Willkie assesses the local political landscape

BY PHIL WILLKIE

I told Michael Cavlan months ago I knew he had principles and good intentions with his desire to run for the Minnesota U.S. Senate seat. I questioned his experience and stature to endure a major political race. Since then he has gone on acting as if he is “the” Green Party-endorsed candidate for U.S. Senate. Not one single elected Green officeholder past or current has endorsed his campaign! The Minnesota Greens are like a dysfunctional family—where no one wants to hurt anyone else’s feelings. Michael Cavlan is not a credible candidate for United States Senate and this needs to be discussed publicly as soon as possible.

A brief historical assessment:
In 2002 the Minnesota Greens embarrassed themselves by endorsing Ed McGaa to run against Paul Wellstone for U.S. Senate. McGaa, who is Native American, was pro war! The excuse from the party was they had to fill their ballot. In 2004, the California Greens declined to run against anti-war Senator Barbara Boxer. This year the Minnesota Greens no longer have ballot status and have not even debated whether to run a candidate for the U.S. Senate. I thank Cavlan for challenging the party to run a credible candidate. But if the party runs Cavlan, the DFL Party will sigh with relief. His campaign will only be symbolic and will be no threat to the DFL.

Our country is in a state of political emergency. I propose the Minnesota Greens withhold running a candidate for the U.S. Senate if the DFL will write a platform and endorse a candidate who calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, for national single payer universal health care and to repeal the Patriot Act. In 1972 the Minnesota DFL party called for the immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and endorsed George McGovern for President. The best votes of my life were for McGovern in 1972 and Ralph Nader in 2000.

If the DFL decides not to play Green ball and not to firmly oppose the war in Iraq and instead run a mushy John Kerry style campaign, they will get beat in November. In that case the Greens will be obligated to file a credible candidate, preferably a woman, for the U.S. Senate.

I was a delegate to the 2004 Green Party National Convention in Milwaukee. We made a great mistake by not endorsing Ralph Nader again for President. By then John Kerry and the Democrats had decided not to run against the war. Nader was the loudest anti-war candidate in the race. He still ran as an independent. Imagine: If the Greens and the united Left had rallied behind Nader, perhaps his campaign could have moved John Kerry to take an anti-war stand. Had Kerry staked out a clear position against the war, he would have been elected President.

I get so tired of people only seeing the Greens as spoilers. Ed Felien brings up the spectre of Florida in 2000. Al Gore carried Florida but thousands of votes from African-American precincts were never counted! Not one Democratic U.S. senator would sponsor the Congressional Black Caucus inquiries into the Florida recount based on violations of the Federal Voting Rights Act. Gore also failed to carry his home state of Tennessee. The Clintons opportunistically left Arkansas so Hillary could carpet-bag a U.S. Senate seat in New York. The Democrats lost Tennessee and Arkansas in 2000, states where Nader was not a factor.
Gore picked the right-wing, hawkish Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman to be his running mate. If Clinton had not engaged in sexual relations in the oval office, perhaps uptight Gore would have sent him on the campaign trail in 2000. Clinton should have resigned in 1997. And then Gore would have been President.
Millions of Americans voted for Nader in 2000 because the Democrats had abandoned all principles.

The eight-year Clinton/Gore administration had the worst record on civil liberties of any presidency excluding the current one. They INSTITUTED a pro-business agenda backing NAFTA and GATT. They erased the safety net by imposing welfare reform in 1996. Clinton/Gore aggressively pursued the Drug War and prosecuted patients for using medical marijuana. Clinton/Gore pursued an aggressive war in Bosnia and continued sanctions and indiscriminate bombings of Iraq that killed thousands of innocent people.

In 2001 Republican Senator Jim Jeffords dumped his party and gave the Democrats control of the U.S. Senate for a year and a half. They did nothing with their majority. They failed to hold hearings on the Patriot Act, the greatest assault on civil liberties in 200 years. They also failed to hold hearings on the Enron debacle because their Senators Joe Lieberman and Joe Biden were on the take with Enron.

A majority of Democrats cynically voted for this war and have continued to fund the war. The party leadership has failed to back Congressman John Murtha’s call to withdraw from Iraq within six months.

The greatest obstacle to change in America is the Democratic Party and it needs to be destroyed. The Democratic Party is a graveyard for every progressive social movement: farmers, labor, blacks, women, gays, seniors, Hispanics and the environment. The DFL is the cesspool of politics.

Unfortunately, the Greens only have the following of perhaps 10 percent of the national electorate. In several major cities including Minneapolis, St. Paul, Seattle and San Francisco, the Greens are the second party to the Democrats and have elected office holders. Considering their small (but growing) support nationally, the Greens must work with other independents, third parties like the Minnesota Independence Party and dissident Democrats to provide a political opposition to the pro-war establishment.

The Greens should run credible candidates and agitate for political reform the way the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party did in the 1930s.