Politics aside

It may not seem like much, but Bob McCloskey believes his 18 percent showing in last week’s primary election for the 29th Congressional District seat currently held by Democrat Adam Schiff was pretty significant.

In the 29th District, which includes Pasadena, Altadena, Glendale, Burbank, Alhambra, South Pasadena, Temple City and the 55-year-old McCloskey’s hometown of Monterey Park, 18 percent translates into more than 6,000 votes; votes cast by party faithful who have turned against the well-liked, well-financed and politically entrenched Schiff, a former federal prosecutor who has been one of the leading voices in the House of Representatives supporting the war in Iraq and the president’s war on terror.

When one considers that McCloskey, a longtime union organizer and a lifelong Democrat, only had three months to raise money, to become known to the public and to knock on doors, capturing more than 6,000 votes from the popular Schiff was not only a major accomplishment but validation of McCloskey’s belief that the war is wrong and that Bush should be impeached.

It is for those reasons that McCloskey is doing the unthinkable: Turning against his own party member and supporting Green Party candidate Bill Paparian and his race against Schiff in November’s general election.

Paparian, a lawyer and former Pasadena City Councilman who registered as Green in order to run against Schiff on an anti-war, anti-Bush platform, is hardly surprised by McCloskey’s support.

The two appeared at rallies together throughout the campaign this spring and shared similar sentiments about the war, Bush and other hot-button issues. Paparian’s wife, Sona, even ran a club called Armenian Americans for McCloskey and, in fact, Paparian said he would have dropped out of the running had McCloskey won last week’s primary. But that didn’t happen.

Nevertheless, Paparian, who didn’t face an opponent in the primary but has won what he calls “strategic support” from a handful of prominent Democrats, among them developer and publisher Danny Bakewell and actor Ed Begley Jr., said he is “deeply honored” to have McCloskey backing his campaign.

“I think this is a historic moment. I don’t know of any time in the past when someone with a long history of active involvement with the Democratic Party who has reached a point that he is now going to be supporting a Green, not because I’m a Green but because I have the same stand on the issues as the progressive Democrats,” Paparian said.

“The fact is people recognize that the crisis that confronts us is a crisis that confronts us as Americans. It crosses party lines and this isn’t a time to be bound by the strict confidences of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party or the Green Party or the Peace and Freedom Party or the Libertarian Party. And as Americans we have to respond to it. We have to say no to this president. We have say no to this administration. We have to say no to the perpetual war, this perpetual war economy.”

In a brief post-election interview conducted on Thursday, the same day that the remains of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were being ghoulishly displayed on television screens and newspaper front pages around the country, McCloskey spoke with the Weekly about the campaign against Schiff and the reasons why he is for the Greens in the November election.

Pasadena Weekly: What was your feeling about the outcome of the election? I mean, you had to feel a certain measure of success at some level.

Bob McCloskey: I think the outcome was good considering we only had three months to run a campaign and we didn’t spend a whole lot of money. We did the best we could in trying to reach out to voters. I think if we had gotten to more households and mailed to more voters, obviously we would have gotten a bigger response. But I think the 18 percent that I did get is indicative of the frustration and anger with our current congressman. The problem wasn’t my platform. The problem wasn’t my positions. The problem was not having the finances to reach out to more voters and really having more time to go door-to-door and trying to reach more voters.

So, now you are supporting Bill.

I remain in the Democratic Party and I remain a Democrat, but I have always had an inside-outside strategy. I support candidates, progressive Democrats, and I have voted outside the party before. … I am supporting Bill. I want to help him win. I think the voters in this district, from what our experience has been going door-to-door, 8 out of 10 voters at the door agree with us that it’s time to pull the troops out of Iraq, it’s time to hold our president accountable. … In fact, many people support impeachment.

Well, today is a big event in Iraq. They are showing this image on television and everywhere else. Is this a good thing for us?

It’s immoral to celebrate the death of any human being, no matter how despised they are by the public or the media or the Bush administration. Zarqawi is a creation of our US foreign policy, and really the only ones you can blame for an increase of terrorist acts around the world is the Bush-Cheney administration for their continued one-sided support for the occupation of Palestine, their adventurous murder in Iraq, their threats against Iran. Now we have journalists like Seymour Hersch saying an attack on Iran is inevitable and he would not be surprised if the US staged some terrorist attacks to make that happen. I think it’s time for us to really address the issue of terrorism by looking at our foreign policy, ending the occupation of Iraq, supporting a fair-minded policy in Israel and Palestine …

But you are still adamantly a Democrat, and the party isn’t really following that line. Wouldn’t you be better off as a Green?

There are many races around the country in which progressive democrats are running … there are 61 members of Congress right now, members of the progressive caucus, who are calling for an immediate withdrawal of the troops. There is a minority of progressive Democrats in the House who I am fundamentally in agreement with on not only the war in Iraq but on other issues, like universal health care, putting a lot more federal dollars into education, expanding Medicare … so there are some good positions being taken by a minority of Democrats, and I support them.

It just seems unusual having a Democrat supporting a Green.

I stand on principle. I went into this race trying to bring more attention to the issue of the war, trying to stop this war. I went into this race on a platform of clean government and protecting our civil liberties. I was surprised to see Mr. Schiff receiving more and more money from defense contractors, more than he’s ever received, so the problem only gets worse. And in good conscience, I cannot tacitly support Mr. Schiff by not supporting Bill Paparian. I support Bill Paparian because I support peace and justice in this country and the issue of the war, the issue of our civil liberties, the issue of clean government goes far beyond party affiliation.

So you are going to be campaigning for Bill over the next three or four months?

Definitely. I will be doing all I can to help Bill. The main thing is to get out and talk to people door to door.