Commoner Cause

A GROUP OF leading liberals, fearing that Kennedy may abandon the faith, have banded together to advance their own candidate--probably ecologist Barry Commoner--in 1980. The new Citizens Party hopes to draw on the common belief that the Democratic and Republican Parties are more alike than different and have failed to address the causes of the nation's economic failures.

The Citizens Party cannot hope to elect its nominee; by jabbing at the tired programs of the major parties and launching fresh ideas of its own, it can help keep Kennedy honest and save the presidential race from degenerating into an empty contest of personalities.

The major parties' loss of influence and inability to present creative policies have invited challenge. Party discipline is wanting in Congress and party loyalty is wanting among voters. In the last presidential election, close to half of all voting-age Americans shunned the polls. The Citizens Party may be able to engage those who have lost faith in the political process.

The new party outlines a broad liberal platform encompassing every issue. Its program is distinguished by its outspoken belief that our economic problems can only be solved if citizens rein in the power of large corporations. It offers a mix of standard liberal stands, such as support of the Equal Rights Amendment and solar energy, and positions the Democratic Party doesn't quite have the nerve to debate, such as public control of the energy industries and experiments in worker or community ownership of factories.

THIS EFFORT IS NOT pure and traditional socialism. We're trying to find a point somewhere beyond the New Deal--an American transition," says Don Rose, a Citizens Party organizer and the political strategist behind Chicago Democrat Jane Byrne's mayoral upset. The party filed a statement with the Federal Election Commission, laying out a gentle Party line for the transition: "There is nothing wrong with profit, or with private ownership. What is wrong is when private interest, and not the public good, determines how we live. That is what must be changed, and that is the issue the two major American parties can not and will not face."

The party numbers many prominent personalities and well-connected organizers. Among its 100 sponsors are Barry Commoner, Studs Terkel, the best-selling writer. Richard Barnet, author of Global Reach and a founder of the Institute for Policy Studies, a leftwing think tank, Steel Workers insurgent Ed Sadlowski and the heads of the Gray Panthers, the National Public Interest Research Group, the Black Economic Research Center and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The party also has sponsors with channels to potential financial supporters. The include David Hunter, executive director of the Stern Fund, Adam Hochschild, publisher of Mother Jones, Archibald Gillies, former director of the John Hay Whitney Foundation, and Washington businessman Stanley Weiss. For the moment, the party reports funds of about $35,000. Much of this is supposed to represent small contributions from television viewers who saw Commoner promoting the idea of a new party along with his book The Politics of Energy.

These liberal luminaries, hoping to reach out to the general public, have purposefully chosen a name as all-inclusive as those of the major parties. The question is whether a crew of intellectuals, philanthropists, labor mavericks, and '60s-style activists can attract favorable attention from a public preoccupied with the economy and reputedly drifting to the right.

Tom Hayden said the radicalism of the '60s was the common sense of the '70s. He was wrong, but at least the public came to view his demands as negotiable. People listen to Jerry Brown when he states the Citizens Party's environmental case and makes the same attacks they do on the MX missile and huge military budgets. The public is also ready to hear many of the economic planks that make the Citizens platform more consistent than Brown's. "A guaranteed job for everyone who wants to work" is nothing more than a Humphrey-Hawkins bill that hasn't been debauched. "Price controls" would be welcome to a majority of Americans; so would firm action to stop the drain of dollars into foreign oil wells.

The Citizens Party sounds extremist only when it proposes "citizen control of major investment and resource decisions." But surveys show the public resents both big business and big government. The Citizens Party is on the right track in advocating decentralized energy sources and decentralized control of business as means for people to regain a sense of power over their own lives. The party's task is to demonstrate that decentralized power does not spell a denuded standard of living.

This task is not the same as making Barry Commoner president. Some representatives of grassroots groups opposed plans to nominate Commoner. For them, the flaw in the anointment is the lack of time for organizing across the country. Others complain the party was unilaterally set up by a few wealthy liberals who are taking a "top-down" approach in general. But co-chair Harriet Barlow says the "organizing of the party is entirely open." The party will nominate the presidential candidate at a convention next March. The strategy now is to make a splash in the press with the presidential campaign in 1980, continue organizing at the local as well as national level for the next four years, and then go for broke in 1984. Organizers say their biggest immediate problem is maneuvering onto the ballot in each of the 50 states.

THEIR REAL PROBLEM, now and possibly in the long run, is Kennedy. Labor leaders who were carping about the existing two parties only a few months ago have already started flocking to the Kennedy banner. United Auto Workers chief Doug Fraser, head of the Progressive Alliance, has put out the word his energies will now be spent touting Teddy. And there's a good chance the Citizens ambitions for 1984 will be foiled by Kennedy in the Oval Office.

Even if their presidential hopes are infinitesimal, Citizens Party activists can play an important part in the campaign by focusing attention on liberal programs that might otherwise be ignored. The historic role of third parties like the Populists and the Progressives has been to influence the platforms of the major contenders. The Citizens Party can force Kennedy to earn the allegiance of liberals who he may assume are already in his pocket. It would be a worthy victory to keep Kennedy in line without throwing the election to his opponent.