Running as a Radical

Abstract

The Code of Ethics of the NASW asserts that social workers have an ethical mandate to engage in social and political action in order to “ensure that all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their basic human needs and to develop fully” (NASW, p. 27). Though social work publications and educators remind social workers and students of this mandate to be politically active, few authors qualify which political goals and activities are worthwhile. Literature rarely focuses on the possibility that social workers could be running for office themselves, or for what purposes they might run. In the Maine State Elections of 2002, a social work student who had been introduced to social activism by a economic human rights group called the Portland Organization to Win Economic Rights (POWER) ran a radical left campaign geared toward the needs of low income, working class residents of southern Maine. In creating and publicizing a radical left candidacy, and representing a third party (the Maine Green Independent party), the campaign came up against many obstacles including political and cultural barriers, Democratic party interest groups, and the media's agenda setting. A case study of the campaign is presented and barriers and lessons are discussed.