In 2008, we need to build a challenge to the candidates and the agenda of the two corporate parties – the Democrats and Republicans. We see the Nader-Gonzalez independent presidential campaign as the strongest campaign, with the ability to reach the widest audience. Justice and Socialist Alternative are supporting this campaign in the 2008 presidential race. Where Nader is not able to get on the ballot, we are supporting the campaign of Cynthia McKinney who is likely to be nominated by the Green Party.

AFTER THE final state primaries, Barack Obama has effectively secured the Democratic nomination for the presidential election in November. The fact that the contest was between an African-American and a woman symbolises deep social changes in the US.

Obama has aroused enormous expectations. But, despite the radical imagery and rhetorical posturing, Obama remains a centrist, corporate-sponsored Democrat.

In many states, tens of thousands of signatures need to be collected in a matter of weeks. In Texas, 75,000 are needed in 75 days, and only signatures from registered voters who did not vote in the primary count. Each state creates their own unique barriers, and most have been designed to prevent working people from gaining an electoral voice.

It’s easy to get sick of the empty rhetoric and media circus that surrounds the ongoing horse-race between the main big business candidates. But in the 2008 elections, the independent campaign of prominent anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan stands out.

The Republicans have traditionally been the preferred party of big business, but in moments of political crisis corporate America has frequently turned to the Democrats to pull them through. With the Republicans imploding under the impact of Bush’s toxically unpopular policies, the more farsighted capitalist strategists are looking to the Democrats to channel public outrage safely into the ballot box.

Considering the history of racism in this country, from slavery to Jim Crow to mass unemployment, mass imprisonment and police brutality, a Black President would be a massive change. But will his policies improve conditions for working people?

Barack Obama denounced his former pastor of 20 years, retired Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Speaking at a press conference in response to Rev. Wright’s National press club speech Barack Obama said that Wright’s “comments were not only divisive and destructive… They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs”

With Nader running as an independent in 2008, many supporters will be wondering what will come out of the campaign after November. Socialist Alternative would welcome using the 2008 elections to open a serious discussion among Greens, left-wing union activists, socialists, and fresh layers of workers and youth around the idea of launching a new broad left-wing party. We would urge Nader and Gonzalez to use their campaign to popularize this idea.

Responses to popular questions about whether a Nader vote is a wasted vote and the case against lesser-evilism.

Would an Obama presidency bring the change we need? Is he really cut from a different cloth than the rest of the corrupt, corporate-controlled politicians? A deeper look reveals that Obama does not deserve the support of workers, progressives, or youth. Here are ten reasons why.

Corporate America has two parties; we need our own. We need a party with thousands of activists that doesn’t just organize for elections, but also organizes actions to win victories.

With the stock market teetering on the brink of disaster and home foreclosures reaching record highs, working people need real solutions, not the empty promises of the Democratic and Republican parties. We need a clear break from both mainstream parties as a step towards political independence of working people. Nader’s campaign can be used to break people from the two-headed corporate warmongering monster that rules our country.

The race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination remains unresolved, with just a few primaries left. Obama appears to have an insurmountable margin. However, neither candidate is likely to gain the 2,025 delegates required to secure the nomination. This sets the stage for an all-out fight at the August convention, as unelected “super-delegates” will probably decide the outcome.

On February 24, Ralph Nader declared he was running for President to challenge the corporate stranglehold over U.S. politics. Ordinary American have been “shut out of their government by two major parties that, in varying degrees, have turned Washington into corporate-occupied territory,” Nader said. Socialist Alternative is supporting Nader’s antiwar, pro-worker campaign, as we did in 2000 and 2004.