While most of the left and the trade union movement are lining up behind President Clinton's bid for re-election, there are important signs that sectors of the left and even part of the union leadership are beginning to discuss breaking out of the straitjacket of the Democratic Party.
One indication is the organisation Labor Party Advocates. Another potentially important development is Ralph Nader's candidacy on the Green Party ticket.
Ralph Nader has been a public figure for 25 years, first as a consumer advocate. Battles he waged over the years for product safety, the environment and worker safety on the job have given him an international reputation as a fighter against corporate abuses.
As a result of this work, he is known by a significant section of the US public.
In recent years, he has come out more and more as a critic of the shift to the right of both capitalist parties, which is a result of the capitalist offensive against the wages (including social wages), organisations and rights of working people and the disadvantaged. In so doing, he has come to view the Democrats and Republicans as groupings within a single party dominated by the corporations.
Calling the "choice" between the two parties one between "Tweedledum and Tweedledee", he has been outspoken against both Clinton and Dole. The former he refers to as "George Ronald Clinton" — Bush, Reagan and Clinton.
One of Nader's main themes is that the big corporations control virtually every major aspect of national life, including the government, and that this has made US democracy an empty shell. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln's famous phrase about government "of, by and for the people", he derides the existing regime as government "of the Exxons, by the General Motorses and for the DuPonts".
His speeches contain lively exposés of corporate abuses and the drive to the right. He explains what has happened to real wages and working conditions. He helps champion fights back against the attacks on affirmative action, calls for the abolition of the laws that have helped cripple the unions, is for a big rise in the legal minimum wage (which is at a 50-year low in terms of buying power) and attacks the rigged electoral system that makes it very difficult for progressive parties to get on the ballot.
There are weaknesses. For example, some of his formulations against NAFTA and GATT appear to support a nationalist position — but others are clearly internationalist and seek to promote organising working people across national boundaries.
While attacking individual corporations and the system they dominate, he does not attack capitalism itself and rarely uses the term. He is not a socialist and obviously is not a revolutionary. Probably the best definition is that he is a radical democrat, who is honest and dedicated to fighting the corporate powers and their government in the immediate interests of the working people and the oppressed.
Nevertheless, I think socialists and Marxists in the US should support his campaign, and urge a vote for him on the Green Party ticket.
It is not because the Green Party is a workers' party, even of the reformist variety. It is not a capitalist party, either, and is not under the control of the capitalist class. Perhaps it could be best characterised as a petty bourgeois party, using the term not as an epithet but to indicate its "in between" character. In California, the Green Party's program includes many points socialists would agree with, however, and may be said to point toward socialism.
The key argument in favour of supporting Nader in the upcoming election is to give a voice to the disorganised but substantial opposition developing against the two major parties from the left.
The central divide on the left in these elections is whether to continue supporting the Democratic Party. A Ralph Nader campaign will help mobilise opposition to the Democrats in a credible alternative, in a way that the tiny campaigns of the socialist sects cannot.
A significant vote for Nader will be a crack in the two-party monopoly. Widening this crack can lead toward our real objective: independent working class anti-capitalist political action, down the road. Fighting to break the two-party monopoly from the left, in my view, is the best tactic to take in our situation to advance toward this objective.
Already there has been alarm expressed about a Nader candidacy in the capitalist parties, particularly the Democratic Party.
What worries Clinton especially is Nader's impact in California. A few years ago, the Green Party there collected enough signatures (about 1 million) to put the party on the ballot. Early this year, they approached Nader about running as a Green, and he accepted, although it wasn't clear at first how much energy he would put into it.
Polls show him currently getting 7% of the vote in the state, if he is on the ballot. That could be enough to determine whether Clinton or Dole wins there, and Clinton must win California to retain the presidency.
So it's not surprising that reports have leaked out about the Clinton forces putting tremendous pressure on Nader to withdraw. Liberal lawyers, many of whom have worked with Nader in the past, have been pressed into service for this effort, which has so far not only failed, but seems to have emboldened him.
The fight is not over, however, because an upcoming state Green Party delegated convention must ratify Nader's nomination by 80%. Clinton is targeting that crucial 20% plus of Green Party delegates to vote down the Nader candidacy, and we can be sure that Democratic money will be a major factor.
The announcement that the Greens want to run Nader in California has spurred Green parties in other states to see if they can't run him there, too. Other forces have been drawn into the effort, so it extends beyond the Greens, with "Draft Nader" committees springing up across the country.
In how many other states Nader will succeed in getting on the ballot is uncertain, especially given the extremely undemocratic election laws in most states, but if he stays on the ballot in California, this effort has the potential of becoming truly national.
A Nader campaign, especially because of its potential to be the deciding factor between Clinton and Dole, would spark a big and very sharp debate within the left on the Democratic Party, which could result in a new realignment.
Personally, I hope Nader runs and gets a significant vote. If this defeats Clinton, I say "Hooray!" It will show that the left has some clout, and that alone would slow down Dole and the Republicans. Of course, if Clinton wins in spite of a good vote for Nader, that will slow him and the Democrats, down, too, for the same reason.