David McReynolds
LEFT LETTERS

23 April 2008

After Pennsylvania

David McReynolds was on the staff of the War Resisters League for many years, and, as the Socialist Party candidate in 1980 and 2000, the first openly gay person to run for the U.S. presidency. He lives with two cats on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Friends were over last night to watch Boston Legal - the attack on the Supreme Court was marvelous. I wonder how long ABC will be able to keep this program on the air (or allow the writers to keep writing). After Boston Legal we took up the election results.

Let me, by way of warning for whoever does occasionally drop by, say that Shaman seems to consider it a game to leap from floor level to your shoulders if you are in the kitchen area (or in the bathroom and left the door open). Not much I can do about this except try to keep his claws trimmed. I've talked with him about this but I've had little impact.

I'd hoped for a closer race in Pa., even dared to hope that the flood of new registrants and younger voters might allow Obama a slight edge. But the voting came out pretty much as the polls had predicted, and Hillary remains in the race.

Let it be said that those of us in New York are lucky - no matter who is nominated we can write in socialist or vote green because this is a Democratic state and if it goes Republican it would mean our handful of votes couldn't save the nation. And let it be noted that both Obama and Clinton are committed to a capitalist economic structure, have not really raised questions about the vast prison population, about the drug laws, (or, speaking of drugs, about the obscenity of the corporate drug firms becoming our primary source of health information via their TV ads - a very powerful arguement for the immediate public ownership of the pharmaceutical industry). Nor do either of them dare to question the extraordinary power of the military within the economic and political structure.

And let me admit that I admire Hillary Clinton's fighting quality. A part of me, as someone who has campaigned for public office and had a very very small taste of their schedule, is stunned by their ability to still stand on their feet after all this time. One can be amused by Hillary's business of pointing to people in the audience at her public appearances. This "point, point, point, hello, hello, hello" is a little like the flash lights so essential on the CSI shows. (Why don't they just turn on the lights when they enter a crime scene!).

Having said all that, the fact is Hillary may yet just be able to hand the election to McCain. On one hand it can be argued that Hillary has done Barack a favor by giving him a "test by fire". But she has also, in the process, given the GOP all kinds of sound bites for the fall campaign. And she has done something else, very deliberately, and with the aid of Bill Clinton (who was never my favorite President but I know was widely admired - he has now sunk himself). That is to raise the race card in a real way.

Look at that 3 a.m. phone call. Let me say what Obama's people can't say. It doesn't just show the White House - it shows a white woman with child, being awakened in the early hours of the morning. And what is going to alarm a white woman with a baby at 3 a.m.? The prospect of a black man in the White House or maybe in her house. It was clever propaganda, but it was also racist, and consciously so. Along with Bill Clinton's efforts to cast Barack Obama as Jesse Jackson.

Let's take two examples - the Rev. Wright and the "bitter" comments. That video clip of Wright is certainly going to hurt Obama - it was one tiny clip out of a career. Most of what Wright said made a lot of sense. Martin Luther King Jr. said the same things, though as a Southern preacher he said it in tones that made it a bit easier for whites to hear. (Doubly so now that he is dead, has been turned into public schools, postage stamps, national holidays, and thus we can forget what he actually said. If Jesus appeared in our midst today he would be locked up as a dangerous alien - I do commend the reading of the Gospels to those who forget how carefully the Christian Church has tidied up his teachings - always go to the source, with either Jesus or Marx).

But back to the point - if the Wright remarks, or the "bitter" remarks, had surfaced after the Democrats had chosen Obama, the full machinery of the Democratic Party would have rallied to Obama's defense. Instead, Hillary has quite literally bludgeoned Obama so badly that he has been hurt. As a quasi-neutral observer, nothing Obama has said about Clinton has had the nasty edge of her remarks, or left her as wounded. Her wounds come from her own lips - the direct lies about her visit to Bosnia. And for the rest of us, the knowledge that, imperfect as Obama is (see my fourth paragraph above), he has not suggested the obliteration of Iran. He is not funded by the corporate PACS, and Hillary is. He
should have voted against the funds for the Iraq War but at least he spoke out against it, while Hillary voted for it.

Hillary, under the impact of the campaign, has moved to the left. But her natural position is on the side of the military/corporate state. Both candidates are deeply imperfect, but Hillary is willing (not just "seems to be willing" but IS willing) to do anything to win the nomination, even if, in the process, this destroys the chance of beating McCain. (And yes, Virginia, there really is a difference between McCain and the Democrats in this election).

The campaign is far from over - the good news is that Hillary is almost broke, that about half of the Democratic Party Establishment is on Obama's side (Ted Kennedy and a number of others). The bad news is that Hillary, always smiling cheerfully, is knifing her own party. This is ambition run riot.

The New York Times in today's editorial (and this is hardly a radical paper!!) has deplored what Hillary is doing and has done.

The hope of Obama's campaign is that while he is not a radical, not a socialist, he is (a) politically better than Clinton on most issues, particularly foreign policy and (b) he is black, and his election would mark a radically new direction in the politics of America.

One must hope that Clinton does run out of money - she is already about ten million dollars (or much more) in debt, her bills are not being paid. But it is important to note that Obama's organization couldn't beat the Pennsylvania Democratic Party machine, even though he outspent her three to one. It is necessary to grasp how much racism is part of this race, and how Hillary (and Bill) are playing that card even as they deny they are doing so.

None of us can do more than hope - I hope Obama kicks the crap out of Hillary in Indiana and North Carolina, but that is hardly a sure bet. It is instructive for those who do back Hillary to pause and realize that she is really hated by a large number of people. Obama has a chance of beating McCain - but Clinton is the one McCain wants to run against. If he is stuck with Obama, then racism will be the hidden or not so hidden card. It is a card Hillary is already playing. There is a reason why, in the opinion polls, Hillary shows up as so deeply distrusted. The Pennsylvania campaign reminds us why.

I wlll be writing in Brian Moore, the Socialist Party candidate, but hope that Obama gets the Democatic Party nomination.

David was Socialist Party nominee (write-in) for Congress, 1958. Peace & Freedom Party nominee for Congress, 1968. Socialist Party nominee for President, 1980 and the Green Party candidate for Senate in New York in 2004. National Co-Chair, Socialist Party, two terms. National Committeeman, Socialist Party. Arrested over a dozen times for participation in peace, civil rights, and labor demonstrations.