On the Peace and Freedom Party, I left a few loose ends that
I ought to correct for the sake of the record.
Although P&F is only a California political party today, it originally
aspired to the national level. CPUSA theoretician Herbert Aptheker
was a 1966 P&F candidate for US Congress in New York. The
party also ran candidates in [the state of] Wa****ngton back then.
Apparently, P&F still *aspires* to the national level: a Los Angeles
meeting of its State [=only] Central Committee made a resolution
to that effect on March 30, 2008. It all sounds very exciting, and
they've promised to write if they find work.
Also, I erred in describing the votes at the recent P&F convention
as being those of "delegates," at least in the sense that most readers
may assume those delegates to be associated in some way with the
outcome of the primary election.
Similarly, John Holmes was just plain wrong about it:
>
> But, since the party is just barely still hanging on to its ballot
status,
> it has primaries, so for the presidential nomination at least, it is the
> actual PFP registered voters who decide who the candidate is, and they
are
> not socialists. For other ballot slots, the machine, such as it is,
> decides who the candidates are, as nobody really cares, so they tend to
be
> socialists of one stripe or another.
P&F's primary election is merely advisory. It does not appoint any
"delegates" who then vote at the P&F convention. (I would have
been more accurate to say "apparatchiks of the various P&F County
Central Committees" or something like that). We cannot say that
the "actual PFP registered voters .. decide who the candidate is"
except in the sense that those who vote in the P&F convention are
likely to look over their shoulders beforehand.
In fact, Cynthia McKinney did much better in the primary popular
vote (almost as well as Nader) than she did in at the P&F convention;
and PSL socialist Gloria La Riva showed a strength at the convention
dispro****tionate to her popular vote in the primary.
P&F strongly opposed California's switch to "open" primaries, and
they have consistently chosen not to allow party-switchers or independents
("Decline to state" affiliations, in the local electoral parlance) to vote
P&F
in primary elections. (The California Republicans generally don't,
either).
So I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that P&F is
an undisciplined party like the Democrats, aggressively distributing
their primary ballots to us unwashed "Decline to state" m*****.
To the contrary, the P&F has an explicit discipline, which might be
characterized as electoral sup****t for "anything that moves":
http://peaceandfreedom.org/home/index.php/about-us/resolutions-and-statements/200-resolution-for-non-expulsion-motion
- David Stevens
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