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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 31, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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The Clinton-La Riva debate

Socialist candidate confronts the president with his crimes

By Judi Cheng

There weren't supposed to be any more debates.

Not that there ever really were. President Bill Clinton and his opponent Bob Dole agree on just about everything- cutting welfare, attacking immigrants, building prisons and hiring cops, blocking equal rights for gay families.

Generally serving the interests of big business-that's the program both candidates share. That's why, for the majority of working-class and middle-class people in this country, the presidential "contest" has been a non-event.

It took a representative of the working class to shake things up. Workers World Party vice-presidential candidate Gloria La Riva did it Oct. 20 in what the Washington Post headlined the next day as "Clinton's unscheduled debate."

The scene was a thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraising brunch in Teaneck, N.J. It should have been a breeze for the president.

Merely a matter of charming the crowd. Just raking in some more cash for the campaign of Rep. Robert Torricelli, one of the most vicious sponsors of the U.S. blockade against Cuba and a candidate for the Senate.

Instead, Clinton got an earful. That's because Gloria La Riva was there.

As soon as Clinton started to speak, she interrupted him, shouting: "You should be indicted for kicking millions of people off welfare. You're carrying out a war against the people by signing welfare-reform legislation and supporting sanctions against Iraq and Cuba.

"You're for the rich and for big business."

La Riva charged that the welfare law Clinton signed would plunge 1.5 million children into poverty.

The president dropped his usual script and answered her, saying: "We have not killed a million people with our blockade of Iraq. That's one of the biggest lies I've ever heard."

As Newsday told it in its Oct. 21 report, La Riva "provoked more fire than Clinton showed in the two televised debates with Dole. Reddening, Clinton defended U.S.-led economic embargoes on Iraq and Cuba, and said the lowest-income Americans are doing better than they have in decades. Wearying of the confrontation, he virtually appealed to the hosts to throw La Riva out."

Breaking the silence

It was an unprecedented debate between the world's top elected representative of big business and a genuine representative of working and poor people in the United States.

Clinton spent more time debating La Riva on foreign policy than he did with Sen. Robert Dole in the Oct. 16 debate.

"What else can we talk about? I like this. This is good," he said, smiling uncomfortably. La Riva continued to shout at him, even when the pro-Clinton crowd of about 200, all of whom could afford the $1,000-a-plate dinner, began to chant, "Four more years, four more years."

La Riva kept confronting Clinton on the issues affecting the workers and the poor. A red-faced Clinton blurted out:

"Who's running this event? This is not a public place. She has no right to be here."

The debate between the socialist candidate and the White House occupant who represents the capitalist class went on for eight minutes before La Riva and her companions were finally ousted.

That the socialist candidate made Clinton stop to answer her was itself a major achievement, because it broke though the usual censorship of progressive third-party candidates.

The argument was covered in major newspapers-including the Washington Post, Washington Times, New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, Boston Globe and USA Today. All the wire services reported the story, too. So did major television networks and radio news shows.

"This is an example of why we're running the campaign," La Riva said after the confrontation. "We want to break the silence of big business on issues like welfare, immigration and U.S. policy toward Iraq and Cuba.

"We have no illusions about winning in a contest between Clinton and Dole," said La Riva. "Instead, we want to provide an example to the millions of working and poor people who feel that they have no alternative to the capitalist candidates.

"We are also reaching out to the millions of members of unions and civil-rights organizations who feel compelled to vote for the `lesser of two evils.'" Cuban national television also covered La Riva's intervention.

Monica Moorehead comments

The Moorehead-La Riva campaign has proved an effective vehicle for reaching out to the masses of people with a long-term perspective: building the working-class struggle.

This perspective aims far beyond Election Day. But by vigorously intruding into an arena normally reserved for politics as usual, WWP has managed to reach out with a very different vision: the struggle for socialism.

La Riva's bold action was the latest success in this effort. WWP presidential candidate Monica Moorehead commented: "It's important not to let any capitalist politicians get away without confronting them. It's up to the political movement to be in the vanguard in opposition to Clinton and Dole.

"Workers World Party is upholding the revolutionary banner of the struggle for socialism. We're putting the capitalist politicians on the defensive.

"And we're just getting a glimpse of things to come. In the meantime, the increasing impoverishment of the masses is preparing a new phase in the struggle against oppression," Moorehead said.

As they explain it, Moorehead and La Riva are demanding a voice in the elections because they know that working-class leaders have to be out in front, showing the way and providing leadership. They have found more than ample evidence that the workers are ready to hear what they have to say.

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