After Pennsylvania: What Really Matters?

Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania and now all the pundits ponder the meaning of 10 points--the new numerology for the new millennium.  Some try to read the minds of the "bitter" white working class.  Some conclude that there is a winning magic in the dark arts of negative campaigning.  Some dismiss Clinton’s victory as an illusion and others praise her miraculous comeback onto the stage. Frankly, after spending last week away from the elections and marching 28 miles with thousands of different workers in  Los Angeles, I find this whole show to be really ridiculous. It is too easy to be caught up in this superbowl of elections and its recent devolution to “kitchen-throwing” game play and forget what this race is really about. For some of us, this election is not about whose more electable but something deeper.

Last week, janitors, hospital employees, teachers, homecare workers, iron workers, machinists, dock workers, actors and actresses, probationary officers, security guards and many others trekked by foot over 28 miles through Los Angeles over 3-days from “Hollywood to the Docks” to fight for good jobs.  Over 350,000 workers in Los Angeles have union contracts expiring this year.  The march ended with thousands of workers rallying around the ports. I walked with them under the sun across the expanse of the Los Angeles region. Along the way, different people shared their stories with each other. Joe, an Asian American actor, commiserated with David, a Latino iron worker over the tenuous nature of their jobs. Joe and his pregnant wife had to turn to Medicare for healthcare benefits despite the fact that he possesses a Masters degree and has appeared in a number of plays and films. The web world of downloadable films has left him and many actors and film crews behind with no right to residuals. David, an ironworker, found himself without a job as the economy entered recession with few opportunities for those who build with their hands. They walked in step with Theodore, a Korean probationary officer, who wants to continue helping the next generation and remembers a young man, a former juvenile on probation, who approached him: “ He came up to me..to thank me for what I did for him. I was happy to see him on a path to success.” They and many other workers took turns pushing my 7-year old daughter Mina in a stroller who begged to join the march because she wanted to be around a large group of people who deeply cared for her. Maria Elena Durazo, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor knelt down next to her and told her that we all really love her.

 

We all knew that the march would not automatically lead to better working conditions but we all appreciated the new community nurtured across age, race, gender, and jobs.  We all understood the power of creating new community and regular people taking control of their lives. This was the first time in LA history that all these different workers and unions joined together for something that was not strike support or election mobilization.  We knew we would be there for each other and the future. We knew we were making history by crossing the lines that have long divided us.

 

Like the emerging camaraderie of the historic 28-mile march in Los Angeles, I saw a similar synergy in the coalescing of new voters around the Obama campaign. For some of us, this presidential primary is not about who can beat McCain by any means necessary but how we can rebuild our sense of community as a nation again.

 

By the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, it cannot be doubted that Hillary Clinton positioned herself as the candidate who knows how to work the status quo but not change it. She cast herself as “Republican-Lite” by arguing that only big states count, justifying negative and divisive attacks as a necessary evil to vet the best candidate to take on McCain and exploiting the fears of people. In a sense, she has become a faint shadow of McCain. She has made herself to be, to quote community leader Eric Mann’s words, the “anti-hope candidate.” To applaud her victory in Pennsylvania, we not only overlook Obama’s success at shrinking her 20-point lead in a state we expected Clinton to win but we are saying that we accept “the way things are” and the same way we have been doing politics for the last several decades—the same approach that has alienated young people, new voters and the wider electorate who have usually sat out of the elections. The last time we had large numbers of young people, African Americans and independents coming out in large numbers our country witnessed an emerging Civil Rights Movement and dramatic changes in our national consciousness.

 

This primary election is not just about Clinton versus Obama but how do we want to do politics. Like the actor, ironworker, probationary officer and many other workers who walked through Los Angeles, we want to create the community that will support my daughter and future generations. We need someone who is willing to help us challenge ourselves to walk one step further and risk saying “ we will not accept the way we have always done things.”

Comments

[Angelica]

Amen.

[Melissa]

What great sentiments...I have been so drawn to Obama for many reasons, but perhaps his most appealing quality is his ability to bring people together. He offers a fresh view on politics, and he sees this campaign not only as an election for the presidency, but also as a movement to change our nation. If he can already motivate millions to take action the way he has now, I can only imagine what good things we can do with him as our President.