An assessment of and crats held a press conference urged people not to vote for Sanders because it would only throw the into the state legislature.
election the US elections
Patrick Leahy, a liberal Democrat whose campaign for re-election was an easy victory, threw his support to last weeks of campaigning by publicly loaning her several thousand dollars and by joint public appearances.
INSOFAR AS there is an overall pattern to US voter choice in the
November elections, one could conclude that by and large Reagan's policies have been repudiated. The Senate is now composed of 55
Democrats and 45 Republicans. However, given the limitations of a two-party system where any independent challenge must confront unfair election laws, the handicap of being outspent 10 or 20-to-1, exclusions from public debates and the day-to-day attention from the media which the Democratic and Republican parties receive, this repudiation is not reflected in the development of an independent alternative.
DIANNE FEELEY
It's true that the balance of power in the Congress has moved
Party, but the to the
Democratic leadership of the congressional committees has only moved from the
Republican Party to the hands of the entrenched the southerners within
Democratic Party, that is, its most conservative wing.
And because the Democratic Party comprises liberals and conservatives, the liberals are constantly attempting to compromise with the conservatives rather than building an alternative to them. Thus the liberals find themselves continuously outmaneuvered by the conservatives, bargain. Thus there are liberal Democrats who oppose Reagan's foreign policy. But they share the conceptions about US imperialism of flexibility dealing with destroying the Nicaraguan
According to the New York Times,
New England's "most complex election"
was the three-way race for of
Vermont.
Madeleine governor
Kunin, a Democrat, was running for re-election, standing on her record as who had a fiscal conservative apoffice pointed some women to and supported some environmental
Peter Smith, the Republican issues.
who had been lieutenant governor, ran his campaign to the right of her.
But the spice to the race was Bernie
Sanders, an independent socialist, and the three-time mayor of Burlington.
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Sanders ran a campaign working people. He called for cutting property taxes of home owners by 20 per cent; increasing taxes for businesses and those who make more
US dollars a year; utility rates by nearly half; increasing the minimum wage from
4.00 US dollars (with anto 4.40 dollars), increasing social spending for education, day care, human resources, and aid to the family farm. He has become well known not only in Burlington, where Sanders wins class wards by 80 per cent, but to ordinary working people and farmers throughout the state.
Running as an independent, Bernie Sanders built a campaign that transformed the governor's race from typical race around personalities And because he is the mayor of the largest city in the state it proved impossible to exclude him from debates. Kunin and Smith each spent close to half a million in campaigning while Sanders raised and spent slightly
50,000 dollars. 350 campaign supporters throughout the state distributed Sanders campaign literature and staffed tables at county
Sanders was denounced by liberals charge against him was that he "would split the vote" and therefore allow the
The Democratic Party in Vermont Sanders. At a rally for passage state Equal Rights Amendment, held days before the election, supporters attempted to make
Although the Vermont National for Women decided to focus on campaigning for vote on the amendment and declined to endorse any candidate for governor, a national NOW leader,
Yard, without any consultaorganization announced NOW's support to Madeleine Kunin. Arthur Kunin, speaking for the ERA, called for a vote for Kunin.
state NOW later indicated that the state organization would send a letter to Sanders, who spoke earlier, apologizing for the unfortunate incident. Criticizing Reagan's foreign policy
The final election vote found Kunin with 47%, Smith with 38% and Sanders with 15%. That is, the Democratic Party could not convince enough people to resist voting for Sanders so that Kunin could win a majority, although the campaign obviously had an effect on many who would have voted for Sanders under other circumstances. In Burlington - which was the home base of both the Kunin and Sanders campaigns - Sanders won 20% of the vote. In Rutland - the second largest town in the state - Sanders won 25% of the vote.
Interestingly enough, Sanders continues to prove to be more popular among working people than among the liberal community. Although he supports progressive legislation -including shutting down the nuclear power plant, Vermont Yankee, and replacing it with hydro-power, passage of the Vermont ERA - and is criticized for spending too much time criticizing Reagan's foreign policy when he's only running for state
to break with
Kunin on
As highest-ranking for
Nicaragua send 600 city project.
local reverse those
"What we government, city the mayor,
Dozens try.
munities in freeze...
because of we gua, education and the lies local can be ment debating
Sanders'
The tantly voted
Clearly base statewide.
gressive machine in politics.
The
(on the Atof both official to visit on the one
6th anniversary some the other - aid to largest aid to reach the wide.
tion to win"
organizing to
As he exdone is was in bad trouble.
to use and the office of
The dozens of comhave passed bow a nuclear
Burlington a got up and for state dent, was and hundollars being of test.
x numbers of for housing and tactics, scare
AIDS exposed.
So and state governvehicle and this campaign has had including a dayspokesperson
Coalition contras was passed.
initiatives wing right to decide their own reproductive the cut-off money lives and oppose but who women's abortion. This is for poor victory, the an important despite level of right-wing organizing that will continue. In fact, the terrorist attacks against abortion clinics means that many are faced with constant threats.
and
Right-wing ballot on AIDS supporting defeated campaigns on
Sanders' the
La
Rouche led by were of the withdraw.
to factual but the vote
But in fact
"to educate.
However, to make English state's
- the relationship of a bia state that was part of the which who ran worded so that by vote.
one thus able status.
veteran and given the for votes its state as attorney statewide worth, a Black from Milwoman
Vermont that it active.
for ap-
Reagan's
Democrats the
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