Outsider in the White House (4 page)

But as is often the case for small third parties, we were not attracting new members, new energy, or new leadership. Virtually all party responsibilities continued to rest with a handful of dedicated activists—including me. Enough was enough. My political career was over. With politics behind me, I set out to make a living and began building, reasonably successfully, a small business in educational filmstrips. I wrote, produced, and sold filmstrips on New England history for elementary schools and high schools. It was a lot of fun. In the process, I improved my writing skills and learned something about photography, marketing, and door-to-door salesmanship. I also met a lot of fine educators around Vermont.

In 1979, after discovering that the vast majority of college students I spoke to had never heard of Eugene Victor Debs, I produced a thirty-minute video on his life and ideas. Debs was the founder of the American Socialist Party and six-time candidate for president. During his lifetime, Debs had a profound impact on American politics and the lives of American workers. Many of his ideas about trade unionism laid the foundation for the growth of the CIO in the 1930s and '40s. The Debs video was sold and rented to colleges throughout the country, and we also managed to get it on public television in Vermont. Folkways Records also produced the soundtrack of the video as a record.

Debs died in 1926, but his vision and the example of his life still resonate today. Unfortunately, his ideas remain sufficiently dangerous for them not to be widely taught in schools or discussed in the mass media. He fought to achieve a truly democratic society in which working people, not big money, would control the economic and political life of the nation. He founded the American Railway Union and led a bitter strike against some of the most powerful forces in the country. He believed in international worker solidarity and spent years in jail for his opposition to World War I. In 1920, while in jail for opposing that war, he ran for president—receiving close to one million votes. Eugene Victor Debs remains a hero of mine. A plaque commemorating him hangs on the wall in my Washington office.

Although I now had a business career, in an important sense my political work had not ceased. I was educating people, not from a podium or in a radio interview, but by resurrecting the heroes of our nation's political past. The Debs video was a success, and I was now beginning to think about a video series on other American radicals—Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, Paul Robeson, and other extraordinary Americans who most young people have never heard of. For better or worse, my media production career came to end in 1980.

But forward now to 1996, when aspects of the campaign are worrying me deeply, and getting me depressed. Too many questions are unanswered, and there are too many loose ends.

How do we relate to Vermont Democrats? In Congress, I chair the fifty-two-member House Progressive Caucus, which has fifty-one Democrats and me, people with whom I have an excellent relationship. But things are different in Vermont, where, among others, Governor Howard Dean is a moderate-to-conservative Democrat.

How do we relate to President Clinton, who is rapidly moving to the right? Should we establish links with his Vermont campaign? How should I respond to the Ralph Nader presidential campaign? Nader is a personal friend and an exemplary progressive, and his supporters have asked me to endorse his candidacy.

What should the progressive movement in Vermont do for this campaign? In addition to my own race for reelection, should we put up a full slate of candidates for office? Should we at least run a candidate for governor?

In Burlington, Progressives have won seven out of the last eight mayoral elections. I was mayor from 1981 to 1989; Peter Clavelle from 1989 to 1993. After losing to a Republican in '93, Clavelle was reelected in 1995. That same year, Progressives also took control of the City Council. But how do we strengthen the progressive movement throughout the state, beyond Burlington? We have had minimal electoral success in legislative races. Over the last six years, two or three Progressives have held seats in the legislature. Terry Bouricious, who served on the Burlington City Council for ten years and has worked with me over the last twenty, was elected in 1990, '92, and '94. Dean Corren was elected in '92 and '94, and Tom Smith, also a former Burlington city councilor, was elected in '90 and '92. But although we have strong pockets of support in communities around the state, never has a Progressive or Independent from outside Burlington captured a legislative post.

These are a few of the questions that I and other progressives are wrestling with as we begin organizing in earnest for the campaign.

In terms of who to support for president, the choice is really not difficult. I am certainly not a big fan of Bill Clinton's politics. As a strong advocate of a single-payer health care system, I opposed his convoluted health care reform package. I have helped lead the opposition to his trade policies, which represent the interests of corporate America and which are virtually indistinguishable from the views of George Bush and Newt Gingrich. I opposed his bloated military budget, the welfare reform bill that he signed, and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which he supported. He has been weak on campaign finance reform and has caved in far too often on the environment. Bill Clinton is a moderate Democrat. I'm a democratic socialist.

Yet, without enthusiasm, I've decided to support Bill Clinton for president. Perhaps “support” is too strong a word. I'm planning no press conferences to push his candidacy, and will do no campaigning for him. I
will
vote for him, and make that public.

Why? I think that many people do not perceive how truly dangerous the political situation in this country is today. If Bob Dole were to be elected president and Gingrich and the Republicans were to maintain control of Congress, we would see a legislative agenda unlike any in the modern history of this country. There would be an unparalleled war against working people and the poor, and political decisions would be made that could very well be irreversible.

Medicare and Medicaid would certainly be destroyed, and tens of millions more Americans would lose their health insurance. Steps would be taken to privatize Social Security, and the very existence of public education in America would be threatened. Serious efforts would be made to pass a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, affirmative action would be wiped out, and gay bashing would intensify. A flat tax would be passed, resulting in a massive shift in income from the working class to the rich, and all of our major environmental legislation would be eviscerated.

The Motor Voter bill would be repealed, and legislation making it
harder
for people to vote would be passed. Union-busting legislation would become law, the minimum wage would be abolished, and child labor would increase. Adults and kids in America would be competing for $3-an-hour jobs.

