My name is Mark York. I live just outside Peoria, Illinois in a little town called Marquette Heights. I am currently the President of the United Steelworkers Local 960, which represents the working people at Archer Daniels Midland Company, which is also in Peoria.
I am also extremely politically active. I have worked on several campaigns in different capacities. From manning telephones to knocking on doors and extensive data-related projects (turf cutting, phone bank listing, setting up e-centers for volunteers to do the same, etc..), I have learned a few things here and there.
What I have learned that is most important to a campaign is to figure out why people support a candidate or issue. I mean, specifically why does a candidate have a person’s support? It is important to know to build campaign material around issues that you know people are supporting and are excited about.
I will focus on this point alone for the duration of this post, as it is the most IMPORTANT part of any election process.
I got a call a couple years ago to go to work temporarily, but full time, for my International Union during its 2014 political campaign season. I was happy to answer the call and worked for several months up to the 2014 mid term election. We all know that 2014 turned out to be nearly a complete disaster for our Unions, the Democratic Party and working people all over the country. It was reminiscent of the 2010 wave that swept democrats out of power in Congress and threatened to roll back 30 years or more of progress for working people in America.
Some people think that Illinois is an extremely liberal state, but that is only true when the blue coalition is marching in lock-step. (Unions, environmentalists, equality groups. etc.) And in 2014, they were not.
Part of my duties during the 2014 election season was to rally Union members to get out and vote, specifically for then-Governor Pat Quinn’s re-election bid, which should be an easy sell, right? What I failed to mention is that during his previous term, he ran into loggerheads with two of Illinois’ biggest Unions, AFSCME and the SEIU.
I hit the streets with my usual enthusiasm in Granite City, a suburb of St. Louis. We had a nice little script extolling the virtues of the Democratic party’s candidates, including Pat Quinn, to working people of all stripes. Our message was good.
I soon realized that our message didn’t matter. I had hundreds of doors slammed in my face at the mere mention of his name. I had people scream profanity in my face. I got ran off several properties. I even had the police called on me by extremely pissed off voters. I had the fewest “good” visits that I had ever had in ANY campaign and more “bad” visits than all the other campaigns combined, in relation to Pat Quinn’s re-election bid. Remember now, these were Union members and their families that we were trying to talk to, not right wingers. Our campaign soon turned into a slog, in which we knew people were NOT excited in the least about our candidate. It turned into “at least our candidate is not as “scary” as their candidate type of deal.
I was truly shocked by this, but it seemed to me (and it bore out to be true) that Illinois’ blue coalition had been broken. Rauner would become Governor of Illinois. I had never heard so many regular working people complain about an incumbent Democratic candidate so bitterly and I haven’t since, until now.
Sparing some boring details, suffice it to say that we (and Quinn) got our rumpuses handed to us and now we’re stuck with Rauner, who is a fiercely anti-union and anti-worker, pro-corporatism-agenda-type clown. I guess you don’t get to piss off ANY of your coalition members and survive a close election.
Remember that pissing contest that I referred to earlier? Between Quinn and the Unions? Well, their combined memberships largely sat out during that campaign and in that election , thus breaking enough of the blue coalition to allow a union-busting, corporate tool, like Rauner, to get elected. In “blue” Illinois.
Now, back to the question, “Why do people support a candidate?” In my state, most of the people that I know that vote blue do so because of the long-held belief that Democrats hold similar economic values that help working people. Since the middle 90’s and exploding in 2010 and 2014, this belief has eroded in huge ways, because of job-killing trade deals (cut by some Democrats and most Republicans) bled us dry of good-paying jobs to the tune of 55,000 factories and several million factory jobs..
While some Democrats still tend to represent regular working people, more and more are lining up at the teat of Corporate America and Wall Street for the millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Any person out there that still believes that this will not “change” the way these recipients represent regular, middle class and working-poor families should have their heads examined. This “change” is what is being “purchased” by those wealthy enough to make giant political contributions in the first place.
I supported Hillary Clinton in 2008, all the way into the second week of June. I think she is an impressive person, with an incredible resume. I also have come to understand that she has NOT been the progressive champion since that time. (Conservative in many ways, in my opinion.) Her championing of the TPP as the “Gold Standard” of Trade Agreements, even after all the carnage caused by earlier trade pacts, still leaves me stunned. The one reason that I personally contribute or work for a candidate is that they are better for working people, not worse. This is such an intense case of being tone deaf to the needs of America’s working families, that I am having a hard time supporting her in this election.
I personally like Bernie Sanders and I always have. I like his positions where his differs from Hillary’s more, and I like that he is not depending on large campaign contributors in his bid for the White House. I will only vote for Clinton if she is the only thing stopping Trump from becoming President. (Exactly the same endorsement that we gave to Quinn in 2014)
Aside from a few Facebook “friends”, however, I don’t personally have a single actual friend or professional acquaintance who supports Hillary Clinton. I knew lots of people who supported Quinn in 2014, hundreds, in fact. He still lost. I do know hundreds of people who voice support for Bernie Sanders. From lefties that you would expect, to some Republicans (who hate the very idea of Trump) to libertarians (who just want someone that they feel is honest), Bernie’s support is far and wide. When you allow working people, not just those who identify as Democrats, access to the election process, Bernie Sanders has massive support. I have never actually seen this kind of coalescing around any political candidate before and I could think of no better way to grow what was once the “working peoples’ party than with such a candidate.
Long story short — Trump may very well be the next President of these “United” States, if democrats choose a candidate who is wholly indebted to Wall Street and Corporate America. Working people are wise enough to know that this kind of candidate will not be able to TRULY represent them, especially when the real fights come. This portion of America’s Blue Coalition may very well sit out in 2016 as well, if there is no one that TRULY represents their interests when it matters most. Some of them may even vote for Trump out of sheer spite for the Democratic Party for giving us the choice between a corporate tool and a Complete Tool.
The argument that “at least our candidate is not as scary as the other candidate” is a terrible argument to drive your numbers on election day. We proved that in Illinois in stellar fashion with a candidate far scarier to working people than Trump. It blew up in all of our faces then. Don’t expect people to be ANY more excited for a Corporate-owned and Wall Street-backed candidate in this year’s Presidential election than Illinois voters were for Pat Quinn in 2014. They didn’t come out for Quinn and they probably won’t for Clinton.