From the Editor: Reply to Zeese
Yesterday, Green Party candidate, Kevin Zeese responded to my endorsement of Democrat Ben Cardin for U.S. Senate. I posted his e-mail below. I feel that it warrants an answer, which I give here—though the voting is all but over.
I want to be clear from the start that I do not believe that my endorsement of Ben Cardin requires that I be his apologist. I am not entirely happy with his record. In the primary, I endorsed Kweisi Mfume, whom I believe was the better candidate. Nor was my endorsement for Cardin an endorsement of the Democratic party, either generally or in Maryland. I am troubled by the process by which Cardin was selected as the Democratic candidate by party insiders, which had much to do with the outcome of the primary.
However, once Cardin had won the primary, I accepted him as a necessary Democratic place-holder, given the current political climate. As I write at the end of my endorsement, the current Congress has given George W. Bush the powers that befit a dictator. Whatever issues I have with the Democratic party have dropped on my priority list. I see no benefit to this Senate seat being filled by a Republican. However unhappy I may be with the Democrats, I am much more so with the Republican majority that now holds Congress.
One point that I have heard many times from Kevin Zeese and from other third party proponents is that people ought not vote out of fear. Maybe. I'm not sure that I agree with that entirely. People vote out of both hope and anxiety. Ideally, the voter puts the candidates on a balance sheet and evaluates the positive points of each against the negative points and compares the results. Sometimes, a candidate with a low positive rating is worth voting for over a candidate with a high negative rating. It is logical to vote to relieve your anxiety in any way possible.
Kevin Zeese rates high on the issues. He is the most progressive candidate in this race. There's no question about that. However, the fact that he will not be elected this year looms as a huge negative point against him. Thus, Ben Cardin becomes the most progressive candidate who can be elected. And he does have several strong positive points on his balance sheet.
Having concluded my long-winded prologue, let me address some of the specific arguments that Zeese makes.
The War
I amend my statement that Ben Cardin has "advanced" measures to de-escalate the war in Iraq. I should have more accurately said that Cardin has been a consistent opponent of the war. I used "advanced" in the rhetorical sense. Zeese presumably questions the use of the word when Cardin has not introduced or co-sponsored legislation pertaining to Iraq. If that is the point, I concede it. The point I was striving for, however, is that Cardin has put a plan on the table for leaving. Agree or disagree with his plan, call if rhetorical puffery if you will, but he has advanced a strategy.
Cardin voted against going to war when most of his colleagues voted for it. He has been a public critic of the war from the moment that it started. I've had a chance to track down the amendments and bills that Zeese refers to in his message and am unconvinced that they constitute support for the war. A vote for a bill that lauds the Iraqi election is not a vote for the war. Nor is voting to fund troops. Bush placed U.S. troops illegally and immorally in Iraq. The billions that we are spending on this travesty is beyond alarming. But I can understand the logic of a war opponent who nevertheless votes to keep U.S. troops equipped, given that they are there and are under fire. I can understand a vote in favor or Iraqi elections.
It feels as if Zeese is splitting hairs here because Cardin is not sufficiently activist. I would agree with Zeese on that. But Cardin does have an anti-war record. Argument on the details of that record belong in a grey area, not one that starkly paints him as supporting a war he voted against. Cardin does need to be held to a high standard, but he is the anti-war candidate who can get elected, and for that he received my endorsement.
Other issues
Zeese then takes Cardin (and me) to task on a host of other issues. I had said that Cardin has "a solid record on other crucial issues." Zeese quite effectively tears holes throughout Cardin's record, from the Patriot Act to Israel. Originally, I was going to address these point by point. But looking through them again, I find fatigue setting in. As I stated up front, I am not Cardin's apologist. I know that I'd sure hate to be in a debate with Zeese. No wonder Cardin was ducking him!
I'm not going to try to rationalize votes for the Patriot Act or Israeli aggression in Lebanon. But I do stand by my statement that Cardin holds a liberal view of government. He supports the basic liberal agenda. He is pro-Choice, supports better health care, supports workers rights. Feel free to pick that agenda apart. I never said that the man's feet were not made of clay.
I've been lucky enough to have traveled around the United States over the past few years—from Orem, Utah, to Cape Girardeau, Missouri—and I have gotten a reality-check about the political spectrum. We live in a very conservative country. Cardin would be an unelectable, flaming liberal in most of the non-coastal United States.
(BTW: As far as the Letters to the Editor go, they are unsolicited and placed in no particular order. To imply otherwise is to be flat wrong.)
What are you going to do about it?
So Zeese has effectively shredded Cardin. Where's the fury against Steele, I wonder? Throughout this campaign, Cardin, rather than Steele, has appeared to be Zeese's main opponent. What does that say (and I presume nothing here—feel free to comment, Kevin)?
I have asked Zeese if he would consider bringing his energy into the Democratic Party and fighting from within to reform the party. His reply is that he would never do that. So I wonder about the purpose of his campaign against Cardin. Is it to get Steele elected and wake up the Democratic base? Is it vanity? Is it an expression of Quixotic fury? Is it, as Zeese claims, simply disgust at the system, offering a better choice. All of the above? Something else?
These are questions that I ponder as I try to place myself on the political spectrum (Zeese's e-mail message has really gotten me thinking, obviously). I was raised in a Republican family, but registered as a Democrat when I reached voting age. The Democrats seemed pretty radical after my upbringing. In the late 1990s, I registered with the Green Party, having become disillusioned with the Democrats, who seemed more like Republicans than I was comfortable with. I have to admit that I have since broken with the Green Party, which now strikes me as well-intentioned, but ultimately solipsistic and futile (I am now registered Independent.) .
In the Green idealism that once excited me, I hear an undercurrent of zealotry and dogma. I am uncomfortable with that. I will keep listening to political ideas from all quarters. I will remain open. But I don't believe in messiahs, and I am extremely wary of people who do, be they Green, Democrat, Republican, or other.
When I endorsed Cardin, I was not anointing a messiah. I was saying that he is the best we have at this juncture. I believe that all candidates, Zeese included, will disappoint. A post-cynical electorate goes to the polls with that in mind and send the best hope they can muster with their vote. Then after the vote they continue the struggle, even against the very candidate that they have endorsed.
—Eric Bond
Editor