Vote Smart and then Prepare for the Next Stage

Progressives must be resolute in defending such critical things as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.By the time these words go out into the internet there will be about 10 days left before the election. So, it doesn’t seem worthwhile taking the time to address the proverbial question on the Left: who to vote for or whether to vote at all? Some readers will be out actually working to re-elect President Obama. I assume others are beating the bushes for either Jill Stein of the Green Party, Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. James Harris of the Socialist Workers Party, Stewart Alexander of the Socialist Party, Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, or Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode. I suspect few are pushing Mitt Romney.

Most people reading this column regularly can have little doubt about who I’m voting for. But, hey, this is California; the Obama-Biden ticket can assume it has our electoral votes sewed up. I’ll be rushing off to the polls with urgency because we’ve got some critical state measures before us (don’t we always?). The big money, buy-elections people are trying to strangle union and progressive expression with one measure (Prop. 32). Insurance moguls are spending millions of dollars on a proposal to sock it to working class drivers (Prop. 33). Liberals and progressives are trying to insure that any genetically engineered frankenfoods sold at the supermarket are labeled as such (Prop. 37). And, while it doesn’t go as far as most of us on the Left would like, there’s a proposal that would mean more resources for our state’s underfunded schools (Prop. 30). Also, I think affordable housing activist, Christina Olague, is the best choice to represent our inner-city district on the San Francisco City – County Board of Supervisors.

I don’t vote absentee unless I have to; I like going to the polls and seeing my neighbors there and having them see me and wearing the little badge reading “I voted” on my lapel as I shop or enter the neighborhood bar.

Carrying the fight to the mat would have been the correct response to the opposition’s intransigence.The fundamental question in this campaign, I believe, is the country’s future economic policy. As begrudging and inconsistent as it is, the Obama policy is generally in favor of a neo-Keynesian direction of further investment in the economy to increase consumer demand, while the Romney-Ryan approach is tax cuts for the rich and regulatory deregulation. The difference between these two policies is not inconsequential. Tenaciously high unemployment and growing poverty is a reality. For millions of working people, decisions made over the next four years will have a direct impact on their daily lives. The same, I think, can be said about immigration policy, reproductive rights, and LGBT equal rights.