Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Email Us
Delegates to the Socialist Party USA national convention in Los Angeles turned to their 2008 vice-presidential nominee yesterday to head the party’s ticket in the 2012 presidential sweepstakes. In nominating Stewart A. Alexander, an early frontrunner for the party’s top spot, the delegates turned back a late but spirited challenge from sociology professor Jerry Levy, a longtime activist in Vermont’s Liberty Union Party.
The 60-year-old Alexander defeated Levy by an unofficial count of 32-17 on the convention’s first and only ballot.
Alejandro (Alex) Mendoza of Fort Worth, Texas, an ex-Marine and owner of a lawn care business, was named as Alexander’s vice-presidential running mate. The little-known Mendoza, 35, was a last-minute recruit for the party’s second slot.
An attempt earlier in the day to place Cindy Sheehan’s name in nomination for the vice presidency was blocked by national secretary Greg Pason and other party leaders on the grounds that the celebrated antiwar activist — a member of the California-based Peace & Freedom Party — isn’t currently a dues-paying member of the Socialist Party USA.
In rejecting her potential candidacy, the party expressed its gratitude and admiration for Sheehan’s tireless work in the antiwar movement and the struggle for economic justice.
In capturing his party’s nomination nearly thirteen months before voters head to the polls, a buoyant Alexander told Uncovered Politics that his candidacy offers the Socialist Party “an opportunity to gain momentum” heading into next year’s presidential election.
A resident of Murrieta, California, Alexander said that he also plans to seek the Peace & Freedom Party’s presidential nomination in his home state and those of assorted left-leaning parties and groups in various other states around the country. (Hoping to serve as a catalyst for progressive change, the Peace & Freedom Party plans to promote a national left-wing ticket next year for the first time since 1972 when it unselfishly asserted itself in the fledgling People’s Party campaign of Dr. Benjamin Spock — providing much of the blood, sweat and tears in the famous pediatrician’s principled yet forlorn battle against Richard Nixon and George McGovern that year.)
“As the Occupy Wall Street movement vividly demonstrates, the American people are crying out and demanding change,” said Alexander, adding that he hopes his egalitarian message will serve as lightning rod for those dissatisfied on the Left.
Alexander, who prides himself on his working-class background, maintains that the Socialist Party historically has been the “the true representative of the Left,” a point he hopes to drive home not only to disillusioned progressives, but to millions of working-class and poor Americans who have been mercilessly pummeled during the current economic crisis — a near-catastrophic downturn caused almost entirely by the recklessness and avarice of those on Wall Street and their overt enablers in the nation’s capital, Democrats and Republicans alike.
President Obama, he likes to remind his audiences, received $37.6 million from Wall Street during the 2008 campaign.
A longtime civil rights activist who once ran for mayor of Los Angeles, the amiable and easy-going Alexander is certainly no stranger to third-party politics. In addition to serving as Brian P. Moore’s vice-presidential co-star on the Socialist ticket in 2008, he was the Peace & Freedom Party’s candidate for lieutenant-governor of California in 2006 and was an unsuccessful candidate for that party’s gubernatorial nomination in 2010, finishing a close second in a three-way contest.
The Socialist Party’s presidential ticket appeared on the ballot in eight states in each of the last two presidential elections.
Pingback: Socialist Party USA nominates Stewart Alexander for President | Independent Political Report
Once again the Socialist Party attempts to take the top spot on California’s Peace and Freedom Party ticket. Just as in every election for the past forty years, Stewart Alexander will fail to capture the flag for the ragtag rightists of the S.P. despite the enormous amount of funds poured into these races by the notorious Los Angeles landlord and S.P. padrone, Maggie Feigin.
The Feiginites are pinning their dim hopes on Proposition 14 and hoping to induce enough voters under California’s new “Top Two” system to look to the Socialist Party. Fortunately for Peace and Freedom Party, the P&F party’s own rules and by-laws will leave the Presidential nomination to the Peace and Freedom Party state convention in August 2012. Peace and Freedom’s history shows that it will likely put forth a far more progressive and far left ticket than the all male slate represented by Alexander.
Recently there has been an upswelling in Peace and Freedom Party to bolster its feminist socialist heritage and there is an increasing likelihood that the party will nominate women for the office of President and Vice President.
A number of women activists come to mind as potential candidates for these two high offices: Dina Padilla of Sacramento, Maureen Smith of Santa Cruz, or retired lawyer Margarite M. Buckley of Los Angeles are three who immediately bring favorable responses from Peace and Freedom Party activists and voters.
While I am disappointed that the SP-USA didn’t nominate Jerry Levy, and I also believe that its refusal to consider Cindy Sheehan was a mistake, I would also point out that the previous comment about the supposedly farther to the left P&FP is rather laughable. The Peace and Freedom Party in the last Presidential election nominated Ralph Nader, who is not even a socialist, as its candidate. Given that the P&FP party is ostenibly socialist, this makes a mockery of that party’s platform. Supporters of the Peace and Freedom Party can hardly claim with a straight face that the party nominates far left candidates when it nominates a non-socialist like Nader. Let’s get serious.
P&FP registrants did not claim to have nominated a socialist – Nader.
No one can make a mockery of that brilliant platform designed to enable the work to build the socialist society.
