Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott is refusing to debate his Green Party challenger Joe Szwaja one-on-one. McDermott's position is that a series of candidates forums will provide Szwaja with an adequate opportunity to debate. It is hard to take McDermott's position seriously as these forums will be well-choreographed and not give Szwaja a chance to point out the differences he has with McDermott on a number of issues ranging from trade to salmon to U.S. foreign policy. Szwaja has found sponsors to host a debate and a well known radio talk show host to moderate it, but McDermott still refuses to get in the ring with Szwaja. This is not surprising and the reason why is easy to figure out: McDermott might lose if his actual record, not his progressive sounding rhetoric, were put up for public scrutiny.

Like a local boss appointed by the Communist Party in the former Soviet Union, McDermott cannot fathom opposition to his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. It's been years since this incumbent has had to face any serious opposition in a re-election campaign. The Republican Party isn't even bothering to run a candidate against McDermott.

However, with Joe Szwaja you have a radically different kind of challenger with a completely different kind of vision of how the political process should work. Szwaja is a high school teacher at the alternative school Nova. McDermott is a millionaire career politician who has never seen a wealthy campaign donor he hasn't liked. While McDermott was helping roll out the red carpet for the WTO in Seattle last year, Szwaja and his students were actively involved in the WTO protests. Szwaja sees the kind of community based activism that made the WTO protests so successful as a vital component of the democratic process. McDermott is an out-of-touch, inside the Beltway politician who sees taking money from wealthy campaign contributors and then doing their bidding once in office as the only way the political process should work.

I had a chance to see McDermott in action at a town hall meeting on October 15 in the Central District, where he made a feeble attempt to defend his support for the recently passed African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). When countered with opposition to his point of view McDermott came across as arrogant and condescending. The town hall meeting was attended by world renowned poet and activist Dennis Brutus from South Africa. When Brutus told the audience of the campaign he was involved with to convince African governments to reject passing AGOA into law, McDermott basically laughed at the idea. When Brutus pointed out that the terms of AGOA were unfair for African nations, the only thing McDermott could do was shrug his shoulders and say that they had no choice because AGOA was the accepted framework for U.S. trade with African nations as it had already been passed into law. It would have been nice if Szwaja, who had a previous engagement, could have made it to that meeting and went at it with McDermott on this issue.

McDermott can dodge debating Szwaja because the local media is allowing him to. The local newspapers, radio, and television stations should all be ashamed for their role in the damping down of political life in this country. The local media could put together a series of debates between local candidates but they don't. The analogy between politics in the former Soviet Union and the current state of political life in the U.S. is the correct one to be making. You don't have to put an individual like Szwaja in jail to marginalize him. You just have to ignore him because, unfortunately, the majority of people get their news from mainstream media sources. I don't want to ever hear another politician or media pundit say that the purpose of fighting the Soviet Union in the Cold War was to defend "democracy."

McDermott did go one-on-one with Szwaja behind closed doors at a meeting before the editors of the Stranger. He did not bother to turn up for the meeting before the editors of the Weekly. It is believed that the reason why he showed up with Swaja before the Stranger's editors was because of that paper's endorsement for him in the primary. Call McDermott's 7th District office, located on the 12th floor at 1809 7th Avenue, at 553-7170 and tell his staff of your opposition to his refusal to debate Szwaja.