Rogers Campaign Organizes
for a Post-Obama Future
by Harley Schlanger
May 19—When Kesha Rogers announced her decision last December to run for the U.S. Senate in Texas, she said a major goal of her campaign would be to "change the subject," from the usual banalities and hot-button issues, to a serious dialogue over how to move the United States into the future. While this goes against the practical, business-as-usual approach which dominates electoral politics in the the country, based on appealing to "popular opinion," Rogers, a LaRouche Democrat, emphasized from the beginning, that it has been adherence to such pragmatism, which has placed our nation in existential danger.
Now, on the eve of her May 27 primary runoff against millionaire David Alameel, it is the voters who face the test. Rogers has done what she promised, and she has the potential to win, in what would be a dramatic shock to the U.S. political system, especially the Obama Democrats, and would create openings to solve the real problems that face the United States and the world. The question is whether enough Texans will come out and fight for their future, by voting for her.
Offering an Opportunity
"I intend, with my campaign, to give Texas voters an opportunity to connect the best tradition of Texas politics—the anti-Wall Street, pro-growth, future-oriented tradition of FDR/JFK Democrats, exemplified by Wright Patman, Ralph Yarborough, and Henry B. Gonzalez, among others—with the quality of bold thinking needed today," Rogers said when she embarked on her campaign. She added that Texas voters have tuned out of politics, largely due to the failure of candidates to provide actual leadership, by challenging citizens to take personal responsibility for the future, rather than whining about how "you can't do anything."
This attitude, she said, is disastrous, as we are facing a crisis which requires immediate action. She identified the leading components of this crisis as the danger of a thermonuclear World War III, which could result from Obama's British Empire-directed fascist regime change in Ukraine and confrontational approach to China, the hyperinflationary collapse of the trans-Atlantic financial system, and the devastating drought threatening food production in Texas and California. In her campaign, she has insisted that there are solutions, but these exist only to the extent that leadership is asserted, to explain the interrelated cause of these crises—the genocidal "final solution" adopted by the British Empire, when faced with its impending collapse—and to rally support for a post-Obama era in the United States.
However, to accomplish this, there must be a break from recent trends in U.S. politics, and that is what differentiates her campaign from any other in the 2014 mid-term elections.
Despite running against one opponent who spent over $4 million in the primary, and a corrupt state party apparatus, supplemented by an Obama-run team of election wiseguys in "Battleground Texas," who engaged in a non-stop attacks against Rogers and efforts to demoralize potential voters, she finished second in a five-person race, while holding Alameel below 50%, forcing a runoff. Rogers has conducted a statewide campaign, aimed at activating both former Democrats and new voters, to shake them out of their demoralization and lethargy, and come out to vote.
Impeach Obama!
At the heart of Rogers' program is the drive to impeach President Obama, given his dangerous, repeated violations of the U.S. Constitution. As long as he remains in office, she said, there is no chance that members of Congress, in either party, will break with the Wall Street-dominated "party system." Wall Street has asserted total control over the White House, as part of the City of London banks, during both the Bush and Obama administrations, and this is why no one, in either party, has yet moved for impeachment.
However, this is changing, both in Texas and nationally, in part due to the relentless campaign of Rogers, and her success in forcing a runoff. The leading issue of contention between her and Alameel, is the impeachment of Obama, as her opponent has had nothing to say, in the e-mails and mailings sent to "loyal" Democrats—i.e., those still supporting Obama—other than that Democrats should not vote for Kesha, because she wants to impeach the President. He is actually aiding Rogers, by identifying her as the anti-Obama candidate in the race!
While the Alameel campaign in Texas is clinging to Obama as a drowning man grabs an anchor, the climate for impeachment has increased dramatically nationwide. The vote to establish a House investigative committee to look into the repeated lies from the administration on Benghazi is but one example. While this was undertaken by Republicans, Democrats have begun to realize that support for the Obama Presidency not only threatens the immediate future of the party, but also of the nation, and some in the House and Senate are now challenging Obama, on matters such as the coverup of Dick Cheney's torture policy, NSA spying, and continued bailouts and protection of the too-big-to-fail banks.
