(fwd from Armand Diego) Camejo for Governor, Gonzalez for Mayor (answer to Eli, Lou, David, Jose)

[Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Camejo for Governor:

Eli basically - and here I agree with Jose -
extrapolate many assumptions from the fact that Camejo
did not mention the war against Iraq in the debate.

He could have, but he did not.  But he did not change
his position of opposing it (I heard him saying it in
several presentations in the last 2 months).  In
addition, he spoke today at the concert, political
rally against the war in Golden Gate.

He could have raised it as Arianna did raise the Bush
administration disastrous economic policies to point
out the hypocrisy of McClintock and Ueberrott.

Where Jose is mistaken is that a) Camejo is not a
Latino leader, but a Latino Green running for
Governor. His main base of support is not in the
Latino community but among, young white voters and
campus radicals.

He is not a candidate going from being a liberal to
the left.  Camejo is coming from the Marxist Left,
went to the right for over a decade to the point that
few years back he was instrumental in the East Bay in
derailing a movement that was emerging to run
candidates independent of the Democrats.

In the last SF Mayoral Election he endorsed, made a
contribution and campaigned for a liberal Democrat
(1999).

Sometimes in the 2001 he started to march left again,
and got radicalized even further last year during the
peak of the antiwar movement.  He is now back into a
radical progressive trend with - as Jose says - an
accent in punctuating class politics.

I will personally vote for him -- even though my
organization is calling for a vote for a) Camejo or b)
Arianna or c) CT Weber - in that order (See editorial
of our newspaper at http://www.sf-frontlines.com). But
the course he takes and the direction of where he is
coming and where he is heading is important.

During the debate, the only thing I really dislike
from him - and one among several from Arianna - is
that he took a preacer's moralist stand on Indian
gaming, but I consider that a minor stuff.

Matt Gonzalez for Mayor:

David Walters is correct in saying that Greens - and I
will add the socialist left -- should emphasize the
capaign for Matt Gonzalez for Mayor of San Francisco
because THERE is a real possibility to strike a
powerful blow to the Democrats because he can actually
win.

I think this is clear to the Greens and to us (Left
Party) and some anarchists, but the rest of the left
is too sectarian to identify this as an important
event of the class struggle.  And elections are part
of the class struggle, though in a deformed way.

So clear is this for the Greens, us and some other
leftists that Camejo, for example, has no campaign
committee in San Francisco and all his support will
come indirectly from Gonzalez campaigning and the
Green and left electoral capital of previous elections
in the City.

As opposed to Camejo, Gonzalez was a liberal Democrat
who started to march to the left since he ran for DA
in 1999, broke with the Democratic Party in 2000 (in
the middle of the race which he won for the Board of
Supervisors) and now has adopted a platform based on
progressive taxation, radical democracy (including the
right to vote for non-citizens), environmental and
anti-racist stands, put a proposition on the ballot to
raise the Minimum Wage 40% and is focusing in speaking
on that platform based on a class position.

He also spoke at the antiwar rallies, was key in
presenting and voting a resolution against the Patriot
Act and is the only candidate confronting the
anti-poor campaigning of local Democratic machine.

You can read three articles about him, his platform,
etc at our web site at http://www.sf-frontlines.com

To my knowledge, WWP, ISO and other left organizations
are refusing to endorse and campaign for him. Which in
my judgement is extremely sectarian. Today, the center
of all political discussions and msot of the attention
- as Jose put it - is on the recall and in SF around
the Mayoral election. IMHO, the excuse of activism
against the war and other matters is sectarian as it
does not recognize the enourmous opportunity of these
two electoral processes for the left to move
significant layers of workers, community of color and
youth up to the enxt level: break with the bipartisan
political regime in general and with the Democrats
(the prison cell of the social movements in the US).

All the best,

DA




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