REFLECTIONS

...that we should back progressive candidates who will, at least, stimulate public discussion of the issues we want to have raised...

...that we should ignore national campaigns and work only for local candidates and referenda...

...This is how progress was achieved in civil rights, women's suffrage, workers' rights, and arms control...

...Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri says, "Make America first again...

...Fearing that Johnson's opponent, Barry Goldwa-ter, intended to start a war, the Left gave its full support to the Democratic nominee, creating the temporary consensus that allowed Johnson to do exactly what Gold-water was suspected of planning...

...Others contend that our electoral efforts ought to be confined to radical or .third-party slates...

...It was the failure to recognize these dynamics of social change that led many progressives to support Lyndon B. Johnson as a "peace candidate" in 1964...

...Involvement in local or Congressional Rick Jahnkow got into politics in 1968, when he volunteered as an election precinct worker...

...I've concluded that campaigns like Eugene McCarthy's, which attracted many young antiwar activists, actually made it possible for Richard Nixon to prolong the war...

...As this process goes forward, viewpoints shift in the general population, positions previously dismissed as radical become more acceptable, the character of the power base is transformed, and institutions are compelled to accept change...

...that we should limit our participation to the casting of ballots on election day, or that we shouldn't even bother doing that...

...Some argue that we should work within the Democratic Party to move it leftward...

...He is now a full-time antimilitar-ism organizer in San Diego, California...

...My own experience suggests that progressive activists often overestimate the gains they can achieve by devoting their scarce resources to electoral politics...

...that we should support electable moderate candidates who will reward our campaign efforts in their behalf by giving a hearing to our views...

...The inclination to rely on rhetoric and shun issues limits the public's awareness of where candidates stand on crucial questions...

...In the end, valuable time and money were lost in this campaign—time and money that could have been used instead to build the local peace movement...

...It's a safe bet that many activists on the Left will want to seize an opportunity to help sway the country back toward a more progressive political orientation, so they will tend to shift the focus of their efforts toward assisting in Democratic campaigns...

...They are likely to ignore the fact that liberal Democrats have displayed at least as great a propensity for leading us into war as have conservative Republicans...

...But when these politicians began recruiting peace activists to work in their electoral campaigns, they siphoned off energy that could have helped increase the pressures generated by the antiwar movement...

...However, I'm certain it would be a mistake to put too much of our confidence— and too many of our scarce resources—into the electoral process...

...More recently, the Democrats in Congress have saddled us with aid to the contras and have backed down on a resolution urging a nuclear-testing moratorium...

...Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware said in a recent Atlantic Monthly interview that he could never accept the proposition that America was on the wrong side in the Vietnam war...

...Of the Democrats now seeking their party's Presidential nomination, most seem determined to outdo President Reagan in articulating his "Stand tall, America...

...Because the candidate favored a nuclear freeze, his supporters overlooked his questionable position on Central America...

...In the late 1960s, the demands and direct-action tactics of the antiwar movement contributed significantly to the growing willingness of some liberal politicians to challenge U.S...

...For a year or more, people, money, and other resources that might be devoted to organizing against war and military intervention, to campaigning for jobs and grass-roots democracy, will go instead to political candidates...

...Suddenly it seems possible that a Democrat will capture the White House in 1988...

...I don't mean to argue that the electoral process is a total loss in every situation...

...Before we can define the extent of our involvement, we must determine what kind of difference electoral politics will make in helping us reach our political goals...

...That shift can have a serious impact on the Left's work...

...Instead, they engage in a drawn-out process of demands, education, and negotiations...

...As many in the peace movement prepare to strike up another love affair with the Democratic Party, they might recall that Jimmy Carter, who had to face relatively little dissent from the Left, gave us the rapid deployment force, the neutron bomb, and draft registration...

...A major controversy arose among his supp'orters when it came out that he favored draft registration...

...Political office-holders in this country, whether Democrats or Republicans, do not take the lead in promoting change...

...campaigns can present problems that parallel those of national elections...

...Having worked in Eugene McCarthy's campaign in 1968, George McGovern's in 1972, and several Congressional races (including one for a third-party candidate), I am aware of the old—and continuing—debate on the relationship between social change and the electoral process...

...rather, they reflect the wishes of movements that make it safe for them to favor change...

...At some point, the outsiders pressing for change must decide whether their cause is best served by remaining outside the system or by trying to work within mainstream institutions...

...In one 1984 example, peace activists in the San Diego area rallied to the campaign of a liberal Democrat who was challenging Republican Representative Bill Lowery...

...And I do believe in casting ballots for national office...

...They win no easy victories...

...theme...

...Before entering the fray, the Left ought to do some serious soul-searching about the effectiveness of electoral politics...

...he also opposes school busing to achieve desegregation and Federal funding of abortions for the poor...

...As invariably happens whenever Democratic prospects quicken, members of the movements for peace and social justice are suddenly rediscovering their interest in electoral politics...

...As another election approaches, I hope those who are seriously committed to the cause of peace and social justice will manage to resist the temptation to surrender, even temporarily, their essential role as agents of change...

...I would not rule out certain levels of electoral activity as effective ways of bringing about change...

...My fear is that progressives, in their eagerness to dismantle Reaganism, will repeat the mistakes of 1964...

...In a society like ours, which concentrates political power and policy-making in large, deeply entrenched institutions, change has historically come in response to pressure from movements that began outside the mainstream and were initially dubbed "radical...

...Former Governor Bruce Babbitt of Arizona says, "Let's put America in charge again...

...There are useful citizen-initiated referenda, and some local elections extend the promise of governmental responsiveness...

...There are far fewer to do the agitating and organizing and movement-building we require to institute meaningful change...

...intervention in Southeast Asia...

...If the activists who play a crucial role in building and sustaining such movements allow themselves to be sidetracked by electoral campaigns, they leave open the possibility that the power base will shift in another direction...

...when Nixon balked at signing a peace treaty, many of us were too busy doing precinct work to organize the mass actions that could have made a difference...

...Such movements rarely achieve their demands without long years of struggle...

...There is no lack of people willing to run for office or work for candidates...

...George McGovern's campaign skimmed off even more of the vitality of the grass-roots antiwar movement...

...As soon as they are asked to help a candidate who happens to have taken an enlightened stand on a few issues, they drop their other political work and rush into the electoral arena—forgetting that it was their own pressure from the outside that induced the candidate to take the enlightened stand in the first place...

...REFLECTIONS Rick Jahnkow The Ballot Trap Ever since the Iran-contra arms scandal surfaced last fall, Democrats who had all but written off the possibility of electoral success have revived their hopes and aspirations...

...And to answer that question, we must first ask how significant change is brought about in our country...