TEN RACES TO WATCH

...MINNESOTA SENATOR PAUL WELLSTONE How many Democratic candidates for the U.S...

...And Wellstone has taken it in the teeth for standing on the liberal principles that, in the days of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, defined a Democrat...

...Here are ten progressives who are fighting the good fight...

...and taxes on corporations for the "abuse of nature and its resources...

...It is easy to be cynical about politics, and to suggest that there is no room for idealism...

...Campaigning in one of the tightest open-seat Congressional races in the country this fall, Carson tells Indianapolis voters that the doom-and-gloom politics of most Democrats and Republicans—which suggests that America lacks the resources and the will to end poverty and tackle social problems—is a lie...

...I would like to regenerate the idea, the good idea we had in 1992, that we're all in this boat together...

...Strongly supported by labor, environmentalists, and women's groups, she easily won an eleven-way Democratic primary...

...In the face of this assault...

...The first item on the list of accomplishments distributed by Bernie Sanders, the only independent and the only declared socialist in the U.S...

...Davis was leading journalists on tours of the projects and using the rare attention to pressure city, state, and federal officials to increase spending on housing programs...

...MARVIN FRIEDMAN lAThen nearsighted politicians take aim at our national budget, they see numbers that can be manipulated, but I see people being manipulated: I see lives being threatened...

...alph Nader probably won't be elected President November 5, but the woman they call "the Nader of the Northwest" is well-positioned to win a second term as Washington state insurance commissioner...

...Mountain women are strong women...

...An advocate for full funding of Head Start, increased education spending, a single-payer health-care system, and a living wage, Carson says, "the war on poverty is far from won...

...They were frightened off by the thought of government regulating health care...

...This year, Pritt is back in the gubernatorial race as her party's nominee...

...kucinich was one of the first big-city leaders to actively challenge the nuclear-power industry...

...I see bold, progressive people running for the Senate and the Congress, for state houses and school boards," says the Reverend Jesse Jackson...

...He has also provoked public discussion of several important issues: a living wage that would keep all working Americans above the poverty line...

...I think this idea that you have to give up your ideals to accomplish something in the Senate is a false dichotomy," he says...

...Mississippi's Bennie Thompson, Illinois's Lane Evans, Oregon's Elizabeth Furse, and New York's Maurice Hinchey...

...Hoke has poked fun at Kucinich's eating habits—the challenger does not eat meat or dairy products—and red-baited the Democrat for his pro-labor, pro-environment, pro-public-utilities stances...

...I think that if the Green Party is going to break through, there's a good chance it will be in Maine...

...One elderly miner told a reporter, "I'd lay down my life for Charlotte...

...He hasn't shifted his stance...

...We need at least one alumnus of a segregated public-school system and a low-income community to bring perspective to the debates on welfare reform, crime prevention, and jobs...

...When I look at America in 1996...

...He calls for deep cuts in military spending, a national jobs program, a renewed commitment to affirmative action, and an in-your-face battle against House Speaker Newt Gingrich's Republicans...

...But it is wholly in keeping with Carson's candidacy, which rejects the cliches of 1996 politics—particularly when it comes to issues like crime...

...In a campaign against a traditional Democrat and a Republican, Bonk stands out as the most serious threat to the status quo on the islands...

...She has recovered more than $7 million for consumers who were overcharged by insurance companies...

...But on the campaign trail in 1996, it's not all lesser-of-two-evils...

...In 1994, however, he won a state senate seat, becoming one of only a handful of Democrats in legislative races nationally to defeat a Republican incumbent...

...A specialist in comparative politics, Rensenbrink has mounted a realistic and serious Senate candidacy as an independent Green...

...And Harvey Gantt is again offering a clear and refreshing alternative to North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms...

...One of the Senate's leading proponents of a single-payer health-care plan, education funding, and campaign-finance reform, Wellstone is stressing all those issues in his campaign, and he is attacking corporate welfare, defending family farmers, and risking his own political base in northern Minnesota to defend environmental protections for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness...

...In announcing her campaign for a second term, she declared, "Health-care reform is still needed...

...Since earning his Ph.D...

...IRThen she was working as a high-school English teacher in rural West Virginia, Charlotte Pritt faced an educational problem no amount of homework could solve: Her students were too hungry to learn...

...The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee launched ads attacking Wellstone—their number-one target this year—that were so sleazy even Minnesota Republican Senator Rod Grams requested their withdrawal...

...Now she is running for mayor of the Big Island, a powerful position that would make her a major player in statewide politics...

...Consumers have been scared off by the battery of Harry and Louise TV ads that were run by the insurance industry...

...My voice is the voice of a domestic worker's daughter...

...What they got in return was the insurance industry regulating health care...

