Wicket, Grimlin, and Reagan's "'mandate"

Scan page 2

On election day, Nov. 6, I went to five-year-old grandson Johnny from kin told him I was a little late because I I vote. He informed me that he had voted I asked who he voted for, he said Reagan, Wicket, and Grimlin.

Now you have to admit that this was a bigger choice than we adults had. But where had I gone wrong? Here I have a five-year-old grandson voting for Reagan, while I, his grandmother, am on the ballot as a socialist candidate for supervisor.

As I heroically held back a scream at having a grandson who would consider voting for Reagan, Johnny cleared himself with the story that most all the kids voted for Reagan, but some voted for the "other guy."

They all voted for "Wicket, som "Grimlin", but none had voted for • 'Stril Ronald Reagan gave his victory speech on Nov. 6 as a cloud of red, white, and blue balloons billowed overhead and a guitarist strummed Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land."

The president vowed to keep "a prairie fire" of patriotism and small-town American values burning. The message of his "historic mandate" was a simple one. "The people are in charge" Reagan said.

Reagan had indeed made promises to (almost) everybody in his carefully engineered campaign rallies. He offered to reduce crime, increase student test scores, and order a manned station in space. He pledged to stimulate economic growth while reducing inflation to "zero-point-zero" and to increase military firepower while remaining "flexible" in talks with the Soviets.

The AFL-CIO failed in its attempt to steer working people clear of Ronald Reagan. According to the New York Times/CBS poll, for example, 537 of blue-collar workers voted for Reagan over Mondale. Despite the fact that nearly all of the 96 unions in the AFLCIO-and such major independent unions as the National Education Association-exhorted their members to vote for Mondale, according to the Gallup poll he received a mere 52% majority from trade unionists. This fell far short of the AFL-CIO's goal of 65% for Mondale.

The AFL-CIO leadership leaped onto the Mondale bandwagon fully a year ago, before the state primaries had even begun to select a Democratic Party candidate. Although labor's "statesmen" kept up their panegyrics until election day—pouring more money into this voting drive than ever before in historythey gained only a lukewarm response from the ranks.

Kirkland's roadshow

In late October, for example, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland rented a camper truck to carry the Democratic Party message to the Midwest industrial belt. But Kirkland's roadshow played to small audiences. Most of his meetings included only local union officials instead of rank-and-file members.

"This place should have been filled wall-to-wall, Steve Major, vice president of District I of the International 2 SOCIALIST ACTION pick up my dergarten. I lad gone to also. When "President sohnny : voter Wicket was chosen because he helped everyone, Grimlin because he helped most of the time, and Stripe was voted down because he was just plain mean. He never again mentioned Reagan, but he enthusiastically explained that if Wicket were president he would be good to everyone and especially little kids. I began to feel a little better about his taste in candidates.

Actually it seems that a large number of the voters cast their ballots for "Wicket, just as Johnny did. Only 53.9% of those who were eligible to vote did so. Despite the millions of dollars spent by both the Democrats and Republicans to "get out the vote" only a little over half voted. This was a little more than voted in the Carter/Reagan election. The "massive landslide" for Reagan amounted to 31% for Reagan and 227 for Mondale. That is, only 31% of those eligible to vote gave a "mandate" to Reagan. Large numbers of Blacks, women, and the poor gave their votes to no one.

Sections of the "left,". who hid their principles in the closet for this election and urged a vote for Mondale as the "peace" candidate, were left holding an empty bag on election eve. Labor leaders who had tried to palm Mondale off as labor's friend were soundly rejected by the working class as wishful thinkers. The advice of feminist leaders was also rejected by the vast majority of women. For women, Blacks, and workers things are as bad under Reagan as they were under Carter. It would seem that the old saying "You can't fool all the people, all the time"

Did the election results reflect a turn to the right? No! In California and other states people voted for increased spending for social programs, for AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) mothers, the elderly, and the homeless. Across the country, cities and states voted for the nuclear freeze and for disarmament. In San Francisco the voters said yes to withdrawing investments from South Africa. The people do not want their money covered in blood.

Mondale, the so-called "peace" candidate, very early in the game said that he would have invaded Grenada just as Reagan did and that he would not hesitate to quarantine Nicaragua if it didn't dance to the tune of American imperialism. This didn't give the majority of the voters the impression of a "peace" candidate. Reagan, near the end of his campaign, tried to put on the face of a "peace" candidate, but he failed. No mask could hide his vicious determination to make the world safe for capitalist investments.

I received a vote of over 10,500 as a socialist candidate for supervisor in San Francisco. Over 10,500 voters agreed that it is only through massive actions—whether strikes, demonstrations, sit-ins, or marches-that we can make the gains necessary for working people and the poor. This was proven during the Vietnam war when Americans marched by the millions to bring that war to a halt.

That is what we must do again—organize ourselves together to halt the military machine and to stop the war in Central America. We must keep on the march regardless of who sits in the White House-even when it's the "Stripe" in the White House, the evil force who hurts little children. We must rally to save the children of Central America. We must mobilize to protect our sons and daughters who will be forced to kill and be killed to make the world safe for the profits of the "Stripes."