I am a member of the St. Louis chapter of the League of Pissed Off Voters. I had heard about some anti-League rumblings from Wash U, mostly along the lines of problems with transplanted students voting in a state they barely know. I will begin there, although Margaret Bauer’s latest response sheds new light on the situation.
I can only assume that Margaret lives in St. Louis, as she writes for Student Life. Fine. Then she have a right to vote in local elections. As does every Wash U student. The qualifications for voting are not ten years of residence, five, or even two. To vote, you must simply have a place of residence in that locale. A mailbox. That’s it. At the time of the election, about three-quarters of Wash U students will have spent at least a year in the city. One does not need to know the rich history of a city to understand how the election can affect its future. Any encounter with the city’s unreasonably complicated bureaucracy should make a person consider amendments A through D, restructuring the city government. It’s actually easier to get educated on local, St. Louis issues than issues in a home town hundreds of miles away. In St. Louis, one sees commercials for St.Louis candidates, not the candidates of one’s hometown. The local billboards, newspapers and radio all speak to St. Louisians. They don’t shut off their messages when a Florida native walks by.
Meanwhile, the accusations that the League pushes Democratic “propaganda” are absolutely ridiculous. If Margaret would have checked the website (indyvoter.org), and possibly checked voter guides for cities besides St. Louis, she could have looked into the book “How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office.” The book profiles victorious progressive grassroots movements across the country; you may be surprised to find how many of the “Stupid White Men” were moderate Democrats.
Note our endorsement of Jeff Smith for Congress in the 3rd Congressional District primary here in St. Louis. The third congressional district is Richard Gephardt’s old district, a Democratic lock. Smith was up against, among others, Russ Carnahan, who was expected to win on name alone.
To save face, all the “traditional” liberal organizations (labor unions and pro-choice groups) sided with Russ. Seeing this as an opportunity to put a very progressive candidate in office, the League decided to endorse Jeff Smith, who stood strongly against the war in Iraq and boasted an endorsement from Howard Dean. We were almost alone in our endorsement, literally one of three organizations doing so. However, a strong grassroots campaign (with many League members on board) helped Jeff come within 2 percent of the victorious Carnahan.
If we were simply pushing Democratic “propaganda”, why would we bother endorsing a candidate in a Democratic primary?
Adding a few Greens to our ticket does not constitute independence. What does is sticking to our guns. Ask anybody in the League and we will tell you that we did not particularly love either candidate for governor, but supported Claire McCaskill because Matt Blunt,of the same scary, neocon pedigree as John “Let the Eagle Soar” Ashcroft, would be far worse. Our endorsement of Russ Carnahan was similarly unenthusiastic.
Either way, pointing out our failure to endorse Libertarians, Republicans or Constitutionals does not mean we are “working to empower the Democratic Party.” It simply means the Libertarians, Republicans and Constitutionals failed to earn our endorsement. If a pro-choice, gay-friendly, anti-war, fiscally responsible, pro-education, pro-separation of church and state Republican candidate shows up in the next St. Louis election, we’ll be all over it.