"We are discussing with fellow workers and young people the fact that capitalism has nothing to offer but imperialist war and economic depression, and inviting them to join in campaigning for the socialist alternative," Manuel said.

Campaigners collected more than 6,000 signatures in August, double the city’s requirement. By September 9, the last day for disputing nominating petitions, no challenge to the SWP campaign had been filed.

Manuel and his supporters participated in a campaign event at the University of the District of Columbia, and campaigned at the Ames department store, where hundreds of working people had signed petitions for the candidate. Manuel talked to workers who were about to lose their jobs at stores in the area that are going out of business.

Noting that thousands of workers are facing layoffs, Manuel explained how these kinds of assaults on working people are connected to the U.S. war drive through which the billionaire families are trying to shore up their profit rates by conquering more markets and territory.

"The United States is the biggest terrorist," said Omar Martin, a young worker who is Black, as he took a campaign leaflet from Manuel. Martin signed up to stay informed about campaign activities.

The incumbent mayor, Democrat Anthony Williams, had been forced to run a write-in campaign after the election board found him guilty of fraud and forgery in collecting signatures for nominating petitions, denied him a spot on the September 10 Democratic primary ballot, and fined him $277,700.

With election results tabulated two days after the primary, Williams received 75 percent of the votes cast and was declared the winner of the Democratic primary, in which 35 percent of registered Democrats voted.

Days before the primary, Williams, announcing that there was a $325 million deficit in the city budget, said that spending cuts and layoffs were on the table. The 2003 fiscal year begins October 1 and Washington, D.C.’s $5.8 billion budget must be approved by Congress, which will not do so without proposed cuts to balance the budget.

Cutting the school system’s budget has been floated by city council leaders and the mayor’s office. Other proposed spending cuts project layoffs of city workers as well as reduction of funds for health and human services and transportation.

"We should reject the ‘budget deficit’ argument used to justify cuts in education, social services, and jobs," declared Manuel. "The Democratic and Republican party officials say we have to ‘share the pain.’"

"The Socialist Workers campaign says tax the wealthy, not working people," Manuel explained, "through a sharply graduated income tax that begins above the average income of working families.

"There should be no cuts in funding for schools or social services and no layoffs. Instead, my campaign calls for a massive jobs program at union scale to construct and staff the schools, hospitals, day-care centers, and housing that working people need," Manuel said. "Working people should not have to bear the brunt of the bosses’ economic crisis, just as we must oppose their war drive against the peoples of the Mideast."

Manuel explained that workers and farmers need to organize a revolutionary movement to replace the government of the billionaire minority with a workers and farmers government and use political power in the interests of the majority. With such a government, working people could reorganize society based on human needs and solidarity, not the dog-eat-dog values of the capitalist system.  
 
 
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