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Al Sharpton
Reverend; Civil Rights Activist; Democratic Candidate for President
Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:
Q: The system is still the donkeys versus the elephants; nothing much will change as long as this continues. How do you recommend that we break through this kind of logjam?
A: One, vote for Al Sharpton in the California primary is a good place to start. We must have challengers in the party that are not afraid and don't equivocate on our positions. Also, those that organize outside the party are not ones that ought to be condemned. Many of them felt they had no home ideologically or policy-wise in the party. Rather than condemn them, we ought to examine ourselves. If you abandon people and their needs and dreams, you can't ask why they're not supporting you. That's like a man abandoning his children and wondering why they didn't show up at his birthday party.
I invited Ralph Nader in 2000 to my headquarters in New York to speak, though I supported Al Gore. I felt that he should have been heard, and people were saying he shouldn't have a voice in Harlem. If you stand for something you can hear everybody, and I don't disagree with those that have said that they felt shut out. I'm trying to reopen that door.
Q: Do you believe the Democratic Party takes the African-American vote for granted? What about the vote of the other minorities?
A: In many ways the Democratic Party has taken the African-American and Latino vote for granted - and other groups. They take gays and lesbians for granted. I spoke at the candidates forum at the human rights group in Washington, and the issue was gay and lesbian marriages. I started hearing strange stuff like, "I'm for civil unions, not marriage." That's like, "I'm for shacking up, not marriage." We want people to be firm for us while we are equivocating for them, and that is bad. Blacks and Latinos and gays and lesbians cannot be treated any more as the mistresses of the party, where they have fun and party with us but won't take us home to Momma and Daddy. Either we're going to get married in 2004, or we're going to find somebody who's willing to be seen with us, night and day.
Q: Specifically, what's your position on gay marriage?
A: It's a human rights question. People ask, Do you agree with gay and lesbian marriage? I say that's like asking, Do I agree with Latino marriage or black marriage? If we are not prepared to say that gays and lesbians are less than human, then why do they have to qualify under any other circumstances than any other person in the human family to decide who they want to marry? It's a human rights question; you cannot deny them that right without saying you see them as less than human. If you have personal or religious views, you have the right to exercise that in your personal life. You do not have the right to deny someone else the legal options of any other human being in this country.
Q: Several questions have talked about Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson running for president. Do you think it's significant in the 21st century to have a black candidate for president, as it was for them earlier?
A: I was involved in both campaigns. I was a youth organizer for Shirley Chisholm's campaign; I was about 18 years old. I was involved with Reverend Jackson's two campaigns. People forget how long ago they were. I'm going to a lot of campuses where young people don't know anything about the Chisholm or Jackson race. I'm the first black man they've seen running for president, so it is significant for them. The significance is that even though neither of them succeeded in winning the nomination, we gained a lot from their running. Jesse's running registered enough Democrats that we won six U.S. Senate seats in the South. We were able to get Ron Brown as a chair at a party; we were able to get new governors; we were able to push for the policy of free South Africa and sanctions. In many ways, we got more out of Jackson losing than we got out of other folks winning. That's why I say the least that could happen is that you can't lose with me.
We will affect the platform. We will fight to put progressives on the DNC. We will register a lot of young voters that will change Senate seats and gubernatorial seats and county seats. BET, the largest black-oriented cable network, is partnering with National Action Network, registering what we call the hip-hop generation. I'm the only candidate that can even talk to that generation; many of them don't even know who the other candidates are. I'm the only candidate that can go from the church to the hip-hop community to "Saturday Night Live" and still make it to The Commonwealth Club.
Q: What good did you do by being on "Saturday Night Live," and is this now going to be a regular stop on the campaigns of presidential candidates?
A: The reason I did it, they invited me. I remember in 1992 how Bill Clinton went on "The Arsenio Hall Show," put on dark shades and blew a sax, and they say that was "reaching out." So if he could reach out from Arsenio, I could go on the other side and reach out from "Saturday Night Live." Richard Nixon did "Laugh-In." Politicians do things to show voters that they may be passionate and serious about their policies but that they're human and they laugh at themselves. I think that's positive.
Q: Have you been endorsed by God?
A: Usually, my conversations with God are classified and confidential, so I will have to respect our understanding.
Q: But this is an organization in a city committed to open government and open meetings and so forth.
A: But it also is a city that is committed to separation of church and state.
Q: Okay.
A: You thought this was Al Gore; this is Al Sharpton. I can answer that one.
Q: The government is sending billions to Iraq. But we're a rich city, a rich state, a rich country, and we're starved in terms of money for even basic services as well as social services. Where do we get the money?
A: I thought when you said "money" you were going to say, "How do you help me with money?" Which is go to my web site, www.sharpton2004.org. We're still on the radio, right? Or for you that are here, I take offerings; I'm a minister. But in terms of the question: first of all, the moneys that we need to generate are already there in large part if we stopped the tax cuts of George Bush. It is amazing to me how conservatives ask, Where are we going to get the money from? But they have no question of where we're going to get $87 billion for Iraq. I would raise trillions of dollars by rescinding Bush's tax cut, by eliminating the fat in unnecessary contracts in the Defense Department, and by regulating big business again. Enron had 3,000 off-shore businesses that were paying no taxes to the U.S. government. You also have to have a president that has the priorities of building in the country. It's insulting to send billions abroad when you have deficits like you have in California, and you want to recall the governor in California. If we're going to recall people based on deficits, then we must recall George Bush.
Q: How do you respond to ABC suspending coverage of your campaign after you challenged Ted Koppel on the debates?
A: Isn't that interesting that Dennis Kucinich challenges ABC and they say, We're going to shut you all down? And this is supposed to be an open process. The Quinnipiac Poll yesterday had me tied with John Kerry for fourth place; there's nine candidates. If I'm in fourth, how are people behind me first-tier candidates - unless we're saying now that only money counts, that you buy the White House, the voters have nothing to do with it. If I'm in the top five in the polls, how am I a third-tier candidate other than we have changed the standards of American democracy to who has the most money? And if we go by that, none of us should run, because no one is going to raise the money Bush is going to raise.
