It’s political canvassing time in Missouri’s 83^rd State Representative District, and I’m out on the not-very-mean streets of an affluent, inner-ring suburb in St. Louis, ringing doorbells and trying to get people to care about a special election on November 8. I’m volunteering for Tracy McCreery, a Democrat, who has all the right experience and progressive values to make her a very effective state lawmaker who will hit the ground running when elected.

Under normal circumstances, Tracy should be an easy sell. She’s worked as district aide to one of Missouri’s staunchest progressive state legislators [Missouri readers will recognize her name: Joan Bray.] As a result, Tracy knows her way around the state capitol and its arcane rules. She’s earned street cred in her district as an engaged and visible community volunteer and leader. And she’s got endorsements from respected progressive groups, like NARAL, PROMO and Missouri Women’s Political Caucus. It also helps that the district she’s running in almost always elects a Democrat to the State Legislature.

I’m totally comfortable talking her up to voters, not just because of her official credentials, but also because I’ve worked alongside her, observed her competence and intelligence, and experienced the positive vibe and high energy level that she exudes.

Unfortunately, I’m not canvassing for Tracy under normal circumstances. It’s complicated. Tracy is running in a special election for a seat vacated when her predecessor moved into a newly created elected position. Missouri’s governor—a Democrat—took his  sweet time calling for a special election, so there was a lot of suspense, much wasted time, and zero public awareness of what was going on. The special election will be on November 8—but there’s nothing else on the ballot in the 83^rd district, so it’s going to be mighty hard to get folks out to vote.

But compared to the next thing I’m going to tell you, those unusual circumstances are mere annoyances. Here’s the biggie: Under Missouri statutes, in a special election like this one, the local township political committee determines who the candidate will be. Tracy thought she had a pretty solid chance of being picked.  But, no:  When it was time for the committee to vote, Tracy got caught in an internecine, micro-geo-political rivalry between committee members from the municipalities in the 83^rd district. Tracy lives in one of them, but committee members from another wanted a native son—even though Tracy clearly had better credentials, more experience and a strong base. So, using a back-room system of weighted voting that I can’t explain because it makes no sense to me, the committee anointed someone other than Tracy. Did I mention that the eventual candidate had a heavily weighted vote and got to cast it for his own nomination?

So, you might ask, how is it that, having not been selected as the candidate by her Democratic committee, Tracy’s got me out here with a clipboard and campaign literature this afternoon?

Tracy is running as an independent.

And that’s even more complicated. Just to get on the ballot, she had to gather signatures totaling 2% of the votes cast in the 83^rd District for the Democratic candidate for governor in the 2008 election. [Try figuring that out without a calculator.]  Okay, it’s not a huge number, but it’s a hurdle many states—and let’s be honest: political parties—put in the way of upstarts who want to run outside of our jealously guarded, roped-off, two-party system.

Tracy got the signatures, no problem. But now, as volunteers like me talk to voters, we have to explain that, while Tracy has strong democratic values, she’s going to appear on the ballot as an independent. And as anyone who has canvassed knows, you often get less than a minute to make your case. So, let’s see, I’ve got about 60 seconds to say that I’m volunteering for Tracy McCreery, there’s a special election they’ve never heard of in six weeks, she’s running for state rep in their district [and sometimes you have to explain what that is, and why it’s important], she’s got great qualifications, AND, when you vote for her, you need to vote for the candidate, not the party. And I have to do all of that while also trying to get the campaign flyer into the person’s hand before they shut the door on me and go back to watching the football game.

Don’t get me wrong: It can be done, I’m going to do my best to do it, and Tracy can win, despite the unreasonable obstacles that unreasonable people and circumstances have plopped in her path.  She’s an articulate, smart, rational candidate who exemplifies the kind of person that people on the left—and not just here in Missouri—should be actively backing, rather than wasting energy bashing right-wing extremists.  We certainly shouldn’t have to settle for less qualified candidates when there are people like Tracy who are willing to do the hard work of getting elected and governing. So, it makes me crazy when I see how petty politics and insider power struggles get in the way of the much bigger, much more important goal that we all should share:  getting real progressives like Tracy McCreery elected, up and down the line, all across the country.

