Voting Against The Machine

Polls show the US presidential election is a close contest. Yet a number of voters argue Obama and Romney are so similar that there’s no point in casting a ballot. Others say they will back a third party with no real chance of winning. By refusing to endorse Obama or Romney, could these citizens decide the next president and what would that mean? 

In this episode of The Stream, we speak to: 

Michael Moschella @MikeMoschella
Founder, New Leaders Council
newleaderscouncil.org 

Jason Brennan
Professor at Georgetown University, author of "The Ethics of Voting"
jasonfbrennan.com 

Kevin Gosztola @kgosztola
Blogger, Firedoglake.com 

1. In the highly contested US presidential campaign between President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney, many voters are disappointed with the positions of the two candidates. A key number of these, around five per cent of likely voters, plan to back third-party candidates, while others may not vote at all.
   
   Analysts say the election could end in a tie due to the electoral college voting system, with both candidates winning 269 out of 538 electoral college votes.
2. Currently there are 32 combinations for a potential electoral tie. The map below shows one possible outcome.

   What do you think? Are Americans who are voting for third-party candidates wasting their vote or changing the system?
   

Right-Wing Republicans vs. Corporate Democrats vs. Progressive Populists

"Progressives need to fight back -- today, tomorrow and every day. The electoral struggle is just one part of what’s needed to build effective social movements, but it’s an important part. And that effort should include primary battles to elect real progressives to Congress....There’s a viable -- and essential -- alternative to right-wing Republicans and corporate Democrats. Real progressive populism is grounded in humane values, solidarity, caring and organizing. We can put up a fight. And we can win."

By Norman Solomon
(Friday, September 10, 2010)
Courtesy Of "Media Monitors"

At this bleak political moment, gaining congressional power for progressives might seem like pie in the sky. More and more desperate efforts are underway to stave off a Republican takeover of Congress. But the necessity of trying to prevent right-wing rule on Capitol Hill should not obscure the need to win more seats for genuine progressives.

Ever since early last year, the Obama administration has chipped away at the Democratic Party’s base -- undermining its capacity to mobilize for the midterm election -- while sometimes courting Republican leaders to the point of absurdity. Consider this news account from the New York Times days ago: “Though liberal and labor groups have been agitating for public works spending, Mr. Obama and his advisers are emphasizing business tax cuts in hopes of drawing Republican support -- or, failing that, to show that Republicans are so determined to thwart Mr. Obama that they will oppose even ideas that they and most business groups, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, advocate.”

Huh?

Or consider the Washington Post report Sept. 9 on “Obama’s proposal for $180 billion in fresh infrastructure spending and business tax breaks.” The newspaper explained that “his plan would make permanent a corporate tax credit for research and allow companies to deduct from their taxes this year and next the entire cost of whatever they spend in new investments -- ideas pulled directly from GOP playbooks.”

Progressives need to fight back -- today, tomorrow and every day. The electoral struggle is just one part of what’s needed to build effective social movements, but it’s an important part. And that effort should include primary battles to elect real progressives to Congress.

One such election is coming up Tuesday (Sept. 14) in Rhode Island, where progressive populist David Segal is running against corporate Democratic insiders to fill the seat of retiring Congressman Patrick Kennedy. For many years, Segal has been organizing to challenge banks and other corporate behemoths on behalf of working people and the poor. Although he’s been in the state legislature for four years and on the Providence City Council before that, Segal isn’t a politician nearly so much as a committed activist whose work has won him wide support from labor unions and many other progressive organizations in the current campaign. [ http://votesegal.com ]

“It’s a slap in the face to American workers that our current trade agreements give corporations incentives to lay off U.S. workers and move jobs abroad where they can pay their workers sub-poverty wages and wreak havoc on the environment,” David Segal said on Labor Day. “These job losses aren’t an accident or the result of a force of nature: they are the direct result of the obscene power that corporations wield over our government. Corporations and the extremely wealthy spend tens of millions of dollars each year to ensure that our trade agreements guarantee their profits, even if it’s at the expense of millions of our working families.”

Of course Segal is being heavily outspent by the corporate opposition. He’s a distinct underdog, but -- whatever the Sept. 14 election results -- the work behind his campaign is an inspiring model for grassroots, volunteer-driven approaches to fighting for electoral power.

More broadly, progressive populism is essential in the quest for economic and social justice -- a vast worldview away from the “populism” flaunted by Tea Bag boosters and the like.

“It’s necessary to restate the solid principles of populism and reassert its true spirit, because both are now being severely perverted by corporate manipulators and a careless media establishment,” Jim Hightower wrote early this summer. “To these debasers of the language, any politicos or pundits who tap into any level of popular anger (toward Barack Obama, liberals, the IRS, poor people, unions, gays, immigrants, Hollywood, community organizers, environmentalists et al.) get a peel-off ‘populist’ label slapped onto their lapels -- even when their populist pose is funded by and operates as a front for one or another corporate interest. That’s not populism, it’s rank hucksterism -- disguising plutocrats as champions of the people.”

Hightower’s assessment is true today, and it will be true the morning after Election Day: “Now is the time for progressives to reassert their populist beliefs and bona fides, for we’re living in a teachable moment in which it’s possible to reach most Americans with an aggressive and positive approach to achieving a higher level of economic and political democracy.”

