going to encourage them to use that work to also recruit to the BNCPJ (Bloomington/Normal Citizens for Peace & Justice). When the election is over and politics revive, my hope is that they can bring that campaign experience to bear on more important concerns.
So of course it probably makes a difference who is in the WH -- just not enough difference. And Yoshie's closing question is key. I think those who are not planning to give that 15+ hours a week for the next 18 months ought to shut up about what difference it makes who is in the WH. Jan and I probably spent at least that many hours a week each in Jackson's campaign in 1988. It was worth it because of the people we met and the new people we involved in politics. Unfortunately, 13 years from April 1988 to October 2001 was too long a period, and all the gain had leached away. (Of the two best new acquaintances we made, one had died and the other moved away.)
Carrol