home

contact

action

weekly worker

respect the unity coalition

european social forum

theory

resources

what we fight for

programme

join

search

communist university

links

our history

Enjoy the
Weekly Worker?
How about showing us your appreciation? Producing the Weekly Worker costs a substantial amount of money. Our only source for that financial backing comes from people like you: readers and supporters of our newspaper. You may not agree with the CPGB on every dot and comma, but we know that 1000s of comrades appreciate our open, critical and democratic press

Send cheques, payable to CPGB, BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX or donate online:

Weekly Worker 551 Thursday November 4 2004

US campaigning organisations’ websites

Getting the vote out

With Tweedle Kerry conceding defeat to Tweedle Bush it is clear that the old Democratic Party adage, that the higher the turnout the more certain they are of winning, has been disproved by life itself. Indeed both plutocratic parties worked furiously in their own ways to maximise those voting.

Of course, sometimes this was done in a ‘non-partisan’ way, but it did not fool. Take the language of America Votes (www.americavotes.org), for example. This umbrella grouping gathers its list of sponsors under a “New coalition for America” heading - one which gives a slight indication to the way the organisation is leaning. Claiming “America wins when America votes”, the introductory piece set itself up as an “historic partnership” of groups who have combined to “increase voter registration, education and participation in electoral politics”. Its ‘What we do’ section may have pretended the alliance is non-partisan, but its press release on a Republican front group (also called America Votes), accusing it of destroying Democrat nomination forms, suggested otherwise. If that was not enough, a quick perusal of the sponsor list showed up some of the usual suspects from the pro-Democrat camp.

MoveOn.org is one America Votes sponsor that did everything it could to promote a Democrat vote without explicitly calling for it. For example, its ‘Leave no voter behind’ campaign made no bones about “working to elect progressive leaders”. Contents also included a legal complaint to the Federal Trade Commission concerning Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel’s interpretation of the phrase ‘fair and balanced’ (if readers unfamiliar with Fox can imagine a Republican make-over of Soviet-era state news, you are not far off the mark). Also in there was an interesting attack on Gallup’s polls that showed Bush with a double-digit lead - an oversight MoveOn generously put down to archaic methodology, and not the evangelical christianity of George Gallup junior, the company’s head.

The American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organisations (www.aflcio.org) had a nice page titled ‘Working families vote!’ It sensibly contained some practical information on what to do if voter eligibility was challenged, such as having the right to cast a provisional ballot; and more partisan material. For example, the ‘Top 10 reasons for working families to vote’ was merely a sales pitch for Kerry.

Progressive organisations were not the only ones seeking to get the vote out. The National Right to Life Political Action Committee (www.nrlpac.org) invited viewers to compare the Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards voting record on partial-birth abortion, abortion on demand, etc. As you can imagine, the White House incumbents have an appallingly reactionary record on a woman’s right to choose, whereas Kerry is shown to have consistently voted in its defence (despite his many faults). I wonder who got the anti-choice vote?

The Blogs for Bush (www.blogsforbush.com) website gathered together a group of disparate Republican bloggers to generally bash the Democrats, moan about the phantom “liberal bias” of the media, and mobilise activists to cajole the undecided into voting for Bush. ‘Report voter fraud’ obtrusively flashed away at the top of the page, inviting readers to call the authorities and submit their own reports to an open thread BfB is hosting. Hilariously it claimed: “Democrats are willing to do anything - even break the law - to take this election.” While no one vaguely critical of the USA’s ‘unique’ democracy would dispute such a claim, it is as if the Republican-orchestrated vote-rigging in Florida last time round never happened for these people! As Freud was fond of saying, silences can be more significant than what is actually said.

The Christian Coalition (www.cca.org) stands to defend America’s “godly heritage” and is for taking the US “back” from “judicial tyranny”. It does not take much to realise this is a cipher for clawing back progressive gains that have been won through the courts (such as the historic Roe v Wade that established the right to have an abortion). Its “non-partisan” voter guide conscientiously framed itself as neutrally as possible: for example, on the issue of “educational choice for parents (vouchers)”, CCU put Kerry down for “opposes”. Yes, this careful wording was sure to influence absolutely nobody.
Many have commented that this election divided America like no other in living memory. This was certainly reflected in the various websites backing one candidate or the other.
Phil Hamilton

Print this page