President Obama and the Republican-held House are finally working together. Except they are working together to undermine the economy, and in the process, the American worker.
Recently, the House passed a series of trade bills with Obama’s support, even though labor advocates and organizations such as the AFL-CIO oppose these trade bills for furthering America’s job loss, deepening America’s trade deficit and turning a blind eye to human rights violations. However, the very Americans who should oppose Obama’s free-trade stance – the very Americans who will lose their jobs because of this stance – will end up voting for Obama, his equally anti-labor Republican opponent or no one at all.
Some on the left (myself included) hope that the debate over labor issues will not be reduced to two-party monotony. To influence the debate over trade and other issues, intellectuals, like Dr. Cornel West, and activists, like Ralph Nader, are proposing that multiple candidates, each focusing on a particular issue, challenge Obama in the Democratic primary. The idea is that these candidates, while not posing an electoral threat to Obama, will force Obama to defend his less-than-progressive record and will possibly move the Democratic platform leftward.
If liberal activists do launch these primary challenges, one person in particular can effectively challenge Obama’s economic policies from the left: former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. While Feingold has said that he will not run for political office in 2012, he has tried to stay relevant since his 2010 defeat by forming a political action committee, Progressives United. Progressives United aims “to stand up to the exploding corporate influence in our political system by organizing and amplifying the voices of those who believe that corporations have too much power.” Unfortunately, political action committees have become ubiquitous, and thus, largely unnoticed in today’s political landscape.
Ergo, if Feingold really does want to shape the political landscape and provide a voice for the middle-class, he should consider running for president – even with the knowledge that he will not win the presidency or the Democratic nomination. Feingold’s reputation for working with Republicans on legislation – such as campaign finance reform – gives him a levelheaded quality that past anti-establishment candidates – such as Pat Buchanan and Dennis Kucinich – have lacked. Furthermore, Feingold’s years in the Senate gave him a legitimacy that makes him a considerable presidential candidate.
Most importantly, Feingold’s record of supporting workers and the middle-class is impeccable. He has written eloquently in opposition to the recent trade deals, and in the ’90s, he opposed NAFTA and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which deregulated the banking industry. While many politicians are paying lip-service to the middle-class, Feingold has built a career out of fighting for them. If he could bring this fortitude to the presidency, the middle-class will have a voice in the White House that it has not had since Lyndon Johnson was president.
Yet, most liberals see presidential elections as an unenviable choice: Vote for a long-shot progressive who shares your values and help elect a Republican, or vote for an electable, yet ineffectual, Democrat and save the White House from ultra-conservative hands. Considering the country’s precarious state, liberals will ask themselves if it’s right to choose the former when it could have such serious repercussions – think voting for Nader in 2000 and subsequently seeing the Bush presidency. However, especially when circumstances are so dire, perhaps a better question liberals (and Americans in general) should ask themselves is if it is right to vote for someone, namely Obama, who has perpetuated the very policies which brought America to this perilous point. The answer to both questions is “no,” but liberals will inevitably vote to reelect Obama because they will find his Republican alternative unacceptable.
Still, Obama deserves to lose. His policies are lackluster and are, at best, marginally different from those of his Republican predecessors. Therefore, if Russ Feingold hastens the president’s defeat, it may be for the better. Consider Ronald Reagan’s challenge to the incumbent president, Gerald Ford, which helped put an end to Ford’s anemic presidency and paved the way for Reagan’s more virile presidency in 1980. Perhaps, Feingold, like Reagan, could tap into voter discontent and give Americans a choice they so badly need.
Jeff Schultz ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history.
