>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>***** Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 21:45:30 -0800
>>From: Rick Wilhelm
>>Subject: [C-JwJ] Six issues and how the candidates stand
>>To: columbuslabor at topica.com . . .
>>
>>I have compiled a chart on the Democratic candidates on 6 major
>>issues, combining NAFTA and Fast Track into one for scoring. The
>>chart and explanations can be accessed here:
>><http://dsco1.tripod.com/issues.htm>http://dsco1.tripod.com/issues.htm
>>
>>It was surprising to me, in compiling this chart, that Kerry, on
>>these five issues, has a worse record than Lieberman. I have
>>included Carol Moseley Braun and Dick Gephardt. The issues are:
>>NAFTA and Fast Track, the Welfare Reform Bill of 1996, the Patriot
>>Act, the Millionaire tax cuts, and the Iraq War Resolution.
<snip>
>But there are many more Senate votes than these five. The ADA
>ratings come from hundreds, on a broad range of issues. And on
>those, Kerry comes in nowhere near conservative
But the five that Rick chose are truly decisive issues, and collectively, they are probably more important than the rest of the Senate votes.
>You may have noticed that the candidates who voted "right" on these
>issues could barely crack 10% in any primary.
Yes, but let's analyze electoral results and opinion polls more closely, paying attention to objective and subjective demographic profiles (e.g., class, race, income, education, gender, sexuality, etc. on the objective side, and quality of political belief, level of political participation, etc. on the subjective side), with a view to identifying whom you can and must reach first, second, third, etc. in order to build a mass social movement + a mass political party on the left. rather than passively looking at the final vote tallies and following who is the most popular.
"The typical voter today is relatively well off financially and over fifty years of age. Better educated, higher earning Americans vote at 70-80 percent levels, while less than two-fifths of the working class bother to vote--a forty percent gap" (<http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_voting.cfm>). Democratic caucus and primary goers are likewise financially better off and better educated than the rest of working-class America: "Caucus Class Demographics," <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040119/001530.html>.
In other words, only (A) a minority (maybe 10%?) of the "voting class" are a critical constituency for the objective of building a mass social movement + a mass political party on the left, (B) the majority of whose participants must come from the non-voting population who are the majority of working-class America.
>At this point, anyone who says there's no difference between the two
>parties won't get taken very seriously by more than a handful of
>people - and not just in the U.S.
A handful? About half of the US voters don't think that differences between the two parties are large enough to compel their participation. Take a look at the trend of "Presidential Election Voter Turnouts" at <http://www.fairvote.org/turnout/preturn.htm>. I don't think that 2004 will see a significantly higher turnout due to Bush than before. Do you?
>All I'm looking for is getting back to a baseline of normal capitalist horror.
That depends on how things go in Iraq, which way economy turns, and (most importantly) whether or not there will be any major terrorist attack within the US borders, not on a Democratic victory.
If the presidential election matters at all, critical differences may come not from which party wins but whether the victor wins by a landslide or a slim margin and whether the victor is perceived to have won the election legitimately or stolen it by electoral frauds.
BTW, Kerry's nomination will prove wrong, once again, the idea that those who want to build a mass political party on the left should participate in Democratic caucuses and primaries to "take back the party." -- Yoshie
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