by the Editors

Margot Clarke is on the ballot in the June 11 Austin City Council run-off for Place 3, but do you know who she is?

Apparently finding John Kerry too conservative, Ms. Clarke was an organizer for Howard Dean for President and made the following posting to Dean’s Blog for America website:

“As Gov. Dean moves into the lead for the Democratic nomination, I believe his supporters (us) need to ask him to concentrate a lot of his message on a positive vision for this country. I am daily mystified by the indifference shown by Americans to the appalling actions by Bush and his gang of destructors. I have come to believe that people are not waking up because they don’t want to – they’re afraid and want to believe our government is doing the right things and keeping us safe. Dean needs to give them a reason to believe that our country can do much better – economically, environmentally, socially, and democratically. The US could be such a powerful force for good in the world, instead of alienating our friends and slaughtering our enemies (thus enlisting new fighters to their cause). Please, Howard, give America something positive to believe in, and bring our people out of their self-imposed darkness!”

That’s right. Clarke did not call Al-Qaeda a “gang of destructors,” but rather she hurled that epithet at the Bush administration. And, by the way, what exactly is wrong with “slaughtering our enemies” – before they slaughter us?

Unlike her opponent small businesswoman Jennifer Kim, Clarke has little experience in the private sector. She has spent nearly her entire career as an activist for left-wing organizations, most notably the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood. She currently serves on the board of the National Abortion Rights Action League Texas, which opposes even parental notification and banning partial birth infanticide.

There is considerable doubt as to whether Ms. Clarke supports the fundamental American concept of private property rights. She endorsed a smoking ban that defines all private businesses as “public places.” On May 16, Clarke led a protest against the construction of a Wal-Mart in southwest Austin. Having loaned her campaign over $33,000, Clarke can apparently afford to shop in more plush surroundings and she wants to force those less fortunate to do so as well.

Clarke also wants to run AMD and their many good jobs out of town by stopping them from building an environmentally-friendly campus that will reduce commutes for its workers and give the city $5 million to purchase environmentally-sensitive land for preservation.

Now, Clarke is pushing “community land trusts,” a euphemism for socialism. She plans to propose a huge bond measure next year so the City can buy land to create affordable housing by artificially preventing some property values from increasing.

If you enjoy paying your mortgage or rent, Clarke’s community land trust scheme is for you because you will also get to pay for the land beneath other people’s homes. Congressman Bernie Sanders, the only self-admitted Socialist in Congress, pioneered this alternative to private property as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont. It is also a central tenet in the platform of the candidly named Campaign for Co-operative Socialism.

The difference between Margot Clarke and her more pragmatic opponent, also a Democrat, was clear at a recent joint appearance before the Metropolitan Breakfast Club. When asked about the police force, Clarke gave the stereotypical liberal response blaming the police for not doing enough social work while providing no details. Kim showed herself to be a problem-solver rather than an ideological crusader by discussing how to improve response times in specific neighborhoods.

We can only hope that Austin's mainstream voters respond quickly because early voting begins Wednesday, May 25.