AR-News: Two Candidates Are Better Than One

[Anmlsfirst at aol.com]

Two Candidates Are Better Than One

By Peter Coyote, AlterNet
February 9, 2004

Over the past year, I've opened several California fund-raisers for Howard 
Dean, sent him money, and introduced him to famous friends like blues singer 
Bonnie Raitt and actor Sean Penn. I've also sent money to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 
opened fund-raisers for him, posted a supportive letter on his website and 
introduced him to country singer Willie Nelson. 

People have questioned how I can publicly support candidates who are running 
against each other. 

I do this because supporting a candidate influences civic life in broader 
ways than simply trying to pick a winner. In a country where much of the mass 
media declare as legitimate only the landscape between the center and the right, 
supporting two candidates who represent the center and the left enlarges the 
range of the public debate and the ideas and options presented to the voter. 

Our democracy has a virtually unique winner-take-all electoral system, which 
means that at the end of the day, when the votes are counted, the views and 
needs of political minorities effectively disappear. Until then, supporting both 
candidates is my version of the instant runoff, as practiced in many European 
countries, where the voter ranks several candidates in order of preference, 
and should one lose, has his votes automatically moved to his alternate choice. 


Kucinich, by calling for a reduced Pentagon budget, bringing American troops 
home and a withdrawal from NAFTA extends the arguments on our national 
political bookshelf further to the left than the policies of a practical, centrist 
Yankee like former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. Without Kucinich's voice, 
left-leaning and Green-leaning Democrats must hold their noses and vote for a candidate 
they do not like, take their votes to a third party or give up in disgust, 
their microphones effectively unplugged from our national conversation. 

As a member of the Green Party, I would be happy if Kucinich won the 
nomination as his policies are more liberal and, on the whole, closer to mine. 
However, even though he has been an able congressman, he has never been a governor 
nor had the opportunity to put his policies into practice as has Dean. 

As governor of Vermont for nearly 12 years, Dean built a solid track record 
on the state level. He courageously defended the civil union bill against 
vitriolic right-wing attacks and extended health insurance to everyone under the 
age of 18 and below 150 percent of the poverty line. He's an admirable man, 
possessing abundant common sense and solutions to our pressing dilemmas, and he 
can win. 

Neither candidate is perfect for me. Until far too recently, Kucinich took 
pro-life positions on abortion, an issue that I believe nobody without a womb 
should have any vote about. On the other hand, Dean has supported the death 
penalty, and his nuclear policy team is made up of the same folks who fumbled the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the Clinton administration and allowed the 
building of new nuclear weapons. 

However, I am not looking to elect a personal hero. The only person who 
agrees with me on every issue is me. I am looking to elect a chief executive who 
will sort through the competing views of his advisers and apply his 
intelligence, political insight and life skills to make informed decisions in the national 
interest. 

Eventually I'll make my choice. But I don't have to do that until I step into 
the voting booth in the California primary in March. Come November, no matter 
who wins, I'd be happy to vote for the Democratic nominee – even if he turned 
out to be a horse thief – over the current president. 

Peter Coyote is an actor and writer who lives in Marin County. This article 
originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.

« Home   « Election 2004

    


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040209/940e77d1/attachment.html