The writer is the vice-presidential candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation. To find out more about the La Riva/Puryear presidential campaign, click here.
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Just before the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama made the “safe” pick for vice president by choosing the senior senator from Delaware, Joe Biden. Adding Biden to the ticket was an attempt to bolster Obama against the charges that he does not have enough foreign policy experience. Biden, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been a part of a number of significant foreign policy efforts of American imperialism. He was particularly vocal in advocating military force to dismember the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Biden is sometimes mentioned as being critical to President Clinton’s decision to take military action in the Balkans.
Biden’s politics are fundamentally stock Democratic establishment positions. With his marketable personal story as a working class adolescent, the Obama team hopes Biden will appeal to white working class men in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, who did not vote for Obama in large numbers during the primaries. Picking Biden is a calculated effort to ensure votes from a demographic group that is historically sympathetic to the Democratic Party.
Having served as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Judiciary Committee, Biden is a consummate Democratic insider. His pick by Obama is clearly a wink and a nod to the ruling-class establishment. Despite preaching change, there will be little change under an Obama administration—and there will be none to the underlying principles and policies of U.S. imperialism.
Obama has had trouble breaking away from McCain in the polls. It is clear that, coupling his vice-presidential choice with his “change” theme, Obama seemed to be overcoming the charge from the McCain campaign that he lacks experience.
McCain’s biggest weakness is his close identification with George Bush. As long as McCain seems like Bush’s twin, then Obama is viewed as the candidate to vote for who will bring about a turnaround in people’s material situation. Obama’s policies, however, only differ tactically from a number of Bush’s policies, particularly on the Middle East.
In order to close the gap and overtake Obama, McCain needed to stake out his piece of the “change” argument as well, a tactic that gained him support in the 2000 Republican primary.
McCain was able to do just that by picking unknown 44-year-old Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The choice of Palin helps reposition McCain in several ways. First, it helps McCain solidify and excite the Republican activist base, which is made up of socially conservative people. Palin’s views fit right in with this far-right sector of the Republican base. Palin opposes abortion in all cases including rape and incest, supports creationism and opposes gay marriage. Her rural background, including being an avid hunter and fisher, also helps her with the Republican base. Sarah Palin, while mayor of a small Alaska town, even inquired to the library about how to have books banned. (Time Magazine, Sept. 2)
Her popularity with rank-and-file Republicans, allows McCain more freedom to resurrect his “reform” credentials. This is an attempt to portray himself as someone who actually can make “change” happen in government, as opposed to just talk about it in speeches, as the republicans imply Obama does.
Palin has “reform” credentials of her own, playing up the fact that she was elected in the face of the Alaska Republican machine, which is notoriously corrupt and a vassal of the energy and natural resource monopolies. The McCain camp hopes this reputation of taking on entrenched interests will bolster its argument they have more “experience” to bring about “change.”
Palin’s right wing social views did not take center stage during her speech at the Republican National Convention, because the Republican Party hopes the “reform” ticket can be attractive to those same democrats Obama hopes Biden can help win: women who have been alienated from the Democrats after Hillary Clinton’s primary defeat; and the suburbs of major cities in northern Virginia and outside of Philadelphia, where moderate Republican types who have drifted away during the Bush years might be enticed back. This would be less possible if her completely reactionary social agenda had been prominently displayed at the convention.
An editorial in the Sept. 5 Washington Post reads: “Pushed in part by the weakening economy, in part by changing conditions overseas, the two nominees have placed themselves more on the same field of combat as the final stretch begins than they were some months ago. Two U.S. senators, they both present themselves as outsider critics of Washington who will bring change to the practices and policies of the capital, but who both presented agendas that deviated little from party dogma.”
The Washington Post is correct here to suggest that both candidates are more or less business as usual. McCain himself pointed out in his convention speech more unites Obama and him than divides them. McCain and Obama will try to vie for the same ground in the next 60 odd days, trying to make voters believe they are the true candidate of change, while they remain united in principle on all the issues related to maintaining U.S. imperialist hegemony.
Obama and McCain both agree on the need to maintain a significant U.S. presence in the Middle East and Iraq. They both want to increase the size of the military and are unequivocal supporters of the apartheid state of Israel. They both support charter schools, faith-based initiatives, more drilling for oil and big time subsidies to financial institutions and other corporate interests. Both Obama and McCain have picked running mates designed to help them convince as many people as possible to vote for one or the other of the twin parties of imperialism.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation seeks to contrast that vision with one of a new world. Our campaign is a part of the fight against war, racism, unemployment, lack of health care, the housing crisis and all forms of oppression and exploitation. Join with us for a better world. People over profits!
