While the race for the Democratic nomination for president has just begun, it's clear that the people, many of whom are first time participants in the process, are hungering for change and to put their mark on this election.

According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, nearly eight in ten Americans believe the country is on the 'wrong track.' But they are refusing to let this view of our society turn into cynicism or a refusal to participate in the political process.

They are eager for the end of the Bush administration and its anti-people, anti-planet policies and to move forward with universal health care policies, reviving the sagging Bush economy, bringing the troops home from Iraq, and strengthening working families.


This explains record turnouts in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, and it explains why the top two Democratic candidates have so far gotten more votes than all of the Republican candidates combined – in both places. It also explains a massive shift by independent voters to supporting the Democrats.

The excitement and enthusiasm of voters to end the Bush administration's policies have pushed candidates to what are being called 'populist' themes. After her slim victory in New Hampshire, for example, Sen. Hillary Clinton talked about home foreclosures, the need to create jobs, universal health care, and access to higher education.

'I've met families in this state and all over our country,' Clinton said, 'who've lost their homes to foreclosures. Men and women who work day and night but can't pay the bills and hope they don't get sick because they can't afford health insurance. Too many have been invisible for too long. Well, you are not invisible to me.'

In one of several campaign stops in Michigan last week, Rep. Dennis Kucinich revved up a crowd of more than 200 with progressive demands for change.

Michigan can send a message to the rest of the country, Kucinich said, 'it is time to bring our troops home from Iraq, that it is time for a single-payer, not-for-profit health care system, Medicare for all, and it is time to end NAFTA and start creating jobs here in Detroit and other industrial areas. It is time to reclaim our civil liberties by canceling the PATRIOT Act.'

Pepe Lozano, a reporter for the People's Weekly World, told Political Affairs about his experience reporting from the Iowa caucus and the charged atmosphere at a Barack Obama rally earlier this month.

On the eve of the caucus, Lozano reported, Obama spoke at a high school in Des Moines. Cars filled the school's parking lot and people parked along the streets and in places where they weren't supposed to in order to make it in to see the candidate. Some 1,500 people packed into the school gymnasium to hear Obama, said Lozano.

'It is was an amazing array of people,' said Lozano. People were in an excited and inspired mood.

Lozano said that Obama even moved him. Listing some of the important turning points in American history, Lozano paraphrased Obama: 'If it wasn't for the American people, we would never have abolished slavery. And if it wasn't for the American people, women would never have gotten the right to vote. If it wasn't for the American people, we would never have defeated fascism in World War II.'

Lozano added that Obama attributed the success of the civil rights movement – ending Jim Crow and ensuring voting rights – to the struggles of the American people – Black and white – and especially young people, who marched, sat-in at segregated lunch counters, and braved police dogs and firehoses.

Role of the Labor Movement

Labor is playing a more visible and decisive role in the nomination process as well. Labor endorsements and activism will determine key races. According to one survey, 20 percent of the voters in New Hampshire came form union households and handed Clinton a 9-point victory over Barack Obama in their group, a factor, no doubt, which led to her 3 percent victory overall.

Key union endorsements in Nevada for Barack Obama will likely shape the outcome the Democratic caucus on the 19th.

People's Weekly World Labor Editor John Wojcik, who also has followed the campaigns closely, emphasized the role of the labor movement and its impact on how the process is shaping up and the issues that are being discussed.

Wojcik pointed to the AFL-CIO presidential forum held last summer as a key starting point. 'What was put forward there, that became a driving force in this election,' he said, referring to questions put forward by the workers at that forum about universal health care, workers' rights to join and organize labor unions, fair trade and re-vitalizing the manufacturing sector, bringing the troops home from Iraq, and many other issues important to working families.

Wojcik also talked about how participation in the process has moved to a qualitatively new level. In the past, candidates who won caucuses had campaigns that went out and pushed, pulled, and dragged voters into the caucus.

Not this time in Iowa, Wojcik said. 'It didn't matter what kind of a polling operation you had, because the 'pullers' had to get out of the way of the avalanche of voters who coming in on their own. They didn't need to be bussed or pulled into the polls. They were coming in there in such large numbers that people who were running the caucus didn't know what to do with them.'

Some Democratic caucus sites just weren't big enough to fit all of the voters who came in to participate, said Wojcik.

The struggle to end the Bush administration's policies and take the country in a new direction should not be derailed by a media that prefers to focus on personalities, controversies, bickering, and those things, big and small, that divide. Based on predictions about and the results of the New Hampshire primary, the corporate media has already proved that it just doesn't understand how the people think, what they care about, and what they want.

The united movement to bring our country out of an eight-year long nightmare that began in Iowa cannot stop, even after the November 4th election. So don't let media cynicism dampen your spirit and eagerness for being a part of the change that only we can bring.