Being a democratically operated organization, with requirements needing to be met that satisfy state regulations, P&FP succumbed to a last minute timely registration plot by Nader backers, largely Green, I think. Much P&FP was willing to back the wholly unattractive, totally solid socialist theorist LaRiva, not Nader, or Moore, a poorly qualified socialism speaker.
Some even put McKinney forward, although she has less acquaintance with socialism than any of these, stunning as she is as a worker for justice.
P&FP was outdone by the rules. Some of P&FP registrants tried to enlist renowned advocates of socialist struggle, but they declined, usually because they couldn’t expend their aging stamina and limited resources campaigning. There was of course, also an element of wanting to be a numerical contender, which we’re obviously not able to do.
Nader actually comes across extremely well. While he advocates repair of capitalism (if it were ‘repaired’ it’d be socialism), his program is to build awareness that the goal is that justice, and the ability for people to come to accomplish a system that serves all people well and equitably in gentle care of Earth, securely, unto our children’s children.
So don’t blame us we voted for … someone else.
Camejo gave a standing speech excoriating us for continuing to insist on saying socialism.
I am a fan and friend of Stewart Alexander politics in Socialisim- he is a great leader who can bring the “real change” for working class people.
Obama just talk about “change” His administration is controlled by the capitalism and rich special interest group.
Regards
Mohammad “Obama” Arif
mohammadarif2743@yahoo.com
Pingback: Left-wing Sectarianism, Occupy Everything, and the history of the left-wing parties. « Left Turn At the Crossroads of Critical Thinking:
The factionalism and divisiveness among Leftist groups here in the United States is distressing to me. If we could somehow come together and form coalitions, join forces and share resources — Socialist values — then we could win some seats in State Assemblies, perhaps a few in the US Congress. Then maybe, maybe, maybe we can be recognized as a viable political alternative to the two parties who serve no one but themselves and their masters, the Finance Capitalists. I call for All of Us who stand on the Left, for People and Equality, Unity in Diversity, Peace, Freedom and Labor Power to Unite in our common cause.
To Samantha and everyone else looking for unified socialist election campaigns, please visit http://www.noc2012.org.
Pingback: Cost/Benefit Analysis: ASP/SPUSA « The Socialist Agenda
Pingback: U.S. Election 2012: Alexander Wants Unemployment Benefits Extended Indefinitely « Socialist Party Los Angeles
Election 2012: Unemployment Drop a Sham According to Socialist Party Ticket
Stewart Alexander for President
Alex Mendoza for Vice President
Los Angeles, CA – December 3, 2011 – The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the unemployment rate fell by .4% to 8.6% in November. The Socialist Party USA ticket of Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza feels that this is something that will pass by January and that long term jobs are not being created. They call for serious job creation programs to ensure that workers can readily find employment that pays well.
“This is the spending season,” states Alexander; “businesses are hiring desperate workers at low wages to sell merchandise. These workers will make a thousand dollars or two and be pushed out once Christmas is over. This is often part time work while it lasts.”
Over one third of the new work was in retail, directly related to Christmas sales. The key signs of economic health, manufacturing and construction jobs remained stable.
In addition to the seasonal jobs, hundreds of thousands of workers gave up on seeking work and are no longer considered as unemployed despite being capable and willing to work. There are 2.6 million Americans whom have searched for work in the past year but are not considered unemployed because they hadn’t searched in the past four weeks, not because they have found work. To put this in perspective, 13.3 million people are officially considered unemployed. This amount does not include those who have given up more than a year ago, nor the 8.5 million underemployed, those whom want to work full time and are forced to accept part time work.
In addition to these temporary jobs, the average pay of the private sector employee has fallen slightly while inflation marches on.
“We’ve seen a lot of this in my home state of Texas,” says Mendoza. “Governor Rick Perry has enacted economic policies which bring in a lot of new jobs, but they’re not jobs to write home about. We have good jobs being replaced by minimum wage jobs so businesses get more work for less cost and people aren’t technically unemployed anymore.”
The Alexander/Mendoza campaign calls for a real jobs program in order to make this happen, as well as protecting public sector jobs which have been faltering since the crisis began. They say that spending billions of dollars on incentives for businesses doesn’t get the job done – rather they call for the government to create jobs directly.
“Government employees work every bit as hard as private sector employees,” explains Alexander, “and given the staffing cuts while workloads increase, probably much harder. If we have money to give to private industry as an incentive, we have the capital to do for ourselves. We don’t need to be wasting any of that money on bonuses for executives at companies like Solara – it belongs in the pockets of workers put back into the workforce.”
The Tennessee Valley Authority, created during the New Deal, did just this – providing power in an area of the country that the private sector wouldn’t touch and the power was both cheaper and wages higher while still pulling in a profit for the US government.
Find more information at: Stewart Alexander for President; Stewart Alexander 2012; Stewart Alexander for President 2012 http://www.stewartalexanderforpresident2012.org/index.htm
Stewart Alexander is right. Employers added just 120,000 jobs in November — 50,000 of which were short-term, low-wage seasonal workers hired by retailers. The sharp drop in the unemployment rate is primarily due to the fact that approximately 315,000 people had simply given up trying to find work or whose jobless benefits have been completely exhausted.
President Obama will likely enter the 2012 presidential campaign with the highest jobless rate of any President since World War II.
Pingback: Socialist Party Chooses National Ticket « Ballot Access News