Your ballot belongs to no one — no candidate or party. It need not be corralled for candidates who are popularity magnets, or cult of personality, or the darling of the donor class.
The prevailing view among voters assumes that to make your vote ‘count’ you must cast your vote for the front runner — the candidate ‘most likely to’ (win). Ever and always part and parcel of America’s competitive spirit (more of a mania than a spirit), everyone wants to align with the ‘winner’.
Bragging rights, see-I-told-you-so’s and self-congratulatory back slapping are the prizes at stake. However, as someone who wrote in Jerry Brown’s name on the 1992 presidential election ballot I still reserve the right to say, “I told you so.”
In 1992, Gov. Jerry Brown ran for the Democratic party presidential nomination, operating one of the most unlikely campaign funding strategies. Rather than relying on big donor party insiders, he launched an 800 telephone number to raise donations from rank-and-file voters.
Gov. Brown adopted a self-imposed limit of $100 per donation. The method of campaign funding was his message. By 1992, campaign finance had already engorged American politics full with the corrupting influence of elite, wealthy interests. Lip service, at best, is all the vast majority of modest means voters could count on from candidates for public office.
Journalist Sara Davidson covered Gov. Brown’s campaign for The Los Angeles Times, from its origins as a conversation about a bid for U.S. Senate seat in Jan. 1991 until the eve of California’s convention in Mar. 1992.
The reportage reflects much of the dismissive, snide reactions Brown’s presidential campaign provoked: disorganized, chaotic (given it was operated by a mostly volunteer staff — another example of Brown’s critique of politics as the quarry of an elite, professional class); the presidential candidate avoided staying in hotels, opting to lodge in the homes of supporters or at facilities like a church or homeless shelter.
In spite of all the Brown for President’s shortcomings, at the time (and especially now) it stood as a repudiation of politics-as-usual — the transaction-saturated, point-0f-sale process that factors into the selection of political leaders.
Consensus building among voters amounts to little more than a trifling formality. The maxim of Tammany Hall’s Boss Tweedy bears repeating here: “I don’t care who does the electing, as long as I do the nominating.”
Anyone is entitled to their unfounded opinion that I “threw away” move vote back in 1992. Jerry Brown ultimately lost the nomination to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who went on to win the presidency. I voted for the candidate who I discerned as best positioned to lead the nation — representing all citizens, not just those who could afford a $10,000-per-plate fundraising dinner.
If anyone still participates in the political process just to align with a “winner” — then, as a nation, we’re still due for a lot more hurt: a continued savaging of our health, resources and standard of living; what happens when a candidate trades the influence our votes rightly possess, for the influence of elite moneyed interests.
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Previously Published on Medium
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