'Damn socialist' Brian Moore gets presidential nod
By Tony Marrero -- lmarrero@hernandotoday.com
Tampa Tribune -- Hernando Today Edition
Monday, 22 October 2007

SPRING HILL -- As a political candidate, Brian Moore's views have prompted critics to levy what they thought to be the ultimate slur.

"They'd always call me "that damn Socialist,'" Moore recalled.

Moore admits the word even used to make him wince.

Now, however, he is more than a dues-paying member of the Socialist Party USA.

He is the party's presidential candidate.

Moore took the most votes of the party's 50 delegates at the Socialist national convention held in St. Louis this weekend. The 64-year-old beat out four other hopefuls.

Stewart A. Alexander, a longtime civil rights activist from Murietta, Calif., was tapped as Moore's vice presidential running mate. Alexander was the Peace and Freedom Party's candidate for lieutenant governor of California in 2006.

Moore is relatively well known in Hernando County as founder and chair of the Nature Coast Coalition for Peace and Justice. The group organizes the anti-war rallies at some of the county's busiest intersections.

And he is better known in Florida after the last election cycle, when he campaigned in 40 of the state's 67 counties and garnered 19,695 votes running as an independent to unseat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

He has twice run for 5th Congressional District seat currently held by Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, and he also ran for mayor of Washington D.C.

Moore said he played up all that experience. And he touted his time in the Peace Corps and as a worker for a non-profit agency that oversaw community development and infrastructure projects in some of the poorest neighborhoods of Bolivia, Panama and Peru, to show that he had real-world skills needed to campaign for the nation's highest office in a party that champions the rights of the poor and working class.

David McReynolds is a former socialist presidential nominee who attended the convention this past weekend and wrote a summary of his observations.

"What gives me hope for the future... is that the ticket of Moore and Alexander brings hope of reaching young voters and voters of color," McReynolds wrote. "I know that if Moore campaigns as hard in the next year as he did to get the nomination, he will help redefine the SP and that Moore and Alexander together will bring in a wave of new and younger members..."

A process of self-discovery led Moore, a former health care executive recruiter, to join the party and run for the nomination.

Like many Americans, he was brought up to believe socialism and communism are one and the same, and that neither are viable systems.

"I thought it was a dirty word," said Moore, one of seven children raised in a blue-collar Irish-Catholic family in Oakland, Calif.

Then he did some research at the suggestion of Darcy Richardson, his campaign manager for this and past campaigns.

Moore found the positions he stressed in his campaigns -- a single-payer health care system, opposition of tax cut for the rich, immigrants' rights, opposition of the Iraq war -- all closely align with the Socialist Party ideals.

A socialist system would guarantee housing, jobs and health care to every American, he said.

A Socialist president would pull troops out of Iraq immediately and seek to halve the military budget, but still ensure a force that could adequately defend the country and even stick up for oppressed people in other parts of the world, he said.

And a Socialist president would work to enact a system that makes it impossible for huge multi-national corporations to reward a few investors at the expense of its workers -- and to fund political campaigns to ensure the election of lawmakers to perpetuate the system, Moore said.

It would be a country, he said, where CEOs could not make a 100 times more than the factory worker, or where a basketball player or rock star could make 1,000 times more than a social worker.

He acknowledges that last concept is likely one of the most difficult for Americans to swallow.

"Americans do not perceive equality very well," Moore said. "We've been brought up and trained that an American picks himself up by the bootstraps and success depends on energy, ambition, and beating the other guy, which results in stepping on people."

He acknowledged there is no realistic chance to get elected. But that, he said, is not why he's taking this journey.

Instead, Moore said he wants to provoke Americans to question whether capitalism really is the best system to ensure true equality, and to at least be open enough not to dismiss socialism out of hand.

"For me, this is another opportunity to educate and pioneer and break these negative images, to not be afraid, to break new ground," said Moore, who is married and has a 10-year old adopted son.

Some states make it harder than others to get on the ballot. In Florida, for example, it's as easy as registering. In Texas, it takes 56,000 signatures.

Moore hopes to get on the ballot in at least 15 states, and plans to campaign just as hard as he has in past races -- or as hard as fundraising will allow.

He hopes to take advantage of a federal program that offers a 100 percent match to any candidate who raises $5,000 in 20 states.

"We think that's doable," he said.

Moore's Web site is www.votebrianmoore.com.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be contacted at 352-544-5286.

This story can be found at www.hernandotoday.com.