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SW Online's ongoing coverage and analysis
Election 2004









 

SUBJECTS BELOW:
Analysis of Election 2004
John Kerry's rotten record
Should we look to the Democrats?
The Nader challenge
Bush and the Republicans
Is there an alternative?
Analysis of Election 2002

LATEST NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Backing Democrats has pulled the antiwar movement to the right
Why "inside-outside" is getting nowhere
The truth is that rather than moving Democrats to the left, the inside-outside strategy has moved the antiwar movement to the right.

The left and the Democratic Party:
With or against?
David Swanson of the Progressive Democrats of America and Lance Selfa of Socialist Worker debate whether the Democratic Party can be reformed.

ANALYSIS OF ELECTION 2004

Did Bush steal the White House again?
If there was anything notable about the dirty tricks in Election 2004, it was how similar they were to every other election organized in the U.S.

Explaining John Kerry's defeat
America's right turn?
The media claim that George Bush's victory is evidence that the U.S. is a deeply conservative country that puts "moral values" above all else. But is their spin right?

Why John Kerry lost
George Bush led the country into an unpopular war, handed out tax breaks to the wealthy and used the occupation of Iraq to reward corporate cronies. But he won re-election anyway--thanks, above all, to John Kerry.

Right-wing republic?
Who is to blame for Bush's victory? Unfortunately, the first conclusions coming from the Anybody But Bush left appear to have shifted blame to the U.S. population itself.

John Pilger on the "choice" in Election 2004
Bush vs. Kerry: The fake debate
Journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger explains why Washington's wars have been waged by Republicans and Democrats who "joined hands across America's illusory political divide."

The case against "Anybody But Bush"
Should we vote for the pro-war, pro-occupation, pro-USA PATRIOT Act, pro-NAFTA, anti-gay marriage Democrat? Socialist Worker answers the arguments of the "Anybody But Bush" progressives.

What they really mean by "electability"
Forget whether they supported the war. The only thing that seems to matter in the race for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination is "electability."

Debating the elections:
Who should we be for in 2004?
More than a year before the vote, left-wing publications are already filled with discussions about Election 2004. Here, Socialist Worker prints two viewpoints from Norman Solomon and Sharon Smith.

NORMAN SOLOMON: We have a responsibility to work to defeat Bush

SHARON SMITH: The Democrats don't deserve our support

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JOHN KERRY'S ROTTEN RECORD

Two pampered children of wealth
Skull vs. Bones
CounterPunch coeditor Jeffrey St. Clair looks at the sordid history of the two presidential candidates of the major parties.

Neither Kerry's critics nor supporters will talk about...
The real Vietnam
The issue capturing headlines today isn't the occupation of Iraq, or the Wal-Martization of the economy, but John Kerry's role in the Vietnam War. And both sides are ignoring the real story.

"You'll think you're looking at a Republican convention"
John Kerry's star-spangled convention
The Democrats' convention came wrapped in red, white and blue, and had one message above all others--that Kerry can be counted on to go to war to promote U.S. power overseas.

The John-John team
In John Edwards, the Democrats found the most obvious possible middle-of-the-road choice for their uninspiring campaign to defeat George W. Bush.

Pro-war, anti-war, insider, outsider, liberal, conservative
The many faces of John Kerry
John Kerry has everything that Corporate America--and the Democratic Party establishment--want in the White House. Socialist Worker looks at Kerry's rotten record.

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SHOULD WE LOOK TO THE DEMOCRATS?

Peter Camejo on the two-party system and Election 2004
"A dictatorship of money over people"
Ralph Nader's vice presidential running mate Peter Camejo talks to Socialist Worker about Election 2004 and the importance of the Nader challenge.

Guilt trippers for Kerry
Those on the U.S. left who refuse to support John Kerry do so because we understand that both the Democratic and Republican Parties share a common goal in promoting the interests of American "empire."

An argument to scare progressives into voting Democrat
What about the Supreme Court?
Democrats are recycling an argument about the future of the Supreme Court that progressives can set their watches by--because we hear it every four years.

Democrats' Obama ready to bomb Iran
John Kerry's antiwar supporters repeatedly warn that a military attack on Iran is imminent if George Bush is reelected. But Democrats are rattling their sabers at the same target.

George Monbiot on the elections:
"You have to start working for change now"
One of the leading figures in the global justice movement explains why he calls for activists to challenge the pressure to vote for "the bad against the terrible"--and instead support Ralph Nader.

