Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair. Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils. Counterpunch and AK Press 2004, 289 pp, ISBN 1-904859-03-8.

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"I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it."--Eugene Debs

The sad periodic pageant of the US presidential election will soon come to its climactic end. Bush has aroused a visceral hatred in many people, fueled by disastrous policies but also by his disgusting swagger and unjustified self-confidence, but there have been several different strategic reactions to his presidency. A majority of those opposed to Bush believe that electing John Kerry is the only response and deserves everyone's vote and support. A smaller group advocate strategic voting so that Kerry can win a few critical swing states, ensuring a win in the electoral college, but propose that, in states that are already essentially decided, people should support the Green Party or Ralph Nader's candidacy. An even smaller minority believe that Kerry does not deserve a vote in any state since he is so similar to Bush.

With any strategic consideration, the right choice depends on uncertain outcomes. However, the occasion of an election and its accompanying proposed voting strategies, even an election we are told is as important as this one, should not obscure the material truth about American electoral politics and the Democratic Party: it's rotten.

I am not sure if Debs's advice should be taken by everyone in this election. If I lived in Florida, I might eschew Nader, Cobb or Leonard Peltier in favor of Kerry, even though I feel certain that pulling the Kerry lever or pushing the Kerry touchscreen area would cause at least a small amount of vomit to rise from my stomach through my throat and into my big mouth. Those living in states in which one of the candidates is a shoo-in have the luxury of not having to make the decision. However, no one should deceive themselves into believing that Kerry doesn't promise a continuation of neoliberal economic policies, belligerent militarism, more of the same casual support for Israel, and virtually identical positions on many issues.

In A Dime's Worth of Difference, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, the editors of the newsletter and website Counterpunch remind us of the pathetic state of American elections and force us to remember the sordid history of the party that ostensibly stands for the poor, labor, protecting the environment, women and minorities. The collection of essays includes pieces by Cockburn and St. Clair and over a dozen other writers.

With an added flourish of retrospective outrage, several of the essays recount the ways the Democratic Party has disappointed the progressives who helped anoint them to power. Cockburn chronicles the illusory economic miracle of the Clinton years, complimenting Robert Pollin's economic analysis of the stock market miracle and subsequent decline with pithy aspersions, removing the thin cover of Clinton's professed sympathy for the poor, women and minorities. Robin Blackburn contributes a short, but amusing piece entitled "How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security" in which he explains that if it had not been for Clinton's scandal and following impeachment fight, he might have had political momentum to continue his strategy of triangulation and begin the process of privatizing Social Security.

Several essays, in perhaps the most depressing sequence in the book, tackle the Clinton assaults on the poor, women and African Americans. Cockburn and St. Clair team up to remind us that politics shaped Clinton's actions much more than did the minimal concern he held for the poor. The absurdly named "Welfare Reform" was finally enacted without a veto as the practical political maneuvering of Dick Morris and his convert, and soon to be pathetic presidential candidate Al Gore, succeeded in persuading Clinton to sign the legislation over protestations from his policy advisors like Leon Panetta. Brandy Baker condemns the narrow view that the only issue that should concern women is whether Roe v. Wade will stand under the next president's Supreme Court appointments. The women's movement should broaden their focus to health care, equality in wages and education, especially since the most Kerry can muster is a weakly worded promise to only appoint an anti-abortion judge to the Supreme Court if there is no danger of Roe v. Wade being overturned.

A later group of essays take aim at some of the players in Democratic and Republican parties. The dirty political standards like Karl Rove, Terry McAuliffe, and Rick Santorum (immortalized in the title of a St. Clair's missive, borrowed from a Bob Kerry quote, called "Santorum: That'a Latin for Asshole"). Additionally, a pair of following chapters exhume the shameful histories of Paul Wellstone and John McCain, two politicians respected by many in the media and from both parties as people who strongly defend their ideological positions despite political pressure. Their paper-thin facades fall away as we learn of McCain's ties to the infamous Charles Keating and the amazing revelation that he earned approximately one medal per hour of flight during the Vietnam War. A Cuban psychiatrist whose interview with McCain while he was being held as a P.O.W described him: "From the moral and ideological point of view he showed us he is an insensitive individual without human depth." Jeff Taylor criticizes Wellstone for a hawkish sycophantic embrace of every Clinton foreign policy foray, his shocking support for the Defense of Marriage Act and for breaking his promise to not seek office after his two terms in the Senate. Taylor's description of the gay community's continued support for Wellstone after his betrayal in supporting the Defense of Marriage Act as "the political equivalent of battered spouse syndrome" succinctly outlines a recurring phenomenon in modern Democratic Party politics.

In the final, and one of the most interesting, essays in the book, historian Gabriel Kolko analyzes the unique position in which the American Empire presently finds itself. His conclusion is that a second term for Bush might hasten the decline of the United States as our current allies become increasingly alienated and begin to withdraw their support. His analysis is compelling, but his conclusion that perhaps another term for Bush is the most expediant solution to the problem of American global dominance provides an especially poignant and disturbing final chapter to the collection. No one who reads this book could possibly vote for Kerry without a feeling of doubt haunting their decision.

Presidential elections in the United States are garnering more money, media attention and genuine interest from the public every cycle. Third party candidates have made a small, but not insignificant impact on the issues discussed and people's opinions. Perversely, their greatest impact might be in exposing the corruption and collusion of the two parties and the degree to which they are invested in the status quo. However, change, revolutionary and reformist, will never be realized solely because the elite rich white male we have a slight preference for wins the silly game.

Malcolm X said, with a sexist overtone that would have to be reworded to be appropriated today, "Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it."

See also Alexander Cockburn "The Year of Surrending Quietly" in New Left Review No. 29, September-October, 2004:
www.newleftreview.net/NLR26301.shtml