Dianne’s Democratic Senate Opponents, Reviewed

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Chances are fairly good that you’ve already voted by now, but Vern’s re-registration as Republican and his voting for Orly Taitz in the U.S. Senate primary (even as a joke) has me rattled (at least as a joke) — and wondering what I can tell a nice progressive guy like Vern about what progressive they can vote (or could have voted) for in the primary, should they choose to do so.  (Someone asked me exactly that this past week, but I can’t remember who it was!  I dedicate this story to them.)

Conservatives could go third party this year — for Libertarians, there’s Gail Lightfoot; for American Independents, there’s Don Grundmann; for LaRouchies and Scientologists — just kidding about Scientologists (I think) — there’s our occasional contributor Robert Lauten, though he’s on the Republican line.  Among non-LaRouche and non-Taitz Republicans, Elizabeth Emken, Al Ramirez, Nachum Shiffrin, Dan “not that one” Hughes, and Greg Conlon (or else I’m thinking of someone else) have gotten some buzz to become the human sacrifice on the Temple of Feinstein, with Emken as the Establishment choice.

For progressives, pickings are slimmer.  Surprisingly (at least to me), there’s no Green Party candidate.  One possibility is a Peace & Freedom candidates.  This year, there are two of them, Marsha Feinland and Kabiruddin Karim Ali — leaving me to wonder: don’t they realize that they are going to split the Peace and Freedom vote???

As a party official, I am constrained not to support anyone against an endorsed Democrat in any election and I expect to vote — with some consternation, but not that much because I’ve gotten used to it by now — for Feinstein in the fall.  As I understand it, she is the most popular politician in the state — and if her moderate vision is what the people want, so be it.  She’s not the liberal that Barbara Boxer is, but she’s also not exactly Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson.  When she is good, she can be very good.

But what if I wanted to “send a message from the Democratic left” in the primaries?  Is there anyone for whom I — or for that matter you — could vote?  Yes, there are five of them — and as I was contemplating filling out my ballot I realized that I don’t know a damn thing about any of them other than that they are Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate.  So I begin my journey of exploration this evening — and I invite you along for the ride.  I will rate their ideological attractiveness to progressive Democrats, adjusted for website presentation and coherence, on a scale of 0 to 5 Vern Nelsons, where Dianne Feinstein is a 3.0.

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David Alex Levitt, Computer Scientist and Engineer,  http://www.levitt2012.org/

Levitt is a biracial (Jewish and West Indian Black) former New Yorker who now lives in Silicon Valley.  His self-description page is wordy and interesting, just the way I like it, and so I suggest that you go read it yourself; seriously, if you’re a progressive Dem, you won’t be sorry.  Nice story, well told.

Levitt’s campaign is concentrating on three issues:

And he’s an ACLU member and opposed to CISPA and SOPA.  You will surely understand why I give him:

5 VERNS  

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Mike Strimling, Consumer Rights Attorney,  http://taxtherich2012.org/index.html

Mike Strimling is running on a platform of taxing the rich, whom he tells us have the lowest tax rates that they’ve had in 80 years and the lowest for any modern country.  If you want to know why we should tax the rich more, and if you like to read a lot of very dense text, you should read Mike Strimling’s page.  It tells you a whole lot about taxing the rich.  If you vote for Mike Strimling intentionally, rather than by lot or due to his ballot designation, it is a fair bet that you either want to tax the rich or you want other people to think that you do.

What his web page doesn’t tell you much of anything about is Mike Strimling.  That seems to be intentional.  I will quote this much, because I think it gets the point across well:

Your vote will be a simple vote to tax the rich. You aren’t radical – you just want to tax the very rich at the same rates they were taxed from 1918 to 1982. Then, tax rates on the top 2% of incomes averaged 5 times higher than the rich pay now – and America was strong

What’s this candidacy about? What are our other positions? You might guess what Mike’s positions are on other issues, but we don’t want to mix up this vote. The point is to send a very clear message with your vote – to tax the rich. You don’t need to believe anything else to cast this vote. It doesn’t commit you on any other issue. Republicans and Independents are invited to vote to tax the rich, along with Democrats, in this open primary. Vote your beliefs! Tell your friends! Let’s turn this ship around

