A Sioux radical versus a liberal Democrat

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Counterpunch, June 3, 2002

Greens v. Liberal Democrats in Minnesota
The Future Wellstone Deserves
by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

Greens running against Democrats, and maybe giving Republicans the edge?
Anyone who thinks we'll have to wait till the Bush-Gore rematch in 2004 to
get into that can of worms had better look at Minnesota this year. Here's
Senator Paul Wellstone bidding for a third term, with the tiny Democratic
majority in the Senate as the stake. Writing in The Nation, John Nichols
sets the bar even higher. "His race," Nichols wrote tremulously this
spring, "is being read as a measure of the potency of progressive politics
in America."

Wellstone's opponent is Norm Coleman, former mayor of St. Paul and enjoying
all the endorsements and swag the RNC can throw in his direction. The odds
are against Wellstone. Coleman is a lot tougher than the senile Rudy
Boschwitz, whom Wellstone beat in 1996, and many Minnesotans aren't
enchanted about his breach of a pledge that year to hold himself to two terms.

But ignoring Wellstone's dubious future, liberals are now screaming about
"the spoiler," who takes the form of Ed McGaa, a Sioux born on the Pine
Ridge Reservation, a Marine Corps vet of the wars in both Korea and
Vietnam, an attorney and author of numerous books on Native American
religion. The Minnesota Green Party picked him as its candidate on May 18
at a convention of some 600, a lively affair in which real politics
actually took place in the form of debates, resolutions, nomination fights
and the kindred impedimenta of democracy.

Aghast progressives are claiming that even a handful of votes for McGaa
could cost Wellstone the race. Remember, in 2000 Ralph Nader got 127,000 in
Minnesota, more than 5 percent. Some national Greens, like Winona LaDuke,
Nader's vice-presidential running mate, didn't want a Green to run. Some
timid Greens in Minnesota are already having second thoughts, backstabbing
McGaa.

For his part, McGaa confronts the "you're just helping the Republicans"
charge forthrightly: "Let's just let the cards fall where they're at," he
recently told Ruth Conniff of The Progressive. "It will be a shame if the
Republicans get in. On that I have to agree with you. I'm not enamored by
George Bush's policies." But McGaa says he'll probably get a slice of Jesse
Ventura's Independent Party vote too: "So you Wellstone people can just
calm down." McGaa's own amiable stance contrasts markedly with liberal
Democratic hysteria. Wellstone is now being pitched as the last bulwark
against fascism, whose defeat would lead swiftly to back-alley abortions,
with the entire government in the permanent grip of the Bush Republicans.

full: http://www.counterpunch.org/

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org



~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.