Thursday, September 12, 2002

In the U.S., Elections Still Matter In the U.S., Elections Still Matter          Primary season is here, and the Massachusetts gubernatorial primary is coming up next week.  There has been an interesting email conversation going on in my affinity group.    I first learned about affinity groups during anti-war demonstrations when groups of friends would look out for each other in battles with the police, to make sure no one got separated, got beat up or was arrested alone. Ours first came together at the May 1970 anti-war demonstrations in Washington DC, where thousands of us were tear gassed, arrested and taken to RFK stadium in busses. Since then we went to many demonstrations together, and this group of movement friends has stayed more or less in touch, depending on circumstance.  We gave ourselves a name a few years ago--Reunion.  After Sept. 11th, we began to meet again to work through our political ideas about the "war on terror".   Back then I remember being quite disdainful about elections--feeling powerless about national candidates, and not rooted enough to get involved with local candidates.  But that has changed.  Here are some excerpts from some of the emails.   ..What are you doing in the primary? I figured I'd vote for Reich (Robert Reich, Former Labor Secretary for Clinton) in the primary and then whoever - O'Brien maybe in the election. But LJ raises the concern that with them neck & neck what will happen if Reich wins the primary.  Can he beat Mr. Plastic Republican? What does everyone advise….TE   …I think in the end the most important question is who can beat Romney [Mitt Romney, Former head of the Salt Lake City Olympics, republican candidate], but I don't have any idea who that is, so I can't vote on that basis unless someone else has a good argument about why one these guys/girl can do that. (JK and I seem to have traded positions 180-degrees over 30 years about whether it matters which of the major-party candidates wins. They both suck on most big issues, but on many small ones and appointees and such, I think it has an effect. So JK you have to argue how/why a Green vote will really help build a movement, no?) In the end, in this one, I'll vote for whoever the Dem candidate is…DC   ..Is there some policy issue on which there's major difference among them? The only one I know about is Clean Elections [Massachusetts public funding of candidates], where Tolman went for it and the others didn't. This may be because he couldn't raise as much money privately, but still it's a position. But I haven't been paying close attention, so maybe someone can tell me another issue..DD    ...I'm also leaning toward Tolman because once I stood at polls (Cambridge city election) with a guy who worked in his office, and I was impressed with that guy's progressive credentials/opinions/manner and he was big on his boss. Not very solid evidence, I know…KD     …I like Reich, myself because he supports gay and lesbian civil marriage.  I had dinner with him a few years ago at the Episcopal City Mission annual dinner, where he was the keynote speaker.  He arrived after we were all seated and eating and joined us, us being me and some other adults and about five teenagers from our church in Lynn, as we had an empty seat at our table at the back of the room.  He started talking with the kids, asking them about their computer access at school and at home, what they used computers for, etc.  He really listened to them and got a whole interesting discussion going.  No grandstanding.  Then he got up and gave a good, funny speech about globalization….BA    ..He also proposed raising the capital gains tax in the middle of tax cut fever. I thought that was gutsy and somewhat indicative of a sense of progressive taxation..RR    I think our consensus seemed to coalesce around Reich--but I was struck by how much thought everyone put into this vote.  Elections do matter--and I take that as a hopeful sign. 11:49:24 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:30:19 PM.