AS: In humor it's fine. But when we start acting like or inferring that we should be happy that we already had a president that related to blacks, that's insulting. If the issue is black inclusion and empowerment, you can't use Bill Clinton as an answer. If the issue is that he was comfortable among blacks, fine. But I remember the night before the governor's race in New York in 2002, all of us were onstage at the Bethel AME Church in Harlem -- Clinton, his wife, Rangel, all of us. And I said, "Senator Clinton, I want to correct one thing. They keep saying your husband was the first black president. I intend to be the first black president. Your husband was the first beige president. There is a difference in being off-white and being black."
PB: If you were elected president, how would the lives of white Americans change?
AS: Drastically and for the better. One, they would have a president that would fight to give guaranteed health care to all Americans. That is not a race problem. It may be more of a problem in places of color, but it is a problem for all Americans. Second, I would not bring us into war in any dangerous way, unless our lives were directly threatened and there was no alternative. Third, I would fight for public education. There are many poor whites who I have met in Pennsylvania, Virginia and in the South who need the restoration and maintenance of public education as much as people who are closer to my background. It's something Rev. Jackson used to say: When the boats at the bottom are lifted, it lifts all boats. I couldn't help my own without helping everyone else, and I wouldn't be a president just to help my own. I would be a president for everyone.
PB: You recently said, "You have a party of elephants with donkey overcoats. There needs to be a progressive wing of the party." So, why even be a Democrat in this day and age?
AS: I think the party is going to have to answer that. If we generate the kind of votes and excitement [that I think we will], when we get to Boston, the party is going to have to decide its direction. This is a classic showdown of the direction of a political party in the United States. Joe Lieberman represents one wing of the party, and I think I represent another. I think Kerry and Dean are somewhere in the middle. It's something the party is going to have to answer -- whether people should continue to believe this party is open to the ideas of progressive people.
PB: You are opposed to the war in Iraq. Why?
AS: I have said from the beginning I did not believe we were in imminent danger. I did not believe there were weapons of mass destruction. I think now it is clear there were not. Imminent means immediate. How do you get out of a war and four months later say we are still looking for the weapons? Then how were they an immediate threat? That is ridiculous. It is very important that we understand that this president, in my opinion, lied to the American people. He not only lied, he distracted us from going after Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, who he committed to go after.... I think that it was an absolute error of judgment and dishonest what Mr. Bush did.
PB: You are the only anti-death penalty presidential candidate. Why, and do you own a gun?
AS: I don't own a gun. I never have owned a gun, and I have been a victim of a stabbing. So I am not soft on people assaulting people, but I think that it is absolutely wrong for the state to kill people. One, we see too many cases where the state has been proven wrong. Second, it is unfair in terms of its dispensation along lines of class and race. And third, I think that it is embarrassing to the Democratic Party that a Republican governor in Illinois showed more moral standing than any Democratic governor by saying, Wait a minute, I am going to stop this. I absolutely don't understand how someone could call himself a progressive and be for the death penalty. We have people in the race who call themselves progressive who support the death penalty. It's almost an oxymoron.
PB: Fast forward to the convention. You have won the nomination. Name five frontrunners for your vice presidential slot. |
