Barry Sheppard, San Francisco
"The Democratic Party's campaign of dirty tricks to keep [independent left candidates] Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo off the presidential ballot constitutes the most serious threat to voting rights in the US since the death of Jim Crow.
"The rationale of many liberals who support the Democratic Party's presidential candidate John Kerry, such as filmmaker Michael Moore and Global Exchange founder Media Benjamin, is that he will pull back from US President George Bush's all-out assault on civil rights. The reality is that Kerry's attempt to exclude Nader from the ballot is, like Bush's Patriot Act, which Kerry voted for and still supports, a dangerous infringement of democracy.
"Nader and Camejo's refusal to submit to the demand by the pro-war Kerry to shut up and get in line is the first real story in this election. The second real story is that millions of students and workers are supporting their underdog battle. That's what has got the two parties worried."
This statement by Californian staffer for the Nader-Camejo campaign Todd Cretien sums it all up. Nader is running for president and Camejo is his vice-presidential running mate. Nader and Camejo face huge obstacles in getting on the ballot in November, because of undemocratic election laws. While the Democrats and Republicans — the two parties of the US capitalist class — are virtually automatically placed on the ballot, independent candidates and parties must collect the signatures of hundreds of thousands of registered voters to qualify. Undaunted, Nader-Camejo supporters are doing just that.
However, the Democrats are not content with relying on undemocratic election laws to undermine any challenge to corporate-dominated two-party rule in the US. In every state where Nader-Camejo supporters have collected enough signatures to qualify, the Democrats are spending tens of thousands of dollars to pore over the nominating petitions in an effort to disqualify as many as they can, or claim fraud. They then rely on state officials, many of whom are Democratic Party hacks, to rule against the left-wing candidates.
The result is that Nader-Camejo campaigners must try to win the right to stand in the courts, which are dominated by appointees and cronies of the Democratic and Republican parties. The is enormously expensive for the Nader-Camejo campaign.
The Democrats are not only using the courts and capitalist party control over the electoral machinery, but are resorting to dirty tricks. Democratic operatives are harassing Nader-Camejo signature gatherers and trying to scare away potential supporters of the progressive candidates' right to be on the ballot.
In Oregon, the relatively more democratic election law allows independent candidates and parties to qualify if they can bring together 1000 supporters to meet and endorse the candidates. Nader-Camejo supporters did that, but when the doors were closed, leaving hundreds of Nader supporters outside, it turned out that the Democrats had stacked the meeting so the nomination could not be made.
Oregon's law leaves open the possibility of collecting more than 12,000 signatures to get on the ballot, which the Nader campaign is now doing.
"The fight has become fierce in Oregon", an article in the August 19 New York Times reported, "with anti-Nader forces telling people circulating Nader petitions that they could be jailed and fined if they submitted fraudulent signatures. The Nader campaign said that its circulators were being intimidated and that 30 had quit as a result."
A "fraudulent signature" could be something as simple as a registered voter misspelling their address, and it is a lie that a petitioner could face criminal charges over such an error.
The article continues: "'Where are these battles [to throw the Nader-Camejo ticket off the ballot]?', asked Kevin Zeese, Mr. Nader's spokesman. 'Everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's a swing state or safe state. The Democrats are doing their best to harass us everywhere. Their goal is to divert our resources and bleed our campaign.'"
"Swing states" are those where the race between Kerry and Bush is close. "Safe" states are those where it is already clear who will win. Oregon is a "safe" state for Kerry.
Initially, the Democrats, their liberal and left-wing apologists, including the Nation magazine and the Communist Party, argued that Nader should not run in "swing" states, where his vote might be larger than the difference between Kerry and Bush, and could result in a Bush victory, given the undemocratic winner-take-all US electoral system.
The fact that the Democrats are attacking Nader's ballot rights in "safe" states gives the lie to this argument. The real objective is to prevent a serious challenge to the two-party system emerging. In this they are supported by the Republican Party. Most of the liberals and leftists who initially argued for the "safe state" strategy have not raised a peep against the Democrats' drive to disenfranchise the millions who want to vote for Nader and Camejo.
The capitalist class, which finances and runs both parties, has a vested interest in the "duopoly", as Nader calls the system. The ruling rich want to suppress the independent anti-war Nader-Camejo campaign. Both Kerry and Bush support the US occupation of Iraq and the US drive for world empire it is part and parcel of. Both Bush and Kerry explicitly state that the US must win the war in Iraq to further its broader imperial goals.
The Democrats play a special role in corralling left-wing and anti-war voters and activists under the excuse that "anyone but Bush" will be a step forward in the November election.
However, as Kerry makes his pro-war position clearer and clearer, there is a fear that if Nader is on the ballot, many more than the 10 million people who already support him will support his campaign.
The Democrats' machinations were in evidence at the Green Party national convention in June. Kerry supporters like Media Benjamin, who are nominally Greens, fought to prevent the party endorsing Nader and Camejo. Since the Greens are a recognised party in many states, they are automatically on the ballot in those states. The purpose of denying the Green endorsement of Nader and Camejo was purely and simply to keep them off the ballot.
The pro-Kerry forces took advantage of undemocratic rules in the Green Party. For example, the convention was controlled from the top down, in contrast to the grassroots democracy the Green Party professes.
This was how the will of the majority of Greens — 84% voted in Green Party primaries for candidates pledged to endorse the Nader-Camejo ticket — was thwarted. One-person one-vote, a principle the Green Party advocates for society as a whole, was not followed in its own proceedings.
Instead, the party nominated David Cobb, an unknown who is running at 0% in the polls. That's not surprising since his campaign is virtually non-existent. But actually running a campaign was never his point, which was to aid Kerry by torpedoing Nader and Camejo.
The result has been a deep crisis for the US Greens. The majority reject the "duopoly" and support Nader-Camejo. Will these forces win out as the battle within the Greens deepens, or will those who view the Greens as a left pressure group within the Democrats maintain control?
In spite of the Democratic Party's dirty tricks against the anti-war ticket, the Nader-Camejo will be on the ballot in some states. How many remains to be seen.
Visit the Nader-Camejo campaign website at .
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 25, 2004.
Visit the