Crystal Kim was the 2008 PSL candidate for the Council of the District of Columbia and ballot access coordinator for the 2008 PSL presidential campaign. She presented the following talk during the opening plenary of the PSL National Conference on Socialism Dec. 6.
As [PSL member] Peta Lindsay mentioned and as all of us know, the presidential election campaign of 2008 was historic. The election of the first African American president in a country where apartheid, white supremacy, lynching, and institutional and individual racism are so widespread and endemic is something of great significance.
I would like to say a few words, however, about another side of the election campaign and to provide a few words of assessment and analysis.
In January of this year, the Party for Socialism and Liberation publicly announced its first-ever intervention in the elections. Our candidates for president and vice president, trade union leader Gloria La Riva and student activist Eugene Puryear, were on the ballot in 12 states. We also ran 10 campaigns for local, state and federal offices.
Before us stood enormous hurdles: convoluted state ballot access rules designed to keep independent candidates off the ballot, financial costs that we would have to meet without corporate campaign donors, and a mass media bent on keeping left-wing voices—especially revolutionary Marxists—off the airwaves.
But the fact remains that every four years, the attention of millions of workers and students is drawn to the presidential elections. The election is the one outlet for political expression offered to workers by U.S. capitalism. So what better place to bring our message of revolutionary change than the electoral arena where the attention of hundreds of millions of workers is already fixed?
This was the first election in which our four-year-young party has intervened. After months of hard work, the PSL secured ballot status in 12 states—more states than any other U.S. socialist organization. The PSL achieved ballot status in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont in the Northeast; Arkansas, Florida and Louisiana in the South; Iowa and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and Colorado, Utah and Washington state in the West. In all, the PSL’s candidates appeared on the ballot before nearly 30 percent of the U.S. electorate.
Accomplishing this was no easy feat. We had to decode complex ballot access barriers in nearly every state. PSL members and allies gathered a total of 45,000 petition signatures to get on the ballot. In New York state alone, in the course of six weeks of 14-hour days, the PSL collected nearly 30,000 signatures. We recruited over 100 electors and held state conventions across the country. We literally fought blizzards, tornadoes and hurricanes to win ballot access.
But that’s not all: Not only did we field national candidates for president and vice president, we also had 10 additional congressional, state, and local candidates in Washington, D.C., Florida, Chicago, South Dakota and California. All ran openly as socialists and members of the PSL; all received significant local media coverage and support from progressive people. Two PSL candidates for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors received 53,000 votes combined.
The PSL’s campaign called for union jobs for the unemployed, ending layoffs and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and raised the need for free, high-quality health care, housing and education for all.
Our candidates organized against the epidemic of racist police brutality and killings, military-style checkpoints and anti-gang injunctions that target oppressed youth in U.S. cities and towns.
For example, in Southern California, PSL candidates used their local campaigns to condemn several racist gang injunctions that targeted Black and Latino communities. They intervened in televised town hall forums, joined protests and stood out as the only candidates willing to challenge the forces of repression.
In New York City, the campaign collected testimony on the trend of police harassment, abuse and brutality in oppressed communities. With frequent street meetings to bring visibility to this effort, campaign volunteers tape-recorded, transcribed, videotaped and then publicized every story of police abuse that they could find as part of a general indictment of the capitalist state.
The La Riva/Puryear campaign traveled to the Midwest when devastating floods destroyed thousands of homes. Gloria La Riva sandbagged in the Iowa trenches alongside other PSL candidates and workers to stop the rising waters.
The La Riva/Puryear campaign went to Louisiana on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina to show solidarity with the people still struggling for adequate housing and social services.
The demand for the immediate end of the criminal wars on Iraq and Afghanistan was a central pillar of our campaign. In fact, the PSL’s congressional candidate in Florida was anti-war leader and Iraq war veteran Michael Prysner.
The campaign demanded freedom for the heroic political prisoners Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Cuban Five. In September, Gloria La Riva and others were arrested in front of the White House in defense of the Five.
The La Riva/Puryear campaign resolutely demanded an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. Our campaign exposed the bailout as an unparalleled theft from workers and made concrete demands. The PSL candidates led demonstrations, speak outs and other militant actions. “Bail out workers, not banks!” was our campaign’s demand.
We met countless workers, families, organizers and activists who support our message. These new members, contacts and alliances laid the groundwork for greater coordinated action and the spread of working-class consciousness.
This tremendous accomplishment was made possible by the organization, discipline and passion of PSL members, friends and allies: Our campaign was carried out by an army of socialist organizers, allies and friends, driven by boundless energy. … The close of this election season does not mean that we will abandon the issues on which we have fought so hard. The opposite is true.
The 2008 presidential campaign may be over, but important tasks lie ahead. We will continue to struggle for jobs, housing, education and immigrant rights, and will continue to mobilize against racism and war.