The Alameel campaign is taking a huge risk in its attacks on Rogers on the question of Obama, as the President is highly unpopular in Texas among voters in both parties. Rogers' victories in Democratic Congressional primaries in the 22nd C.D. in 2010 and 2012, in which her opponents chose to attack her on this issue, showed that more than 50% who voted in the party primary support the removal of Obama. For this reason, the Alameel campaign has concluded that the only way to defeat Rogers is to appeal to the dwindling number of Obama loyalist zombies in the party, while lowering the number of voters, including doing everything possible to obscure the fact that there is even a runoff.
In response, the Rogers campaign has launched an aggressive policy of outreach, statewide, with two leaflets for mass distribution, supplemented by radio ads, rallies with banners over heavily trafficked freeways, and impromptu "meet-ups." The goal is to reactivate the many former Democrats who have been voting Republican, not because of any virtues of Republican candidates, but out of anger and frustration toward Obama, and disgust at the absurdity of the party promoting a millionaire, Alameel, who made his money from a deal with a Wall Street hedge fund, pretending that he will take on Wall Street.
The Post-Obama Era
The most powerful aspect of the Rogers campaign has been its activation of many former or lapsed Democrats, who are excited by the prospect of reviving the pro-growth, anti-greenie traditions of the party. This has been discovered by campaign workings organizing among rural and blue collar Democrats, as well as urban African-American and Hispanic Democrats. A recent tour by Rogers, to the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) and to San Antonio, brought into the open both the potential, and the problem.
In the RGV, there has been a significant erosion of support for Democrats, as many second-level leaders are enraged that they are considered, by the party inner circle, as automatic voters for "acceptable" Democratic candidates. The effort by the Cameron County (Brownsville) Democratic chair Amber Medina to exclude Rogers from campaign events led to a sharp blast by a prominent blogger in the Brownsville Voice, which accused the Medina and state party chairman Gilbert Hinojosa, who is from Brownsville, of treating the RGV like a "plantation," on which they can tell people how to vote, and employing mafia methods to stay in power.
A similar response has been evident in San Antonio, where the county chairman has functioned as a bagman for Alameel, who has said repeatedly that he will spend "whatever it takes" to win. Ads are running in the city on a Spanish-language radio station, in which a prominent activist, Henry Rodriguez, endorses Rogers, accusing Alameel of trying to "buy votes." In the ad, Rodriguez states, "We are not for sale," while chiding Alameel for his refusal to debate Rogers.
In Rodriguez's case, as with many of those who fall into the category which Franklin Roosevelt called the "forgotten man," they are inspired by Rogers' willingness to engage them in discussion, to challenge both what they think and how they think, and to push them to take up "big ideas." During the campaign, Rogers sponsored two joint town hall meetings with LaRouche Democrat Michael Steger, who is running for Congress in California, which focused on overcoming the drought, through not just funding of major water projects—which is essential—but also moving into frontier areas of science, including atmospheric dynamics, and the need for massive upgrading of energy production, beginning with bringing thermonuclear fusion on line.
In many of the events she has held, participants find themselves fascinated by this kind of discussion, especially those who initially decided to attend because they wish to see Obama impeached. What Rogers has introduced into the campaign is the idea that impeaching Obama is only the beginning, and what is required is a total change in thinking, to enter into the post-Obama era. From daily organizing activities, and these kinds of meetings, the campaign has recruited over 250 people committed to bringing voters to the polls.
At the same time, Battleground Texas, with no shortage of funds, and the "expertise" of Obama operatives, has been struggling to attract activists, to back the candidates endorsed by the state party, such as Alameel, as acknowledged in an article in the May 16 New York Times. The article quotes various officials lamenting how difficult it is to bring Texas Democrats to the polls.
With no message other then "stick with Obama," and a candidate such as Alameel, with a long history of funding Republicans, as well as well-publicized ethics charges, including covering up for sexual harassment by employees at his dental clinics (see last week's EIR)—who is discovering again that he cannot buy an election—the strategy of the Democrats is voter suppression, and fraud. Prominent Democrats have warned the Rogers campaign of the likelihood that, in a close election, vote fraud should be expected, both through use of phony mail-in ballots, and Hinojosa-controlled operatives in south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. While the prospect of electoral victory for Rogers depends on how many of the forgotten men and women in Texas overcome their submission to the corruption of both parties, and cast ballots, she has already won a bigger victory. Through her persistent, inspiring leadership, the subject has been changed from the usual banal drivel of money-driven consultants and pollsters, to the great horizon that will be opened by the coming end of the Obama era.