There’s a viable -- and essential -- alternative to right-wing Republicans and corporate Democrats. Real progressive populism is grounded in humane values, solidarity, caring and organizing. We can put up a fight. And we can win.

The Mosque and The Muslim Vote

By STEWART J. LAWRENCE
August 25, 2010
Courtesy Of "CounterPunch"

In recent weeks, Republicans have expressed surprisingly muted criticism of President Obama’s handling of the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Some GOP leaders - everyone from anti-Zionist Pat Buchanan to libertarian Grover Norquist - have gone so far as to warn the party that it would be a "mistake" to “overdo” their attacks on the current administration.

It's true, Obama did just hand the GOP a major unexpected “opening” on national security that he’d largely managed to close with his bellicose policies in Afghanistan. And there may not be much more Republicans can do to make the President look even more inept and indecisive than he already has thus far.

But it’s not sympathy for the President -- or respect for Muslim religious freedom per se -- that’s leading the GOP to restrain its anti-Obama jihad. It’s something far more mundane: Muslim votes.

It turns out that most of the country’s 8 million Muslims - and its estimated 2.5 million voters - are concentrated in thirty congressional districts that could decide whether the GOP regains control of the House this November. And most of these swing districts are also found in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida - states that are among the most important “toss-up” contests in the battle for the US Senate.

In the slice-and-dice competitition for "niche" voters that frequently defines the modern political campaign, even a razor-thin demographic like Muslims could have a significant impact, depending on its voting preferences and turn out.

And that impact can be magnified when the race has narrowed, the election is fast approaching, and most other voter groups have already made up their mind, as they clearly have in many of the current races (judging from the dwindling number of "undecideds").

In fact, Muslims, despite their relatively small size, are a highly volatile and unpredictable voting constituency - more of a "swing" vote than a true voting "bloc." For years they voted overwhelmingly for Democratic party candidates, especially in national elections. But in 2000, they swung sharply behind George W. Bush and the GOP, only to swing sharply away from Republicans after 9/11.

But rather than swinging squarely back to the Democrats, they appear to be in flux, which only heightens their potential last-minute significance. In addition, without a galvanizing issue, barely half of Muslim registered voters typically bother to vote. Give them a cause to rally around, however, and that figure can shoot up to 65-70 per cent.
This could easily translate into tens of thousands of additional Muslim voters in races that are sometimes decided by a relative handful.
The unpredictability of the Muslim swing has been apparent in recent years. In 2004, polls conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that 56 per cent of Muslims supported John Kerry, compared to the 72 per cent that had supported Bush just 4 years earlier. But notwithstanding the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq and the mounting war on terror ever since, some 30 percent of Muslims still refuse to align themselves firmly with either party.

In some respects, the Muslim vote is almost as complex as the Latino vote, with divisions based on nationality as well as nativity. There are three distinct groups: South Asian Muslims, primarily Pakistani immigrants; Arab Americans, about 30 per cent of whom identify as Muslims; and African-Americans who have become converts to Islam. Overall, Muslims are young, relatively well-educated, upwardly mobile, pro-family, and highly religious voters - in other words, they generally look like Republicans.

But given their cultural and national diversity, Muslims can also swing in radically different ways politically: Arab-Americans more towards the Democrats, and peace in the Middle East, and Pakistanis more towards the GOP and an interventionist stance in Afghanistan.Bush, apparently, was one of the few American presidents to consolidate the Muslim vote decisively. His call for a return to "traditional family values” and his embrace of “compassionate” conservatism struck an especially responsive chord. He also won support by vowing to provide special tax credits to private schools, including religious schools, at a time when Muslims were beginning to build more mosques and educational centers for their children.

And prior to 9/11, Bush also scored points with Muslims for criticizing the Clinton administration's use of "secret evidence" and its perceived profiling of Muslims and Arab Americans at the nation's airports. As the champion of immigrants, Bush seemed to be ushering in a new era of inclusive, moderate Republicanism that fit American Muslims to a tee.

Democrats, in theory, might have capitalized upon Bush's embrace of a new Cold War against Islam. But starting with Kerry, they've been loathe to embrace Muslims en masse, in part out of fear of alienating mainstream US voters. That's one reason Kerry polled so low with Muslims in 2004. Even in 2006, when the Democrats dominated the mid-term elections and regained control of Congress, barely 40 per cent of Muslims identified themselves as Democrats, according to another CAIR poll.

And now with Obama, the picture continues to be muddled. Eighteen months ago, Muslims were cheered by the president's promise of a new American attitude toward the Muslim world. But during the campaign Obama refused to visit mosques or to meet with Muslim leaders. As president, he has sharply escalated an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan and done little in the Middle East, all the while leaving the Bush-era domestic surveillance apparatus largely in place.

So, on the eve of the 2010 midterms, Muslims remain divided and confused, much like America generally. Which is probably just where you want them if you're the GOP. On the precipice of victory, the last thing it needs is an 11th hour surge of volatile swing voters towards the Democrats, anxious to protect a sacred symbol of their culture and faith in America. Better to let Obama trip over himself, watch the Tea Partiers rage, and remain as far above the fray as possible.

Stewart Lawrence is a free-lance writer based in Washington, DC. He can be reached at stewlaw2009@gmail.com