The post Canvassing for a real progressive, not letting back-room politics get in the way appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American dramatic film directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur, about one man’s effect on American politics. It was controversial when it was released, but also successful at the box office, and made Stewart a major movie star. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and won for Best Original Story. In 1989, the Library of Congress added Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to the United States National Film Registry, for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The corruption in Washington 1939, as described by Capra, seems quaint by today’s standards. Instead of a local bully funding a dam for his own enrichment, we have a right leaning Supreme Court dramatically expanding the power of multinational corporations to influence our elections. As if in celebration of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation gave the business friendly Republican Governor’s Association $1,000,000, and health insurance giant Wellpoint. Inc. followed with a more modest $500,000. In today’s world, Capra’s idea of a lone individual making a difference in Washington against powerful corporations such as News Corp and Wellpoint and their swarms lobbyists seems laughable. But, in these cynical and difficult times, his film bears a second look.

The Plot:

The governor of a state has to pick a replacement for a recently deceased U.S. Senator. He chooses Jefferson Smith, a naïve and idealistic scout leader, who would be easy for the political machine to manipulate.

Smith is taken under the wing of the publicly esteemed, but secretly corrupt, Senator Joseph Paine. Smith’s first bill is something close to his heart—the authorization of a federal government loan to buy land in his home state for a national boys’ camp.  He is unaware the proposed campsite is part of a dam-building graft scheme included in a Public Works bill introduced by Senator Paine.

In order to save his Public Works bill, Paine wrongly accuses Smith of corruption. Smith, naïve to the ways of Washington is blindsided. But with the help of his smart secretary, he takes the Senate floor and filibusters the assembled senators for 24 hours on ethics and American ideals. Payne, overcome by guilt, leaves the chamber and tries unsuccessfully to kill himself. Then he bursts back into the Senate chamber and confesses to his graft scheme, and declares Smith’s innocence.

Smith’s filibuster (and the tacit encouragement of the Senate President) reflects Capra’s belief in the difference that one individual can make.

Seems the film hit a nerve . . .

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington premiered in Washington, D.C., on October 17, 1939. Immediately, the Washington press and members of Congress attacked it as anti-American and pro-Communist for its portrayal of corruption in the American government.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Ambassador to Great Britain, fearing the film would damage America’s image in Europe, urged that it be withdrawn from European release. The film, which celebrated speaking truth to power, ended up being banned in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Russia and Falangist Spain. In 1942, a ban was imposed on American films in German occupied France. Some theaters chose to show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington non-stop as the last movie before the ban went into effect.

In Capra’s movie, the naive idealist Jefferson Smith revered Abraham Lincoln, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. Having idealized government from afar, he was devastated to discover the Senate was influenced by graft and greed. But, instead of giving up and going back to his small town life, he stayed and fought back.

Capra believed that individual actions matter, a theme he continued to explore in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Capra’s vision still meaningful today

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has a lot to say to voters and candidates who desperately want to restore a healthy democracy in America, but feel overwhelmed at the amount of corruption at all levels of our political process. In the film, the character Jefferson Smith learned from his father, a journalist who was murdered for reporting the truth, that fighting for “lost causes” is one of the most important things one can do in life. In the film, Smith fights what seems to be a lost cause—undoing the corrupting influence of money in Washington. Only, in Capra’s world, he succeeds!

So what can we do, as individuals, in the upcoming midterm elections to make a difference? We can run for office ourselves on a platform of getting money out of Washington, or support progressive candidates who do. Vote for or be a candidate who does one or all of the following:

• believes in the concept of government of the people, by the people and for the people
• refuses to take corporate money
• works to make publicly funded elections a reality
• promises to weaken the recent United Citizens Supreme Court decision through legislation, or overturn it through constitutional means.
• works to dramatically reduce the influence of lobbyists in Congress by banning lobbyists from writing legislation, and by banning congressional staffers, Senators or Congresspersons from taking lobbying positions for five years after they leave office.

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