Today, I am endorsing Chuck Pennacchio for Senate in 2006. This will be one of many endorsements I will be making on my blog and linking to. I will not always endorse the establishment candidate. I may even endorse a sleeper candidate from time to time.
I feel that the Democratic Party must become a party of principle if we are to win again and build a permanent majority so that Bush and his minions can never take power again. This means that we should vote for the candidate who is the best person on the issues, who plays by the rules, who campaigns actively, and who will listen to people.
Failure to do so will result in people like Lyndon Johnson in 1964. He lied to the American people when he said that they would not get involved in Vietnam. But in fact, he had already made up his mind to go to war there even as he was running his Daisy ad and blasting Barry Goldwater for his hawkish stances. Johnson, of course, did a lot of good things for this country, including picking good judges, passing civil rights legislation, and putting in Medicare and Medicaid. But he dragged us into the quagmire of Vietnam and refused to lead us out again when it was obvious that we were failing there.
Johnson’s Achilles heel – Vietnam – opened the door for Richard Nixon to win the election by keeping many loyal left-wing foot soldiers home in 1968, opening the door for him to appoint many right-wing judges, starting with William Rehnquist and Warren Burger. And we have not regained the momentum since then.
Failure to do so will get us John Kerry. Nobody said we should elect John Kerry because he was the best man on the issues – they did so because he was supposedly the most electable. But Kerry failed to respond to the SBVT attacks, which led to his defeat. He furthermore failed to offer a clear alternative to Iraq. When he described his plan for Iraq, Bush was able to smirk and say, “Well, I know that plan! That’s because it’s the Bush Plan!” This is why we must follow Armando’s Lincoln 1860 plan – that of offering a clear and convincing alternative to the people we are opposing.
People want a person who can protect them. That is simply a fact of human nature; the need for security is a biological trait that we have learned from our ancestors, who had to protect themselves against storms, predators, earthquakes, cold, and whatever else nature saw fit to throw their way. So when Kerry failed to respond to the SBVT attacks, it gave them a legitimacy that they did not deserve. It also worked, not because people believed them, but because it raised questions about his ability to protect this country. If Kerry could not protect himself against these sadistic and senseless attacks, then how could he protect the rest of us?
I voted for Kucinich in 2004 in the primaries because I wanted to vote for a candidate I could support on the issues, not because he was the most likeable or the most electable. I voted for him because he was the only candidate who wanted to withdraw from Iraq, he was the only person calling for universal health care, he was the only person actually interested in hunger and homelessness issues, and he was the only candidate who called for an end to the massive corporate hog farms that were infesting the rural area which I lived in before I moved here to Washington. Howard Dean, Wes Clark, John Kerry, and Jon Edwards were all very similar to each other on the issues, Gephardt had dropped out, and Lieberman was too much of a right-winger and a war cheerleader.
At the same time, there is a very big difference between how I would vote in the general election versus how I would vote in the primary. This is because there is a very clear difference between Democrats and Republicans in two areas. The first is that we’re the ones who put the money in, while they’re the ones who would take the money out. This difference is extremely clear when you look at the so-called deficit reduction package, which cut money out of student aid, education, and Medicare while giving tax breaks to the rich and thus not saving any money at all. Almost every single Republican voted for this bill, while every single Democrat voted against this bill.
The second is that we’re the ones who play by the rules, while they are the ones who do not. I challenge those who would say there is no difference between the two parties to show me one scandal that the Democrats have been involved in that can compare to the Downing Street Memo, Plamegate, the Niger forgeries, Enron, Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff, or any other scandal you care to mention. It is very important that we elect Democrats this election, because if we can get to 51 in the Senate, we get to control the committee chairs.
From there, we can issue subpoenas, conduct investigations, and expose the hard truth about the Bush administration and their culture of corruption as well as get to the truth about what happened in the Iraq war. We can also create pressure from the left through people like Senators Feingold and Boxer to generate momentum for withdrawal from Iraq. We can also generate pressure to open impeachment hearings against the President. A whole avenue of possibilities will open up to us that are not open now.
The primary election is where we can think big and elect the candidate who best supports our values. But the general election is the time where we need to get behind the primary winner and work as a team to take back control of the Senate and House. Now, let us get down to business.
