Post in New candidate for Independence Party endorsement for U.S. Senate

May 04 21:33 UTC

I will seek the endorsement of the Independence Party of Minnesota for U.S.
Senate.  The endorsement will be made at a special convention to be held by the
Independence Party before June 30, 2008.

Two other candidates are also seeking the IP endorsement for U.S. Senate:
Stephen Williams of Austin, Minnesota; and Kurt M. Anderson of Minneapolis,
Minnesota.  Additionally, former Governor Jesse Ventura has hinted at an
interest in this office but nothing has yet materialized in that regard.

In my campaign for U.S. Senate, I want to focus on the issue of jobs.  I am
concerned about the long-term prospect of employment for Americans in a
free-trade environment that exposes them to direct cost competition with
workers in low-wage countries in Asia and Latin America.  The nation’s annual
trade deficit has soared to $800 billion, driven mainly by oil imports and
cheap manufactured goods.  I do not believe that the usual panaceas - more
education and currency adjustments - will get our nation’s trading accounts
back into balance.

In the campaign, therefore, I want to begin discussion of alternatives to free
trade.  My view is expressed in the following statement that was offered
yesterday at the IP platform convention:  “  "We support consideration of
alternatives to the current free-trade approach which look at trade from a
development standpoint.  The U. S. government should cooperate with other
governments to promote economic development throughout the world in ways that
increase living standards, improve working conditions, and improve quality of
life for all the world’s people without gutting the U.S. industrial base,
depleting nonrenewable resources, or damaging the natural environment.
Furthermore, we need to get our own cost structure in line - especially in the
health-care field -  so that goods production can be reestablished in the
United States and Americans can have attractive long-term job prospects."

This goes beyond such measures as rejecting the proposed U.S.-Colombia Free
Trade Agreement.  I fear the issue is framed in such a way that it will inflame
anti-U.S. passions if we reject an agreement with Colombia, having approved one
with Peru.  Instead, the U.S. government needs to consider scrapping the entire
trading system.

The “free trade” imperative came out of bad experiences during the Great
Depression when national governments protected their own industries and
corporations.  But now corporations have no loyalty to nations or to groups of
employees.  We need to consider a new model of trade in which national
governments would cooperatively regulate multinational corporations, ending the
race to the bottom in terms of labor and environmental standards.

In my view, national governments should legitimately be able to use tariffs as
a tax to punish companies that produce goods for export in factories that pay
extremely low wages and require unusually long hours of work or which discharge
wastes in environmentally irresponsible ways.  The cost savings they would get
from such arrangements would be nullified by the tariff they would have to pay
to get their products into the United States.  This scheme of
“employer-specific tariffs” is presented in an article that I wrote for the
spring 1993 issue of Synthesis/Regeneration, a national Green Party
publication.  It can be found on the web at
http://www.greens.org/s-r/06/06-30.html.

I have a campaign website at http://www.newindependenceparty.org, which tells
all you would want to know about me and my thoughts on trade.  In 1992, I
published the first anti-NAFTA book on the market, “A U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free
Trade Agreement:  Do we just say no?”.  It influenced both the Clinton and
Perot presidential campaigns in that year.  In pushing alternatives to free
trade, I want to move the Independence / Reform party back to its Perot roots.

I live in Minneapolis, just west of downtown, where I own and manage three
rental properties. I have also been a cost accountant with both private
companies and a public-transit agency.  I’m co-director of Metro Property
Rights Action Committee, a group of landlords fighting abusive city
governments, as well as a frequent contributor to the Watchdog newspaper.  I’m
married with a stepdaughter who is a flight attendant with United Airlines.
Thanks to her, I’ve been to China twice in the past year.

 I have previously run for U.S. Senate in the Independence Party primary in
1992, finishing second to the party-endorsed candidate, Jim Moore, with 8,400
votes or 31% of the total.  I also ran in Louisiana’s 2004 Democratic
presidential primary, finishing fifth among seven candidates with 3,100 votes
or 2% of the total.  Those times I ran as a solo candidate.  This time I would
not run unless I received party endorsement.  However, I do have experience as
a candidate in two statewide campaigns.

If you have comments or questions, you can reach me by email at
<email obscured>, by telephone at (612) 374-5916, or by mail at 1702
Glenwood Avenue, Minneapolis, MN  55405.  My website,
http://www.newindependenceparty.org, will also be a communication link.  Of
course, I’m also looking for campaign contributions and other support. I think
we can make a difference.  I pledge a good effort.

Please contact me if you wish. I’d love to hear from you.

Bill McGaughey