After the DNC – What’s Next?

My first work on a presidential campaign began in 1972 when I worked on the McGovern campaign. McGovern by the way was the person that opened the Democratic primary process to women and people of color and ran on a platform to get us out of Vietnam. He lost to Nixon – who was to resign in disgrace two years later in 1974. I have read some writing on the internet recently that disparages the idea saying that ‘this’ or ‘that’ campaign is the most important campaign ever. There are presidential election years that do, indeed, matter. McGovern was one of those years. Gore/Bush was another one that mattered. Would it have been better to elect Gore, an early trumpet about climate change, or to have given the election to Bush with a minority of the popular vote? How did that turn out? Did Bush and Cheney’s push for the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses help democracy? Did it get us into this muck with terrorism that we face today? I think it certainly did that.

Ralph Nader ran under the Green Party banner in 2000. There is still controversy about that campaign and the resulting Bush presidency. I do believe that Nader running had a hand in Bush being elected. This brings me to this campaign and Bernie Sanders. I have been dismayed about the Sanders people and their utter disrespect for Elijah Cummings and other speakers at the DNC. When Bernie began I supported his message. I began to tire of his one note approach and began to question why, with his past work with CORE, he was not attracting more of the vote from people of color. I don’t have an answer for that but I would welcome any of you that could provide one. At the convention I began to think that perhaps Bernie’s ego was as massive as most politicians. I wonder why there is no one designated person to carry on his revolution. Perhaps the Bernie Sanders movement will be better when Bernie is not leading it.

This brings me to this 2016 Presidential campaign of Clinton v Trump. Is this an election that matters? You bet it is, and the most compelling reason for me is the Supreme Court. Court decisions led to advances in civil rights and women’s health in a positive direction. Court decisions also gave us Citizens United which allowed Mitt Romney to state that ‘corporations are people too.’ With one present vacancy and more to come in the next few years the person we elect does matter.

Trump has given permission for the racists among us, and there are many of them, to express themselves as never before – unless you count the presidential campaign of George Wallace. Trump is a civil and human rights disaster waiting to happen.

Clinton is our alternative for now. She is not the perfect candidate. I worry about her commitment to public education because of her past attraction to charter schools. They are certainly not the answer. I worry about her being a more militant president than President Obama. I respect President Obama and am appreciative of his thoughtfulness, compassion, and integrity. He has withstood blatant racial attacks with grace and dignity, and his effort to lead this country out of the pit of gun violence is wonderful. Of course, he is not perfect either – his drone policy is one that I suspect he would want to reconsider if he could. The war on terror is not one that I have an answer for but I hope that as President, Clinton can be held accountable for a reasoned approach in that regard. I believe that Clinton has to be held accountable for the Democratic platform concepts regarding higher wages, immigration policies, gun control, justice reform, and LGBQT rights to name a few. All of these things are not going to just happen in four or eight years, but progress must be made and it must be measurable.

Ultimately, we do need either a re-shaped Democratic Party or a viable third party that holds these values with integrity. I will do my part in this work and look forward to continuing positive change. For now, in this election, the choice is clear. Clinton must be elected and the down ballot contests must also be won – in this state we have to retire Pat Toomey – whose so called gun control legislation is joke worthy.