Being outside the political mainstream is nothing new to Paki Wieland; the veteran Valley activist’s work has pretty reliably found her on the farthest left of the political spectrum.
But these days, Wieland finds herself at odds with some of her most kindred spirits over next week’s gubernatorial election. Wieland is a volunteer for Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein—a position that puts her in a different camp than many of her progressive pals.
Stein is, by far, the most progressive of the four candidates in the race. She supports single-payer health care, tax reform to ease the unfair burden borne by middle- and working-class people, and the decriminalization of marijuana, which would undercut both the violent black market created by prohibition and the costly, ineffective government “war on drugs.”
She strongly opposes the creation of casinos, arguing they would bring, not the economic benefits supporters claim, but serious economic and social costs. And—in a move that perhaps most sharply distinguishes her from her opponents—Stein refuses to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists and the executives who employ them. Stein, in short, is the dream candidate for any voter who cares about social and economic justice. So why do so many of her likely constituents view her campaign as a potential nightmare?
The answer, sadly, is that they consider Stein a potential “spoiler” in the race, who will draw votes away from Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick, improving the odds for Republican challenger Charlie Baker. That’s what Wieland hears from some of her friends—the same people who stand with her in support of causes like single-payer health care, which Patrick does not favor.
Nor will you see Patrick stumping for the kind of sensible drug reform Stein advocates. You certainly won’t see him turning down campaign checks from the big players looking to do business with the state, as Stein pointed out during a candidates’ debate on the Cape Wind project, when she challenged the governor for taking money from National Wind, the utility that would profit from the project.
Patrick also continues to insist that casinos would be an economic boon to the state, despite plenty of evidence—let’s start with the staggering unemployment rates in the Las Vegas area—to the contrary.
Indeed, Patrick’s record makes one question the assumption that voters on the political left would happily cast their votes for him if only that meddlesome Stein weren’t in the race. Sure, many would, on the belief that he’s better than the alternatives. But this time, those voters have an alternative—a stronger, more intellectually honest alternative—in Stein. Will they take advantage of it?
Hanging over the Stein campaign, of course, is the specter of Ralph Nader—to many Democrats, the ultimate spoiler, whose presence as a Green candidate in the 2000 presidential race cost Al Gore the election and started the nation on the long, dark years of Bush II.
Wieland has little use for such claims. “Do the Democrats need a spoiler to blame things on? Look at what the Democratic party didn’t do in the last [Massachusetts] senatorial election,” she notes.
“I don’t want the Republican to win. I’m certainly not a spoiler in that sense,” Wieland adds. But, she wonders, would Massachusetts really be that much worse off under Baker than it already is under a conservative Democratic establishment that values corporate money over its citizens?
A candidate like Stein will always remain on the political margins without some significant cultural and political shifts: for one, the adoption of an electoral system, like instant runoff voting, that doesn’t penalize voters for supporting smaller-party candidates. For another, a recognition by political gatekeepers, including the mainstream media, that voters deserve adequate information about all legitimate candidates, not just the Ds and Rs.
If either of those shifts do happen, it will be because they’re demanded by the electorate. In the meantime, that electorate should stop allowing itself to be cowed by the dysfunctional system we have now, and start voting with its conscience.
“The lesser of two evils is still evil,” Wieland says, quoting one of her heroes, Dorothy Day. “People are saying to me, ‘The stakes are too high; you’ve got to vote Democratic.’ I say, the stakes are too high; we’ve got to break this stranglehold of corporate interests that both [major] parties are beholden to.”