...In state and local races, there are progressive candidates at every level: from John Nichols, an editorial writer for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, covers electoral Politics for The Progressive...

...He has participated in televised debates, and with a campaign that has rejected PAC and corporate money and limited individual contributions to $500, he has helped to publicize efforts by Maine activists to enact sweeping state-level campaign-finance reforms...

...New Hampshire's Deborah Arnesen, Alaska's Geor-gianna Lincoln, New Mexico's Shirley Baca, and South Dakota's Rick Weiland...

...Well, here in Maine, we are doing it...

...Bui the municipal power company was saved, and today sells electricity to 70,000 Cleveland families and businesses at a rate 30 percent lower than its private competitor...

...And she has been a pioneer in battling insurance-company discrimination against victims of domestic violence...

...That move cost him...

...The unofficial symbol of her campaign was a clenched fist and, with the support of labor unions, she came within a few percentage points of beating Caper-ton...

...True to form...

...Faced with tough reelection campaigns, members of Congress who are running on their progressive records include Georgia's Cynthia McKinney...

...A Democratic candidate may take votes from Sanders as well, making this year's race a close one...

...Senate this year are running television ads that declare...

...In her second term on the council, she served as its chair—making her the highest-ranking Green elected official in the nation...

...And when business interests threatened to bankrupt the city unless he sold off Cleveland's municipally owned power company, Kucinich refused...

...In 1992, as Democratic Governor Gaston Caperton, a multimillionaire, was adopting increasingly conservative policies, Pritt challenged him in the party primary...

...Sanders's latest theme: help balance the budget by cutting "the mansion subsidy"—mortgage deductions for homes costing more than $250,000...

...the bov mayor" of Cleveland in the late lu70s...

...Traditionally, state insurance commissioners have been veterans of the industries they regulate...

...Kucinich says...

...Pritt did it without compromising: She declared that she was "fighting for the poor people of West Virginia," attacked "corporate big shots," and decried a business-sponsored "reform" of workers-compensation laws as "evil...

...forty years ago, Rensenbrink has participated in the civil-rights and antiwar movements, and he's been increasingly active in the environmental movement...

...ruthlessly attacked by the media and the Republican Party, and...

...Davis has a penchant for pushing the political limits...

...didn't understand the reality, the day-today living—whether the mine would play out, whether they'd be able to get health care...

...in which he bluntly declares his opposition to the welfare-reform bill...

...But Senn isn't blinking...

...The result of the nation's most blistering face-off on the welfare-reform issue: The polls show Wellstone gaining his widest lead yet over millionaire Republican Rudy Boschwitz...

...Several years ago, when the American Political Science Association created a "Scholar-Activist" award, the first recipient was Bowdoin College political-science professor John Rensenbrink...

...finally, forced from office...

...Her activism has not gone unnoticed...

...He is finding plenty of opportunity...

...Washington state gubernatorial candidate Gary Locke, who will be the first Asian-American governor on the mainland if elected...

...Does this mean Maine will elect the first Green senator...

...Sanders says this will bring in $10 billion...

...He did so in 1983 as one of the first African-American elected officials in Chicago to back Washington's challenge to the Democratic machine, and he did so again when he joined the left-leaning New Party...

...Zbur's challenge to Republican incumbent Steve Horn will nol turn on sexual politics—Horn, a moderate on social issues, has actually received support from some gay and lesbian groups—but rather on fundamental differences regarding the Contract with America...

...My voice is a voice that should be heard on Capitol Hill...

...Well-stone was the sole Senator seeking reelection this year to oppose the welfare-reform bill that ended a sixty-year commitment on the part of the federal government to provide basic benefits for America's children...

...who is seeking a Wisconsin state assembly seat...

...That vote may have hurt my chances for reelection...

...Sanders is still waging the fight along blunt, class-based lines, saying: "Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress want to slash Medicare, Medicaid, education, college loans, environmental protection, veterans' programs, workers' safety, the earned-income tax credit, and many other programs, so they can provide huge tax breaks to the rich, increase military spending, and protect $125 billion a year incorporate welfare...

...In a tough fall campaign against Cecil Underwood, the Republican former governor, Pritt faces none-too-subtle slurs from foes who say macho West Virginia isn't ready for its first woman governor...

...Illinois activist Steve De La Rosa is challenging Republican platform writer and anti-abortion point man Henry Hyde with a message that owes more to Eugene Debs than Bill Clinton...

...I was the only Democrat who didn't try to sound like a Republican...

...House Republican incumbents face progressive challengers like California's Walter Capps...

...to farm activist Mark Kastel, a national leader in the fight against rBGH...

...He proudly quotes Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saying, "Democrats lose support when they abandon the aspirations of working people...

