Progressives need to consider vote for Maffei to prevent Buerkle re-election

I agree with a majority of Ursula Rozum’s stances on key issues and applaud the fact that her campaign is bringing progressive reform to the forefront of the local political dialogue.  However, her candidacy is ultimately self-defeating.

Progressives should face the reality that her platform will not gain enough support to actually win the congressional seat in question. Instead, it will siphon off votes from Democrat Dan Maffei’s campaign, letting incumbent Republican Ann Marie Buerkle once again eke out a victory in this close race.

Rozum claims her platform is truly progressive whereas Maffei’s is centrist. Yet his voting record does not bear this out. Maffei voted to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” put in place stronger enforcement against gender-based discrimination and supported the enforcements of regulation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. He may not be a radically progressive candidate, but his stands in stark contrast to Buerkle.

She voted in favor of the “Stop the War on Coal” bill, extension of the Patriot Act, the Ryan tax plan, preventing the EPA from regulating greenhouse gasses (citing cap-and-trade as a job-destroying tax), an amendment to the Clean Water Act limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate water pollution and a bill to limit loans for alternative energy startups while opening the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling. She has done everything in her power to suppress any kind of reform.

This is not to say third parties are unimportant distractions from the actual race between Democrats and Republicans and only divert votes from the real contenders. I believe third parties can play a useful function in American politics. The two major parties pander to whichever groups will help them get the most votes. They hold no ideological allegiances.  If the Democrats see that the Greens are gaining support, they will try to incorporate green policies into their platform to draw more progressive and environmentally minded voters.

All that being said, I think this tactic is effective when the distinction between the Democratic and Republican candidates is less drastic than that between Maffei and Buerkle. This election is not a choice between “the lesser of two evils” for progressives. Maffei may not be perfect, but often sides with progressives on a number of issues.

Therefore, progressives need to ask themselves whether they believe that a symbolic vote for Rozum is worth the possibility of allowing the election of virulently anti-progressive Buerkle.

Tomasz Falkowski
Graduate student in ecological engineering
Department of Environmental Resources Engineering
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry