If the Republicans field enough candidates in the June primary to severely split their vote, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Luis Rodriguez could place second and face a run-off with Governor Jerry Brown.
That would be an important step in the battle for a political party of, by, and for the 99 percent—as the oligarchy changes the rules.
When Californians adopted the state’s “top-two” primary system in the 2010 election, they were confident it would strengthen democracy. That’s what they’d been told.
What they hadn’t been told was that the measure had been bankrolled by some of the state’s biggest corporations, among them Chevron, Walmart, Oracle, Intel, General Electric, and PG&E.
They probably had not realized that they were voting to end their chance to write in candidates in the general election.
And only veteran Sacramento watchers were aware that the corporations were hiding their support by funneling contributions through Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “California Dream Team.”
In fact, the people of California were being conned into participating in undermining their democracy and remaking their electoral system to best serve the interests of the richest one percent.
Under the new system every candidate—of whatever party—runs in an “open” primary election in June. The top-two vote getters go on the November ballot.
Publically, supporters of the “top-two” system told voters it would give independent voters a voice in the primaries and give non-traditional parties a better chance to win.
Privately, they sang a different tune: the system would assure that only “moderate” candidates would be on November ballots.
“Moderate” means pro-business, pro-corporate, pro-capitalist, the candidates of, by, and for the one percent.
The one percenters deeply fear that in a true democracy, candidates of, by, and for the 99 percent would win—and that such a government might well expand political democracy into economic democracy, and run the economy for the good of the 99 percent.
All that can still happen. But it will take building a real, active party of the working class and turning out California’s millions in primary elections—starting in 2014.