When it comes to the Pennsylvania primary, the choice is clear for me – Chuck Pennacchio. First of all, both him and Alan Sandals are the two candidates who best share my values. Both would support the plan to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible in a way that best promotes stability. However, Pennacchio is much more active in campaigning than Sandals and his website is updated much more often. Furthermore, Pennacchio has a much better presence on the web, with many bloggers who support him. Here is Pennacchio’s stance on the war:
By choosing to go to war in Iraq in a reckless and deceptive manner, George Bush promoted the concepts of “nation-building” and liberation before the War on Terror. In doing so, this administration has opened a Pandora’s Box of dangers upon America and the world.
In advocating and pursuing a policy of “pre-emptive war,” the Bush-Santorum team has created a geopolitical climate with the real potential to bring about new and grave international conflicts. We have set a critical precedent which if followed by the rest of the world, could lead to wars between China and Taiwan, North Korea and South Korea, and India and Pakistan, to list a few of many. Any or every one of these limited conflicts would become a full-scale war, and likely trigger American involvement. The precedent we have set must be renounced, and America must return to a sane and effective foreign policy.
The Bush administration took America into war with Iraq through misleading and deceptive means. Congress abrogated its Constitutional duty by giving President Bush the authority to send troops into Iraq without a formal declaration of war. Chuck will stand up and demand that our Constitution, which states that “only Congress shall declare war,” be followed. He would not have voted for the Iraq War resolution, nor would he have voted for a congressional declaration of war.
Chuck believes that we must work to rebuild our alliances throughout the world in order to salvage good out of a campaign that has, heretofore, been disastrously mismanaged. We must engage the Arab and Muslim world and our traditional allies in Europe and Asia and encourage them to take a leadership role in the stabilization of Iraq. We must develop a timeline and exit strategy that brings American troops home as soon as is feasible. We must balance the desire to protect our troops with the unfortunate reality that leaving without a stabilization strategy in place will send the nation of Iraq spiraling into civil war and chaos.
Pennacchio’s stance on the war is much more thorough and well thought out than Sandals, who simply says this:
The American military should redeploy to the borders, focus on training Iraqi security forces, and begin withdrawing troops.
But either candidate is far superior on the war to the establishment candidate Bob Casey, who refuses to commit to working for any kind of withdrawal from Iraq. Instead, he supports the President’s policy of not leaving until all of the Iraqi units are able to fight on their own. Right now, there are currently none able to fight on their own after three years of fighting. At that rate, we will be in Iraq until doomsday.
In fact, I have been very disappointed in the conduct of Bob Casey’s people. I frequently have difficulty getting a single straight answer to questions on the issues. I asked Casey supporters what he thinks about self-righteous pharmacists who deny women morning-after pills and what he would do to protect women who run into such people. I have not gotten a single straight answer. I have not gotten one straight answer as to why we should support Bob Casey in the primary except for the fact that he is better than Rick Santorum. That is the kind of thinking that cost John Kerry the election. And Casey’s people have not learned from that mistake.
It is not good enough to say that Casey is better than Santorum. I want to know where Casey stands on the issues and how he is better than Santorum on the issues. Looking around on Casey’s website, I find some reasons – he would put more money in for Medicare, more money for veterans benefits, crack down on crooked nursing homes that exploit senior citizens, and other such things. But this is the sort of thing I would like to see Casey’s people promoting, not just the mere fact that Casey is better than Santorum.
And hysterical charges that Pennacchio supporters are somehow helping out Rick Santorum are nonsense. That would only be true if they voted for a 3rd party or stayed home in November. But that is not necessarily the case. If I were to live in PA, I would vote for Bob Casey in November, should he win the primary. But I do not appreciate candidates or their supporters who would take my vote for granted.
And furthermore, Pennacchio is stronger than Casey on many other issues as well. Pennacchio supports mandatory paper trails, random recounts of 5% of the precincts, and hand recounts where necessary; Casey does not discuss this issue on his site. Pennacchio is a stronger opponent of Free Trade than Casey. Pennacchio believes in a Universal Health Care system, while Casey would try to fix the present system. Pennacchio supports the Equal Rights Amendment and a bill by Chuck Schumer making it illegal for anti-abortion protestors convicted of harassing women entering a reproductive health clinic to use Bankruptcy courts to evade paying their fines; Casey does not even discuss women’s rights on his site. Pennacchio would double the present minimum wage, while Casey would not raise it as much. Pennacchio supports equal rights for same-sex couples; Casey does not discuss this issue on his site.
Throughout the broad range of issues, Chuck Pennacchio has the best understanding of what it means to be a Democrat – putting the money into social programs, equality for all, no use of the military except when absolutely necessary, supporting judges who will uphold the law as opposed to legislating their right-wing agenda from the bench, and protection of our election systems from fraud, hacking, and tampering. He deserves our support for Senate.