The candidate of the antiwar movement?
Will Dennis Kucinich's liberal campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination bend the party to the will of the people--or bend the people to the will of the party?

Liberals pin hopes on Dean
Does this man really deserve your vote?
For many progressives, Howard Dean is seen as the realistic choice in the 2004 presidential election. But dig a little deeper into what Dean stands for, and activists will find a different story.

The real record of the last Democrat in the White House
The broken promises of Bill Clinton
When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, many people hoped he would bring real change after 12 years of Republicans in the White House. But over the next eight years, Clinton left behind a trail of broken promises.

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THE NADER CHALLENGE

Why you should vote for Nader/Camejo
On almost every issue that people care about, the differences between Bush and Kerry are harder and harder to find. But there is an alternative.

Look who's taking Republican money...
Hypocrisy of the Nader bashers
Did the Democratic Party's attack dogs really make a television ad denouncing Ralph Nader for accepting money from known Republican donors--and pay for it with money from a known Republican donor?

A reply to Norman Solomon and Medea Benjamin
We can't struggle only when it's easy
Todd Chretien, the Northern California field coordinator for the Nader-Camejo campaign, wrote an open letter responding to appeals by radicals like Benjamin and Solomon to oppose Nader's independent presidential campaign.

The Democrat's war on Nader
It's a scorched-earth war carried out around the country to challenge Ralph Nader's effort to get his candidacy on the ballot in different states.

Should the left support Nader?
Who should the left support in Election 2004? Here, syndicated columnist Norman Solomon takes issue with a recent Socialist Worker editorial, and SW responds.

Convention rejects Nader endorsement
The Green Party's step backward
The Green Party convention's rejection of Ralph Nader is a step away from a challenge to the two-party "duopoly" and away from the political prominence that the Greens have achieved.

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BUSH AND THE REPUBLICANS

Republican creep show in New York
Invasion of the warmongers
The motley collection of warmongers, bigots and corporate sleaze who run the Republican Party descended on New York City like an invading army.

Polls show growing numbers oppose Bush's occupation of Iraq
Has the tide turned against the U.S.?
From the bloodbath in Falluja, to the sadistic torture of Iraqi prisoners, to the spike in deaths among U.S. soldiers, horror and disgust at the occupation is mounting.

Bush commission to "investigate" Iraq war lies
Whitewash!
George W. Bush's approval ratings have dropped to all-new lows for his presidency under the weight of a series of scandals. SW digs through the dirt.

From corporate crimes to murder in Iraq
Crimes of the Bush dynasty
The great myth about the United States is that we live in a "meritocracy," where the "best and brightest" will rise to the top. Any examination of the Bush family tree proves that this is a lie.

The real state of the union
Socialist Worker talked to activists, writers and experts on some of the issues most important to working people--and asked them about the real "state of the union."

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IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE?

The presidential campaigns of Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs
When 1 million voted for socialism
We're told that the choice between Democrats and Republicans is the best we can expect--but in the early years of the 20th century, Eugene V. Debs won up to 1 million votes in his five presidential campaigns.

Beyond the Democrats and Republicans...
Why is there no third party in the U.S.?
Since 1856, every U.S. president has been the candidate of either the Democratic or Republican Party, and third party candidates have been forced to the margins of political debate.

Why Peter Camejo deserves your vote in California
A real alternative in the recall circus
Peter Camejo has spoken out for a real alternative from the status quo presided over by the mainstream parties. We believe that he deserves our readers' vote.

Was it right to vote for Nader in 2000?
Should the millions of people who supported Ralph Nader's Green Party campaign for president in 2000 get behind the Democrats in order to prevent George W. Bush from being re-elected in 2004?

Looking back at the challenge to Washington's status quo
Lessons of the Nader campaign
"You can't spoil a spoiled system." That was one of Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader's favorite statements on the campaign trail during Election 2000. More than a year after the election, the words still ring true.

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ANALYSIS OF ELECTION 2002

After the GOP election win:
What will stop Bush?
"If he pushed an aggressive platform before, with a minority of the popular vote and a divided Congress, imagine what he'll seek now." Those words--written by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof--sum up the consensus view of George W. Bush and the Republicans after the GOP election victory last week.

Did voters endorse the Republicans?
What happened in the election?
In all the post-election spin on the Republican midterm victory, it was easy to forget that the media's pre-election "conventional wisdom" was that the races would be "too close to call"--or that only three months ago, Bush's popularity was falling fast. What happened?

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