...The insurance industry has attempted to put limits on Senn's authority, and this year her Republican opponents have taken to calling the Democratic commissioner a socialist because of her determination to force insurance firms to provide broader health-care coverage...

...I'm not for sale...

...Wellstone has responded with an ad campaign of his own...

...Since her election in 1992, she has successfully fought to force insurance companies to drop pre-existing-condition restrictions, to make insurance "portable" so that people can move from job to job without fearing loss of coverage, and to extend insurance coverage to home care for longterm illness...

...Pritt tells miners that "one of their own is going to be governor...

...There, she battled against regressive food taxes, promoted universal health care and licensing of lay midwives, defended trade unions against Reagan-era attacks, and led the campaign to prevent out-of-state corporations from dumping toxic waste in West Virginia—for which the West Virginia Environmental Council honored Pritt with its "Mother Jones Award...

...he says, "but my parents taught me to stand up for what I believe, regardless of the consequences...

...That's why, like most Americans, I reject the narrow choices offered by the Democrats and the Republicans," he says...

...What we need to do is go out and find these candidates who are holding up the banner of racial and economic justice, embrace their candidacies, work for them, campaign for them, vote for them...

...Congress has plenty of Ivy League lawyers," she says...

...But Kucinich's grassroots appeal remains strong...

...Like a number of Democratic challengers in marginal districts, Zbur is running hard against Newt Gingrich and the Contract, particularly when it comes to environmental issues...

...As a child attending Indianapolis's segregated public schools, Carson spent her summers picking cotton to help her family survive...

...She has implemented insurance coverage for alternative providers...

...She has expedited environmental cleanup claims...

...native of the Big Island of Hawaii...

...He w;is dubbed a "'municipal socialist...

...She has defended consumers in court battles with insurance companies...

...House, is "founder and chairperson of the fifty-two-member Progressive Caucus...

...Faced with a choice between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole...

...For a long time they'd felt that the people who were making decisions for them...

...We are saying it's not just about Democrats and Republicans anymore," says Rensenbrink, noting that Maine voters elected an independent as governor in 1994...

...She refuses to take the big contributions from developers that have warped island politics, she encourages public-employee unions to adopt a more activist stance, and she promotes an environmental and economic agenda that aims 1o develop sustainuhilitv...

...She has 6,000 volunteers statewide...

...She has rejected insurance-company rate increases...

...The Republicans erected a billboard across the street from his headquarters with the slogan sknaior WEi.t-ARix and dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into television attack ads that portray Wellstone as "embarrassingly liberal...

...Though she was actively recruited by the Democrats, Bonk instead co-founded the Hawaii Green Party and won a seat on the Hawaii county council under its banner...

...A co-founder of the Green Party of Maine, he is currently national co-chair of the Green Politics Network, and he helped persuade Ralph Nader to seek the Presidency on the Green Party line...

...Rather, he is campaigning in a working-class district that includes the port city of Long Beach...

...No wonder Gingrich has targeted Sanders for defeat, promising more than $150,000 in GOP funds to a "moderate" Republican challenger who portrays the incumbent as "too radical for Vermont...

...This fall, Jackson is crisscrossing the nation, campaigning on behalf of progressive candidates...

...N o openly gay challenger has ever beaten an incumbent member of the US House, but environmental lawyer Rick Zbur mav soon be the first...

...Each time Bob Dole proposes another corporate giveaway, some voung woman attending the University of Illinois will see her college loan snatched away" Davis, a veteran Chicago politico who was a kcv player in the mayoral campaigns of Harold Washington, brings streetwise political instincts and a passion for social justice to a Congressional campaign that he is all but certain to win...

...While Democratic Party bigwigs cruised past public-housing buildings in their limousines...

...Everywhere you go, people are talking about the need to change our politics, to create something new...

...the only solution is to elect people who have the vision, education, and integrity lo fight for real change, rather than knee-jerk policy changes that do nothing but undermine people's faith in the government," says Bonk.B...

...Davis is running as a Democrat, but if elected he will also be the first New Party member in the House...

...A former chief legal counsel for the Illinois Office of Consumer Services, prosecutor of pollution cases, and attorney for the Service Employees International Union, Senn came to the job of insurance commissioner with a commitment to make her office nothing less than "a national model of consumer protection...

...Senn is the opposite...

...Despite the fact that he was right, it took Kucinich years to make a political comeback...

...The ads declare: "Wellstone continues to press for more welfare—a liberal position even the President of his own party rejects...

...Sanders is running hard, but not scared...

...And he is running on a progressive platform that has drawn active support from unions, women's rights groups, and Jesse Jackson, who has campaigned in Long Beach on Zbur's behalf...

