To be perfectly honest, I feel sorry for Matt Gonzalez (who I like personally). He's had a tough run at politics. First, he had to rebel against the Democratic Party for not being the Green Party. Now, he's rebelling against the Green Party to run with Ralph Nader. Along the way, he managed to completely miss out on the most important progressive realignment in decades.
Justifiably, he's getting whacked. There's the new Facebook Group Former Gonzalez Campaigners for Obama (recently joined by Chris Daly). I actually don't think I've seen a single positive comment about this stunt. And is it really any wonder?
I asked Gonzalez about this, about whether he is really arguing that there's no difference between Obama and McCain on the war. His answer was there's not a "drastic" difference.
And this was the best candidate to challenge Newsom last year? Really?
UPDATE: Mayor Newsom has some thoughts about Matt Gonzalez on the Nader ticket over at the Big Orange. It's worth a read, and perhaps a rec so others will get a chance to read it as well.
I made no mistake there, I mean that by running with Nader, Gonzalez has transitioned from feasible candidate to somebody shouting from the sidelines. BeyondChron has the news:
At 9:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time today, presidential candidate Ralph Nader will announce his running mate at a Washington DC press conference. BeyondChron has learned that it will be former San Francisco Supervisor and Board President Matt Gonzalez.
The previous day, Gonzalez had written a BeyondChron editorial about Barack Obama that harshly criticized the junior Senator from Illinois for not actually being that progressive.
But his record suggests that he is incapable of ushering in any kind of change I'd like to see. It is one of accommodation and concession to the very political powers that we need to reign in and oppose if we are to make truly lasting advances.
He goes on to recount some of Obama's more troubling positions on class action and tort deform, where he enabled the Bush administration to plunder the rights of consumers and working Americans for the protection of corporations, on the plundering of our environment by mining corporations.
As for me, I am under no illusions that Obama was the progressive choice. Clearly Kucinich was the best for that, but Chris Dodd and John Edwards were clearly to the left of Obama. I understood that and hoped that Edwards would squeak by with a win in Iowa. But once it become clear that Senator Obama was building a grassroots infrastructure that could be leveraged to produce long-term electoral strength, I knew that he should be the nominee.
Look, Obama isn't perfect, and neither are any of the Democrats. I mean, you needn't look any further than the front page of today's Chronicle to see where the Dems are giving away money meant for WIC and Food Stamps to agribusiness giants like ADM. But as this movement grows, truly "we are the change we've been waiting for."
Gonzalez acknowledges this in his post, that this movement is something special. But, this movement is not about any candidate. It's been growing for a while, and Obama, like Dean before him, has only ridden the tidal wave of support for a new progressive agenda built from leadership from the grassroots on up. We have been bruised by the current administration, and while this might be a smaller step than we would have liked, it's clearly a step in the right direction.
The Green Party will hold a presidential debate in San Francisco on Jan. 13. The announcement is today on the Alameda County Green Party web site as well as having been posted at Third Party Watch.
