In its 160-year history, California has elected one third-party candidate to secretary of state. That was in 1856.
That doesn’t bother Marylou Cabral, a Cal State Long Beach student and secretary of state candidate for the Peace and Freedom party. What makes Cabral’s third-party candidacy special is that she’s on the ballot in today’s midterm election.
According to her campaign, the 22-year-old is running to win but she understands the “electoral process under the capitalist system is rigged.”
“Only vehemently pro-capitalist politicians win because they receive all of the corporate financing and a disproportionate amount of media exposure,” the campaign said.
Cabral, if elected, plans to extend voting rights to undocumented workers and working prison inmates. She also wants to lower the voting age to 16. According to her campaign, this is the age “many poor and working youth begin to be exploited for their labor.”
Cabral is running as a Peace and Freedom candidate, but is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). While the former maintains feminism as an essential platform, both are socialist parties.
“As a socialist and a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the best opportunity to challenge pro-capitalist politicians in their own arena is to work shoulder to shoulder with the Peace and Freedom Party,” Cabral’s campaign said.
Cabral also believes California can adopt socialism.
“Socialism can be introduced with a massive peoples’ movement,” her campaign said. “The methods of introducing socialism into any society are dependent upon the needs of that society.”
In 2008, Cabral ran for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in the county’s 4th District.
“I guess growing up in this area and seeing the huge discrepancy between the middle and lower class and seeing that kind of antagonistic relationship that exists made me want to do something about it,” Cabral told the Daily 49er in 2008.
Cabral won 23,703 votes, or 18 percent, in her 2008 run for the board, losing only to Republican candidate and current supervisor Don Knabe.
According to her campaign, this candidacy cemented Cabral’s belief that “socialism is the only alternative to the destructive path that capitalism inherently follows.”
Cabral is also no stranger to university politics.
In 2007, she was instrumental to the organization of one of CSULB’s largest anti-Iraq War protests. Earlier this year, she campaigned for the removal of CSULB psychology professor Kevin MacDonald, interrupting one of his classes in late January.
“Our goal is to let students know about [MacDonald’s] involvement in Freedom 14 and other neo-Nazi groups.
“We feel that the students need to know what they’re getting into,” Cabral told the Daily 49er at the time.
Cabral is running alongside the Freedom party’s gubernatorial candidate, 23-year-old Carlos Alvarez. Also a member of PSL, Alvarez’s campaign calls for full employment.
His campaign said, “People over profits: jobs, education, housing, health care for all.”
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