...Keiko Bonk forged a successful career as an artist in New York City's East Village before returning home in 1991 and entering politics...

...Though he could score a historic political breakthrough for gays and lesbians...

...While his election would make headlines because of his sexuality, his real contribution in the House would be to disarm Republican claims that environmental slandards must be weakened in order to promote economic growth...

...Her reply: "We have a history of strong women, like Mother Jones...

...Maybe it will happen this year...

...A rally to begin his current campaign packed a high-school gymnasium with hundreds of cheering union members...

...It will be tough...

...The real "crime-stopper" strategy, she says, is "any program that provides community development and helps low-income families to survive...

...I'm in this office to protect consumers...

...Whitman might well have surrendered his optimism...

...The professor-turned-Senator carries on...

...Davis's independent streak was on display during the Democratic National Convention, which was held in his district...

...Maine is a Green Party stronghold—a Green Congressional candidate won 10 percent of the vote there in 1992, and the party's gubernatorial candidate took 6 percent of the 1994 vote...

...The Republican attack ads might scare someone less accustomed to battle, but Wellstone is used to it...

...Everyone must have access to good quality, affordable health care, with portability, accessibility, and the right to choose our own physician...

...In the end...

...That realization turned Pritt from teaching to politics, and this coal miner's daughter from the tiny town of Buzzard Rock got herself elected to the state House of Delegates...

...It's true that I'm not willing to make the kinds of compromises that might allow me to get a lot of campaign funds," he told a reporter...

...Rensenbrink thinks his campaign is already winning the "election of ideas...

...A former Democrat, Rensenbrink joined in calling the first Green political meeting in America in 1984...

...Unbowed bv his years in the political wilderness, Kucinich declared upon announcing his candidacy that he is still the same foe of the special interests that he always was...

...Zbur isn't running in San Francisco or trendy west L.A...

...In addition to his own campaign, he is pushing for the election of four progressive, independent state legislative candidates in the Burlington area, including Representative Dean Corren, one of a handful of legislators in the nation who talks seriously about developing a sustainable economy and stopping the development of mega-malls that destroy smalltown Main Streets...

...Wellstone has always argued that the best hope for the Democratic Party lies in embracing progressive principles, and he is running a reelection campaign that seeks to prove that point...

...I voted against a welfare-reform bill because it would put one million more children into poverty"'' There's only one: Paul Wellstone...

...Deborah Senn, a former public-interest attorney, won her job in 1992, and has used it to challenge the insurance and healthcare industries more aggressively than any state official in the nation...

...This is one Democrat who refuses to mimic the Republican call for more prisons, the death penalty, and other draco-nian measures...

...She says she is ready to renew the fight...

...She has exposed waste and abuse in the insurance industry—focusing in particular on the salaries paid to top executives of ""nonprofit" firms...

...He is campaigning on the theme of "jobs, justice, equality, and peace...

...Rensenbrink is being treated as a serious contender in the race against moderate Democrat Joe Brennan and Republican Susan Collins...

...Her passion has inspired fierce loyalties in the hollows of West Virginia...

...to union activist Jayne Cia, who is running as a proud member of the New Party for the justice of the peace slot in Pulaski County, Arkansas...

...Hoke has a 100 percent NRA rating, a zero Children's Defense Fund rating, and a bizarre penchant for commenting on the "beeg breasts" of female journalists...

...single-payer health-care reform...

...Kucinich is running for Congress against Representative Martin Hoke, a millionaire Republican dubbed by The Progressive's Ken Silverstein as one of the House's "10 Dimmest Bulbs...

...Under his leadership, the Caucus posed a consistent and principled challenge to Gingrich's policies in the early days of the 104th Congress, while shell-shocked House Democratic leaders stumbled...

...That's how we win...

...Even if it doesn't, we are building that base for the future...

...A native of rural New Mexico and a Yale University and Harvard Law School graduate, Zbur is an expert on balancing the demands for environmental protection and job creation...

...We already have the means to invest in our neighbor's future, if we simply reorder our priorities,"' says the former Indiana state senator, who argues that the way to begin shifting priorities is by slashing military spending and corporate subsidies...

...Rensen-brink's opponents are outspending him 20-to-1, though the Greens do expect to air television ads before election day...

...says Cook County Commissioner Danny Davis...

...I'm a pragmatist...

...But beyond the dismal non-event of the 1996 Presidential race, there are still candidates at the state and local level whose politics brim with idealism...

...That sort of rhetoric is rare on the campaign trail this year...

...says Senn...

...I'm realistic about politics...

...w hen Julia Carson talks about wanting to go to Congress to fight against poverty, she speaks from experience...

...For his opposition to the Persian Gulf War, former President George Bush dubbed him "a chicken shit...

...And 1 will alwavs do just that...