You think I'm kidding. You think I'm exaggerating. Well, I'm not. I work in Congress. I
listen
to these guys every day. They are very serious people. And the folks behind them, the Christian Coalition, the NRA, the Heritage Foundation, and others, are even crazier than they are. My old friend Dick Armey is not some wacko member of Congress laughed at by his colleagues. He is the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Check out his views. No. I do not want Bob Dole to be president. I'm voting for Bill Clinton.

Do I have confidence that Clinton will stand up for the working people of this country—for children, for the elderly, for the folks who are hurting? No, I do not. But a Clinton victory could give us some time to build a movement, to develop a political infrastructure to protect what needs protecting, and to change the direction of the country.

This is more than utopian fantasy. First of all, there are some promising developments in organized labor. Several months ago the Progressive Caucus met with John Sweeney, the new president of the AFL-CIO, who told us that there will be a greater AFL-CIO commitment to union organizing, and more energy and resources spent in the political process. This has been long needed and is a very welcome development.

The great political crisis in American society is the quiescence of working people. If 5 percent of unionized workers became politically active, we could radically transform economic and social policy in this country. Today, most low-income workers do not vote, and many have very little understanding of the relationship of politics to their lives. The average American worker has come to accept that he or she has no power on the job. The company is moving the plant to Mexico. How can I stop it? The CEO earns 173 times more than the average worker. Who am I to contest management prerogatives? Corporations are asking for a give-back in health care, despite record profits. What authority do I have to challenge big capital? In our “democracy,” the vast majority of working people feel helpless—
are
helpless given the current political structure—to protect their economic interests or chart their future.

If you have no influence over your own working conditions, what kind of power can you have over the economics and politics of the entire country? Why bother to vote? Why bother to pay attention to politics? And millions don't. In Vermont and throughout the country, the rich ante up $500 or $5,000 at a fundraising event to support the candidate who will represent their interests. Meanwhile, the majority of the poor and working people don't even vote. No wonder the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer. Are we really living in a democracy?

Certainly, some of the more powerful unions, with entrenched bureaucracies and leaders disinclined to rock the boat, have contributed to this malaise. For many years, the AFL-CIO, under Lane Kirkland, was extremely conservative and inactive. A few years ago I was asked by some union leaders to speak with Kirkland at a dinner during the AFL-CIO convention in Florida. My mission was to radicalize him. I tried. I didn't succeed. “Lane, what about a national AFL-CIO cable TV station which could educate working people about what's going on in our society and give them information they never get on commercial TV?” I asked. “Can't be done,” he replied. “What about more organizing efforts? What about more political activity?” Not much of a response. Kirkland impressed me as an intelligent and thoughtful man with no energy or interest in making change. He was totally resigned to the status quo.

During the spring, 300 Vermont workers came out to hear Rich Trumka, former president of the United Mine Workers and new secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. He gave a rousing speech, which was very well received. The new president of the Vermont AFL-CIO, Ron Pickering of the Paperworkers, is doing an excellent job in reactivating the union movement in Vermont. One of the main goals of the “Sanders for Congress” campaign is to involve more and more working people in the political process. I look forward to working with Ron as the campaign progresses. We're going to receive substantial financial help from the unions, but we want rank-and-file grassroots support as well.

In June, there was a founding convention in Cleveland of the Labor Party, an organization which, at its inception, was supported by labor bodies representing over a million American workers. These union workers see no fundamental difference between the Democratic and Republican parties—and are starting a new party. It was an important political event, yet it received virtually no media coverage. Not one word in the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post
, or the
Wall Street Journal
. Hey! Only representatives of a million workers coming together to form a new political party. And now for another story about our favorite billionaire, Ross Perot, and
his
third party.

The Labor Party convention grew out of several years of organizing by people from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, the United Electrical Workers, and other progressive unions. These union activists have long understood that negotiating a good contract for their workers is only part of their job, and that working people will continue to get the short end of the stick unless we have a government that represents
their
interests. The slogan of the Labor Party is, “The bosses have two parties. We need one of our own.” Hard to argue with that.

Politicians often claim that they are running for office because “the people urged me to do it.” This is rarely true. But in late 1980, it was true for me. Well, not exactly “the people.” It was my good friend Richard Sugarman.

Richard, talk-show aficionado, baseball statistician, brilliant philosopher, and professor of religion at the University of Vermont, suggested that I run for mayor of Burlington against the five-term incumbent Democrat, Gordon Paquette. In Richard, you could not have found a more unlikely political adviser. As a Hasidic Jew, professor, and writer, he is deeply involved in the interpretation of sacred texts; as a philosopher, he is immersed in the abstract thought of Plato, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Levinas. But he also has a very pragmatic side. Richard is one of the sharpest political observers I have ever known.

His idea, however, seemed more than a little farfetched. “Richard, why should I run for office when I'm happily retired from politics? How could I possibly win against an entrenched political machine? And what the hell would I do if, by some miracle, I actually won?” Those were only a few of my questions as he dragged me into the Burlington city clerk's office in late fall 1980.

With the help of an employee in the office, Richard and I discovered the musty binder that contained the official Burlington election results from way back when. We went through and analyzed the 1976 gubernatorial election results. Patiently, he showed me a ward-by-ward breakdown of the election results, indicating how city residents had voted. Richard had a point to make: even though I received only 6 percent of the vote statewide, in Burlington I carried 12 percent, and in the two working-class wards of the city, over 16 percent.