Were it accurate, you might. May I point out that the consequence of Gore’s realpolitik goes by the initial Dubya? Yee haw! Keep ignoring the Greens!
You keep pretending that it was an idelogically pure decision folks made to vote for Nader. I’ve told you over and over the way that the scales were weighted; I’ve told you over and over the realpolitik that many Greens practiced when they voted for Nader. If you can’t accept that, that’s your problem. And if the Democratic party can’t get that message, they better learn to be comfortable here in Disenfranchisementland.
Fortunately, some people at least within the party have gotten the message, are realizing that you can’t win elections by abandoning your constituency. Eventually, minty, I’m guessing your own party will convince you. Obviously I’m not gonna be able to.
Uh, no. Gore won the popular vote precisely because he ran largely to the center. Presidential elections are not won at the margins of the electorate, though in this case, the actions of the far left–who refuse, of course, to acknowledge that their politics are anathema to the vast majority of the country–certainly led to a loss. Gore loses if he goes after your vote.
Oooh, Nancy Pelosi wins an election among her own colleagues. Real impressive. You think that translates into Howard Dean winning the presidency? It’ll be a cold day in hell, my friend.
Proof? Looks to me like you’re complaining about all the votes on the left he lost because he moved to the center; wanna prove to me that he gained a lot of votes through that move?
I think you’re wrong, and I think your thinking is what’s gotten the Democratic party in such trouble.
Did the Republicans retake Congress by appealing to moderates? Hell, no! They used the energy of their base to get out the vote. They made bold, sweeping proposals that people could get excited about. They differentiated themselves from their opposition. They moved away from the center.
And Democrats, hoping to pick up some of the moderates that Republicans had abandoned, moved to the right.
As long as there’s no real third-party threat on the left to exert political gravity on the Democrats, those members of the party interested only in retaining power are going to keep moving to the right: mathematically, they’ll obtain the most votes by being exactly one person’s vote to the left of the Republican party.
But if they risk losing votes on the left when they move too far to the right, then that move is slowed down.
minty, fwiw, I think you are a bit harsh here. A DLC-dominated Democratic Party is just not very left at all (though it is indeed preferable to a Bush administration whose far-right leanings become more evident every day of the week). A lot of Nader supporters are just traditional liberals, and while that kind of liberalism has indeed become more and more marginalized, it’s a distortion to call it the “far left.” In other words, Naderites are trying to address what seems to be a never ending drift to the right, in which the so-called center drifts further and further to the right and, in retrospect, Richard Nixon begins to look like the next candidate for the Green Party!
I was living in a swing state in 2000, voted for Gore, and actually “traded” my vote for Nader with some guy in New York. I did have a few friends who voted for Nader despite the danger; my state actually swung for Gore in the end. (Thanks perhaps to the no less than 15 calls I got those last two days from Barbara Streisand, Ted Danson, you name it )
In other words, minty, I feel your pain, and even back before 9/11 and its unpredicted boost for Bush’s agenda–which no one could have predicted–I wouldn’t have had the guts to vote for Nader if it meant risking a Bush win in my state.
But the underlying problem still needs addressing. And I think that the Greens–who are themselves divided on the issue of whether there should be future Naderite moves–deserve a little more respect. If not for their tactics than for their motives. No?
Mandelstram, although I think that minty is an intelligent and (normally) rational poster, it’s not his respect that I’m after. If he’s gotta hold me and other Greens in contempt, that’s fine – as long as he can keep it to himself.
I’m after enfranchisement. I’ve long felt that I wasn’t enfranchised within the Democratic party, and in 2000, I took a risk, hoping that it’d turn enough Democratic heads that I’d be enfranchised in the future.
minty seems to think that my hopes are in vain. I think he’s wrong. But only time will tell.
If I’m wrong; if Lieberman is the next Democratic candidate (just by way of exaple – I think we all agree that’s very unlikely); then I’ll need to decide what to do again. I hate the fact that 2000 came down to such a shitty electoral choice that I decided I needed to take that risk, but 2000 did, and I did.
Here’s hoping the Democrats paid attention; here’s hoping they realize that moving away from their traditional values is not the way to hold on to power. Here’s hoping that enough of them get bored attacking their potential allies that they’ll instead start looking for ways to regain their allies’ trust.
We liberals aren’t willing to be disenfranchised any longer. Most especially not within our former party.
Depends on the issue, doesn’t it? A DLC-led party is still strong on abortion rights, women and minorities, the environment, a progressive tax structure, etc., etc. It is also, happily, not merely a regressive proponent of the welfare state, in favor of trade as a policy of political engagement and social progress around the world, and fiscally responsible to boot. Daniel and I are clearly not getting together on those latter issues.
Clearly, the country has moved on. It does no good to claim you would have been in the mainstream 40 years ago when your current location is high and dry and not even within spitting distance of the river.
Fine, I’m more than happy to engage in discourse over the positions and direction of the Democratic Party. But that is an internal discussion. Don’t pick up your ball and announce you’re going home when things don’t go your way, then expect the rest of us to kiss your fair-weather ass next time you want to play a game.
I can agree with all of this (if not the tone). The Democratic party is not obligated to reflect my views any more than I’m obligated to vote for them.
Now if we can all agree to just accept the results of the democratic process as being reflective of the will of the people, I think we’ll have about as much agreement as we’re going to get in this thread.
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