This is How a Meaningful Third Party Movement Begins

My criticism of most 3rd party political campaigns are well known. I see them, personified by the Nader campaigns, as quixotic attempts every four years to show left-wing anger with the Democratic Party but completely lacking any legitimate political strategy, movement-building skills, or long-term plans. They appear and disappear and nothing happens during the election off years. They don’t organize locally, they don’t try to challenge the Democratic Party on the city and county levels. Essentially, they are spasms of self-righteous anger that occasionally do enough damage to elect Republicans, which then makes life for the 99% much worse. Also, thanks for Iraq, Ralph.

But here is an alternative. Lorain County, Ohio is a Democratic dominated county. The split there is between unionists and centrist anti-union hacks. When the Democratic Party overturned a Project Labor Agreement that guaranteed union jobs, labor took matters into its own hands. The Central Labor Council ran its own set of candidates for City Council and won most of the races.

This isn’t a full-fledged third party movement. But it’s exactly how labor and third party activists should operate. You start on the local level, you organize, and you win. You then build from there. What the CLC will do going forward is unknown. But not only have they sent a message to the Democratic Party that they can win elections if the Party doesn’t fall in line behind labor, they have provided a guidebook for how those to the left of the Democratic Party can reject the party and still make a difference.

If only the Green Party activists and Nader defenders would learn from this.