William Van Auken, January 13, 1950 -
VP candidate for Socialist Equality Party (2008)
Running mate with nominee: Jerome White (b. 1959)
Popular vote: 18 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The Socialist Equality Party for some reason waited quite late in the game to announce their Presidential ticket in 2008. Jerome White was making his second run for the White House. His running-mate Bill Van Auken had been the Presidential nominee in 2004. They announced on Sept. 13, 2008, "The SEP will call on American workers to reject the national chauvinism promoted by these pro-imperialist parties and embrace a program of international working class solidarity."
White/Van Auken had three main points: 1. The world economic crisis - "The United States and much of the world are already entering into recession." 2. Militarism and the threat of world war - "The eruption of American imperialism is the greatest threat to the world’s population and threatens to spark a new world war, with incalculable consequences." 3. The crisis of American democracy - "The last eight years have seen a bipartisan assault on democratic rights, in the United States and internationally. Words such as “Abu Ghraib,” “Guantánamo,” “rendition,” “enemy combatant,” “water boarding,” and “enhanced interrogation” have come to symbolize the American government’s descent into criminality and fascistic barbarism."
Two days after the SEP Presidential nomination, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, crystalizing a global economic disaster that had been a long time in the making. The response of the Trotskyite party was swift--
The Socialist Equality Party and its presidential and vice presidential candidates, Jerome White and Bill Van Auken, unequivocally oppose the plan to bail out Wall Street with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds announced by the Bush administration and embraced by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership.
The plan, which is being rushed through Congress for passage this week, is the response of the government and the entire political establishment to what is acknowledged to be the greatest economic crisis since the Wall Street crash of 1929. It calls for an unprecedented transfer of public funds to the major banks and the American financial elite at the expense of the broad mass of the people.
Both the plan itself and the manner in which it is being imposed are deeply undemocratic. Exploiting the breakdown in US and global financial markets, the financial aristocracy, which is responsible for the crisis, is exercising its control over the government, both political parties, and the media to implement policies of the most far-reaching character without any genuine debate or discussion. As in the aftermath of 9/11, it is seeking to utilize the crisis to push through policies that would otherwise be considered entirely unacceptable.
None of the measures being carried out address the underlying causes of the financial meltdown, nor will they resolve the crisis. At most, they will only postpone the day of reckoning ...
From the look of their campaign itineraries, White campaigned mainly in academic settings and spent time electioneering in the UK, Germany, and Canada. Van Auken covered the West Coast.
In an essay entitled McCain-Palin campaign’s attacks on Obama: a whiff of fascism, Oct. 10, 2008, Van Auken observed how Palin's presence on the Republican ticket had ushered in what he considered a large conspiracy-minded, aggrieved and angry element into the Republican Party, with rallies that resembled lynch mobs. Van Auken concluded--
The role of the Christian right and of semi-fascistic elements within the Republican Party remains the great unmentionable in American politics. They are accorded political protection and legitimacy precisely for the role they play in diverting the anger and frustration of sections of the population into reactionary channels that serve to prop up the ruling establishment.
The right-wing campaign presently being waged by the Republican Party has ominous implications. While it is highly questionable whether it will shift votes from Obama to McCain, it is serving to mobilize the most reactionary political forces and whip them to a fever pitch.
These forces will not go away after the November election. Given an Obama victory at the polls, they will be utilized to place continuous pressure on the incoming administration, driving it ever further towards the right.
Moreover, under conditions in which the immense crisis of American capitalism will inevitably produce explosive mass social struggles, the political sentiments to which the Republicans are appealing today will tomorrow form the ideological basis for fascistic movements aimed against the working class.
The Democrats' inability and unwillingness to answer the attacks coming from the McCain-Palin campaign demonstrates the impossibility of countering this threat from the right by voting for Obama. It requires, above all, the political mobilization of the working class through the building of an independent party fighting for its own interests on the basis of a socialist program. This is the alternative fought for solely by the Socialist Equality Party.
It strikes me as odd that the 2008 SEP campaign did not start their efforts earlier. The White/Van Auken ticket were not on any ballots but they were registered as a write-in in New York where 18 votes were reported. Most of their energies were spent outside New York in states, or even foreign nations, where they were not an option for voters even as a write-in. Also, instead of cultivating labor audiences they seemed to gravitate to academic venues. 2008 turned out to be their least successful year in terms of Presidential electoral politics.
Election history:
2004 - US President (Socialist Equality Party) - defeated
2006 - US Senate (NY) (Socialist Equality Party) - defeated
Other occupations: writer for the World Socialist Web Site
Notes:
Involved in the socialist cause since ca1971.
Opponents in 2006 included Hillary Clinton (winner), Howie Hawkins, and Roger Calero.
The website 4truthseekers.org identified Van Auken in 2004 as a "Reptilian/human hybrid," so there you have it.
