Where your vote counts

In most campaigns for House and Senate this mid-term election, the choice is extremely narrow.

On one side is a pro-Bush Republican who attacks affirmative action, immigrant rights, same-sex marriage and the right of women to choose abortion and supports Bush’s occupation of Iraq.

On the other side is an anti-Bush Democrat who keeps her/his mouth shut on affirmative action, immigrant rights, same-sex marriage and the right of women to choose abortion, and who attacks Bush’s Iraq strategy but votes funds for the occupation of Iraq.

That was the lineup in Michigan—until the Green Party, having ballot status, opened access to progressive activists in the state. As a result, Greens nominated the entire “Stop the War Slate” put up by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI) to run for eight positions. This includes the Senate race, where union leader and political activist Dave Sole—a long-time member of Workers World Party—has joined the contest against incumbent Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow and her Republican challenger, Michael Bouchard.

Others on the slate include former Newspaper Guild activist Kristen Hamel for state representative from the First District, a founding member of the Detroit Action Network For Reproductive Rights; teachers’ union activist Kevin Carey, who was also chairperson of the Southern Africa Freedom Committee and is running for the State Board of Education; and five other MECAWI activists.

With their energetic campaigning, Sole, Hamel, Carey and the others on the Green Party ticket in Michigan have brought the key issues of the day before the voters and before the working class in the rust-belt areas of Michigan. They have hit hard against the war in Iraq, demanding an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, and have shown how each of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a dollar robbed from the run-down inner cities of the state.

They have defended immigrants’ rights, campaigned against racism and joined the picket lines of those demanding the right to abortion, as well as protests against the Israeli attack on Lebanon. They have defended lesbian/gay/bi/trans rights and campaigned for the environment.

For the reasons stated above and because it will be the best way to fight against the occupation of Iraq and U.S. militarism, Workers World calls upon Michigan voters to cast their ballots in the following Michigan races for:

Dave Sole for U.S. Senate; Kristen Hamel for state representative from the First District; Kevin Carey for State Board of Education; Michigan State University second-year student Lauren Elizabeth Spencer for Michigan State University Board of Trustee; Wayne State University student Michael Merriweather for Wayne State University Board of Governors; Kyle McBee for State Senate from the 13th District in Oakland County, and Lloyd Clarke for State Senate from the 32nd District.