And there you have it!  If you want to send a clean an unambiguous message, Mike’s your guy.  Nice — but not much of a presentation — and the “single issue” seems sort of cranky.  So I’m giving Mike:

4 VERNS

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Diane Stewart, Businesswoman & Finance Manager, campaignsitebuilder.com website, http://bit.ly/KEGobB

Diane Stewart has worked in finance departments in Silicon Valley for over 20 years and is now a small businesswman.  She is running on a platform of “Revitalize Our Schools, Rebuild Our Economy, Restore Our Communities” — and she starts off with opposition to the “Compromise Tax Initiative” because the money is going to the state’s general fund rather than directly to the schools.  (She doesn’t mention Molly Munger’s initiative prominently if at all, but I would presume that she’s for it.)  She is pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, pro-marijuana decriminalization, and has various criticisms of education policy and various proposals to cut workers’ commuting time.  Some of these lead to a somewhat diffuse populist critique.  Decent positions, but not a great presentation.  To be kind, I’ll give her:

3-1/2 VERNS

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Nak Shah, Environmental Health Consultant,  http://nakshah.webstarts.com/

Here’s what Nak Shah has to say:

ELECT NAK SHAH AS YOUR US SENATOR ON JUNE5 2012 ELECTION IF YOU WANT TO RESTORE AMERICA WERE ALL AMERICANS HAVE GOOD JOBS AND THE AMERICAN ECONOMY IS BOOMING.VOTE FOR NAK SHAH AND TOGETHER WE CAN WIN.

Nak Shah is the Candidate that All Americans can trust to make America what All Americans want Let us Restore America Together and make necessary changes so that majority of Americans can be Happy and Prosporus.

Nak Shah beleives in public service and the Government is by the people for the people and in the interest of the people and intends to deliever on that promise when elected as US SENATOR .
Nak Shah will govern based on listening to concerns from all Americans

He beleives if Elected his office will be the Office of ALL AMERICANS and He will make laws that all Americans want  so that if brings propority to all Americans

He will Never Stop listening to concerns from any Americans as long as it is in the interest of America.

Pretty general stuff — and not all that well-written.  He’s anti-war, but also a bit isolationist.  I think that he gets:

3 VERNS

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Colleen Shea Fernald; Mother, Consultant, and Artist,  http://www.campaignforpeace.org/

The first thing I have to say about Colleen Fernald is that I don’t feel like reviewing her at all; on coming to her website (last), I found that she tragically lost her teenage daughter last month.  That pretty much makes everything else beside the point.

She’s a peace candidate whose political views are a familiar “Occupy” pastiche of progressive, anti-government, somewhat isolationist, anti-two-party system, anti-capitalism and socialism, and sometimes conspiratorial.  She’s also very anti-illegal immigration.  She describes herself as “both pro-choice and pro-life” (abortion legal but unnecessary) and as “omni-partisan.”  You can read the rest yourself; I’m not going to critique it — except to say that she clearly has a good heart and a powerful yearning for justice.  And my heart goes out to her at such a terribly trying time.  Overall, maybe a little generously, I’ll give her:

4 VERNS

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Who is the best progressive “protest vote” within the Democratic Party?  I see three plausible choices as answers to that question, one of which I think is clearly superior.

If you buy the argument that all your protest vote should do is to send a message in favor of increasing taxes on the rich, Mike Strimling appears to be the clearest way to do so.

If you like the passionate mix of issues from peace to victim’s rights and beyond — and if the idea of giving a grieving mother a few votes tugs at your heart — there’s Colleen Fernald.

However, David Levitt offers a better voting option than anything I expected to find when beginning this project.  He has a beautiful website, clearly conceived and presented, and his policy positions are incisive and spot on all the way down the line.  He pushes an intelligent and critical Occupy platform and he does it extremely cogently and well.  To me, he is the best protest vote in this election.

You can make a case for putting the albatross of Orly Taitz around the Republican Party’s neck — or you can make a case that we shouldn’t want to give her nuttiness that prominence, and he specifically rebuts the reasoning on his website — but for me the issue is settled.  I will, without a moment’s hesitation, cast my protest vote for him this June — and if he somehow makes the top-two, I’ll vote for him in November and I’d be happy to see him in the Senate.  When someone this good comes along, they get my vote, period.