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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 14, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Workers World campaign:

"We spread the message of struggle"

By Greg Butterfield

At the end of a lackluster election dominated by three big-money candidates-Bob Dole, Ross Perot and Bill Clinton- -does the people's movement have anything to cheer?

Yes, says the Workers World Party election campaign.

"The right party and the right candidates at the right time." That's how one organizer summed up the socialist campaign.

The right party: a fighting Marxist organization. The right candidates: Monica Moorehead and Gloria La Riva, two workers, two women of color. The right time: a period of capitalist growth-rapidly approaching its end-marked by declining living standards for millions. Workers, especially young people and students, waking to the possibility of revolutionary class struggle against capitalism.

WWP also ran local candidates. In Los Angeles, John Peter Daly ran for the 29^th Congressional District for WWP and Peace & Freedom Party. In Michigan, where WWP won ballot status in 1990, the Party presented a slate headed by William Roundtree for Senate.

The candidates walked picket lines, met with students, attended meetings of welfare activists and tenants.

They talked about fighting corporate downsizing and tripling the minimum wage. They stood up for welfare rights, affirmative action and women's right to choose. They demanded the right for same-sex couples to marry and an end to the racist death penalty. They called for an end to the blockade of Cuba and U.S. hands off Iraq.

Most of all, they spoke of the need to uproot the rich and the profit-hungry corporations. They explained how working people must take power and put people's needs first.

"Workers World Party broke through with a socialist message," says Teresa Gutierrez, the national campaign manager. "It took a fight. We didn't have the $800 million Clinton and Dole received from big business. But millions had the opportunity to hear our working-class perspective anyway.

"We never saw our participation in the elections as some expression of democracy under capitalism. The media blockade and hurdles to getting on the ballot showed just how undemocratic the system is."

Jobs and schools, not jails

"Everywhere our candidates spoke, they explained that mass mobilizations of poor and working people, not sham elections, are the way to fight back," she says.

The potential was on display in New York Nov. 1 at a Moorehead/La Riva campaign rally for "Jobs and Schools, Not Jails." The candidates were joined on the stage by representatives of several important community struggles.

Heading the list of speakers was Iris Baez, the mother of Anthony Baez, a Puerto Rican youth brutally murdered by a New York cop. The Baez case has stirred tremendous anger in the Puerto Rican community. Her declaration to the rally-how this terrible atrocity awakened her to struggle against injustice-set the tone for the event.

William Mason of Workfairness spoke about how welfare workers are an important new sector of the labor movement. Miguel Maldonado of Coordinadora '96 spoke of the ongoing struggle for immigrant rights. Shelley Ettinger of WW newspaper recounted Clinton's attacks on the lesbian/gay/bi/ transgender community.

Melissa Baltazar, president of the Lions Movement at Borough of Manhattan Community College, spoke about the student movement against cutbacks and repression. Invoking the struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Baltazar vowed to cast her protest vote with Moorehead and La Riva.

The event was co-chaired by Gutierrez and WWP student organizer Olivia Burlingame.

The last days of the campaign witnessed a flurry of activities in the Northeast. Moorehead and La Riva hosted a reception for labor activists in New York. The candidates were heard on WBAI-Pacifica radio. La Riva spoke to students in New London, Conn., Albany, N.Y., and to a house meeting in the Dominican community of New York. Moorehead also participated in a third party forum in New Paltz, N.Y., and spoke to students at the State University of New York- Stonybrook.

In the past year the socialist campaign reached nearly every state.

California campaign organizer Vanessa Lewis told WW:

"Along with the national slate, John Peter Daly's Congressional campaign has been well received in Los Angeles. John is an openly gay socialist candidate.

"In running our socialist campaign on the local level, we've seen the frustration of diverse communities with the capitalist system. People respond to our socialist message. Democrats, even well-known liberals like the incumbent Rep. Henry Waxman, aren't going to better conditions for working people.

"This campaign has been able to address leading organizations in the immigrants' rights and lesbian/gay/bi/ transgender communities and those mobilized against the racist anti-affirmative action Prop. 209. We helped initiate resistance to racist and anti-gay police brutality in Los Angeles."

History in the making

Activists call the Workers World Party campaign an important step in rebuilding a fighting movement for socialism in the United States.

WWP became the first party to put forward two women of color-an African American and a Chicana-as standard bearers in a presidential race. The selection distinguished WWP as a party dedicated to the struggle against national oppression and sexism. The choice was an act of solidarity with the most oppressed workers, who are never represented at the top by the parties of corporate America.

Moorehead, La Riva, and their supporters fought hard to be heard in the mass media. In the process WWP raised crashing media events to an art form. Moorehead crashed the opening of Clinton/Gore headquarters in New York, then confronted President Clinton at his 50^th birthday celebration, declaring: "How can you eat cake when you've consigned a million more children to poverty?"

La Riva was arrested protesting the welfare law outside Democratic headquarters in San Francisco. Then, in the closing weeks of the campaign, she forced Clinton into an unscheduled debate on his policy toward welfare, immigration, Cuba and Iraq at a New Jersey fundraiser for anti-Cuba politician Robert Torricelli.

Both candidates and a team of volunteers took over a national television broadcast of a Third Party debate on C- SPAN from which WWP was excluded.

Entirely through the efforts of volunteer campaign workers, WWP achieved ballot status in 12 states-more than any other party speaking in the name of socialism. In fact, some parties that usually run candidates were cowed by the right wing. Instead they urged the workers to vote for the "lesser evil" Clinton.

Youth and student interest

Both candidates experienced a strong response to the socialist campaign from young people, especially college and high school students.

Students on many campuses signed up for classes on Marxism and to get involved in communist organizing. Workers World Party is planning a national tour to follow the campaign.

Getting on the ballot in Massachusetts-a first for WWP-put Moorehead in the running for mock elections at high schools around the country. In one such straw vote in Cleveland, Moorehead came in first among independent candidates after the three major capitalist candidates.

Going forward

Moorehead and La Riva say the Party's eyes are on the next stage of the class struggle.

"The period of capitalist expansion will come to an end," La Riva asserts. "The economists on Wall Street are already talking about the next recession and how deep it will be. The Fortune 500 companies are prepared to unleash a new round of mass layoffs. And the bipartisan effort to dismantle welfare and the whole social safety net creates a volatile ground for new struggles."

Moorehead adds, "For the last year millions of workers and progressives have been hamstrung by the notion that they must vote for the lesser evil.

"But there is no reason to believe things will improve under a second Clinton administration. If anything, the right-wing attacks will intensify. The ruling class is still bent on driving down wages and taking back all the historic gains won by our class.

"The new year will be one of growing struggle against the capitalist government. We want to build the broadest unity for massive protests against the welfare law, the attacks on immigrants rights and affirmative action, and police brutality.

"We'll also work to keep the Party's socialist perspective in the public eye. Already that revolutionary message is winning us new members and friends around the country."

The candidates urge supporters to attend the Workers World Party National Conference in New York Nov. 23 and 24. The gathering will be an opportunity for workers and youth to learn more about WWP and participate in planning future struggles.

The writer was a staff member of the Moorehead-La Riva campaign, serving as media coordinator for the candidates.

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