veiled4allah: the terms of the debate

In my discussion about the Muslim vote, I am talking in terms of what actually is. As I mentioned in the introductory post in this series, there are nine national Muslim organizations that have formed a coalition towards the political mobilization of the American Muslim community. They have a stated goal of endorsing one of the presidential candidates and calling on American Muslims to vote as a bloc for this candidate.

I see some deficiencies in the way that this process is being carried out and the first two posts in this series are written in order to explain what I think these deficiencies are and what I think should be done instead. The first post looks at the overall endorsement process. As I stated in that post, I believe that the endorsement coalition could be doing more to gather information about the candidates and a lot more to present this information to Muslims. I believe that, given their stated goal of helping Muslims to select the candidate that seems to best support the interests of the Muslim community, they need to help Muslims develop informed opinions rather than just taking popularity polls that mostly measure how much the candidates are in the news. The most famous candidate is not necessarily the one who will be best for Muslims.

In the second post in the series, I examine the question again from the specific angle of the Muslim bloc vote. I have not actually presented an argument for bloc voting instead of non bloc voting. The Muslim political coalition has stated that they are seeking to mobilize a bloc vote so I'm taking that as a given. I actually do believe that a bloc vote strategy is a good way for the American Muslim community to pursue its interests, but I haven't specifically made a case for that. Instead, the second post in the series deals with some deficiencies that I see in the coalition's process. I believe that they have not thought enough about the way that a bloc vote works and what the purpose of a bloc vote is. The second post, then, is devoted to setting out my ideas of a better way to run the bloc vote.

Some of the arguments that I made are:

1) A minor candidate is better than a major candidate because with a major candidate, the bloc disappears in the majority vote.
2) A minor candidate is better than a major candidate because the minor candidate can be more closely identified with the bloc and thus represent its interests, while a major candidate is not able to ally himself that closely with the bloc's interests.
3) Because of the above two factors, the chosen candidate and his delegates will be able to act as "representatives" of the bloc at the nominating convention. As other candidates woo the delegates, they will need to make concessions to win the support of these delegates. For instance, if the delegates all believe that the Patriot Act must be repealed, then another candidate might agree to take a stronger stand against the Patriot Act in order to secure the support of these delegates. In this way, the delegates have advanced the interests of those who want to repeal the Patriot Act.

My argument, then, is that in order to advance the interests of the Muslim community, Muslims need to select a candidate who will be closely allied with their interests and able to speak for those interests at the convention and that a minor candidate is better than a major candidate for this purpose.

Howard Dean, as the front-runner, is by definition not a "minor candidate". As stated above and in the earlier post, I believe that a bloc vote for the front-runner is a wasted vote. All we would end up doing is contributing to the majority, and our particular interests will never be spoken of much less advanced. Supporters of Howard Dean will need to show that Dean in fact so closely represents the interests of American Muslims that he is already speaking for them and will continue to do so even though Muslims have no particular leverage with him. Quite frankly, I think that's a pretty tough case to make and that's why Dean supporters keep trying to change the basis of the debate. They are free to do that if they want, but since this is my blog, anybody who wants to debate with me here plays by my rules.

Now, Dennis Kucinich is undeniably a "minor" candidate. I believe he has much more support than is reported in the media, but the fact remains that he is trailing in the polls and in fundraising. Since I have set out that a minor candidate is better than a major one for the purposes of the bloc vote, Kucinich has an advantage over Dean here. While Dean supporters have to show why a front-runner can play the bloc vote game after all, Kucinich supporters have a candidate who already meets this criterion and his case is automatically made.

Other minor candidates include Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun. Depending on who you ask, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards may also be "minor candidates" in terms of their polling and fundraising performance recently. I am willing to accept that all four of these candidates have made their case on this point. However, supporters of Clark, Kerry, and Gephardt should provide the same materials as Dean supporters.

While we wait for Dean supporters to get serious, let's take our field as being Kucinich, Sharpton, Moseley Braun, Lieberman, and Edwards (remember, this is my blog, so it's my rules).

Any of those five candidates would be able to act as a suitable vehicle for the bloc vote, as explained above. Now we need to select the right one for the job. In the earlier post on bloc voting I mentioned two basic criteria:

1) The candidate's stands on the issues should be very similar to Muslim stands.
2) The candidate should be willing to speak to and for the Muslim community.

As I mentioned in the comments on the bloc voting post, I will be using the criteria set out by the Muslim endorsing organizations as the basis for the discussion here. The complete list of criteria is:

1) Positions on the issues
2) Performance record
3) Accessability to Muslim community
4) Support in the Muslim community
5) Electability

I have stated that I don't consider electability to be a significant factor and that in fact a "minor candidate" is a better choice. I am also taking the performance record criterion to be a way of showing that the candidate actually stands for the things he says he does and is willing to take action on them. Thus, both positions and record go to the first of my criteria ("The candidate's stands on the issues should be very similar to Muslim stands"). Accessibility and support go to the second of my criteria ("The candidate should be willing to speak to and for the Muslim community").

Thus, under the terms of my debate, supporters of Kucinich, Sharpton, Moseley Braun, Lieberman, and Edwards should provide position statements and voting or performance records as well as evidence that their candidates are accessible to the Muslim community and have a strong base of support from it. Supporters of Dean, Clark, Kerry, and Gephardt should first provide an explanation of how their candidate can serve as a suitable vehicle for a bloc vote and then provide the same materials as for the other candidates.

To keep things simple, and based on various political discussions with Muslims, the following are the key issues to address:

1) Civil liberties
2) Iraq
3) Middle East
4) Education
5) Healthcare
6) Jobs and economy

A short paragraph dealing with each of the issues, summarizing the performance record, and detailing accessibility to Muslims, and support among them, will be sufficient.

And yes, the case for Kucinich is coming, inshallah. But first, I realized that I needed to clarify the terms of the debate and bring some order to this discussion.