Two quick points. First, while campus politics hardly matters outside the campus, it seems to define the Left, because there is hardly any left left outside the campus. Thus, my argument was that the Left should focus on the "out-of-campus" issues to gain out-of-campus relevence.
Second, you seem to assume that getting involved in a certain political practice is a matter of individual choice - hence your comment on practicing what once preaches. That seems to me as the cornerstone of the mainstream ideology of choice - since individuals "choose" to be rich or to be poor, among many other things, there is hardly any need to discuss the "system." In the same vein, since individuals "choose" to engage in campus id politics or out-of-campus organizing, there is hardly any need to discuss the nature of academic labor and the institutional ramifications of knowledge production.
Since there is hardly any need to argue on this list about the substantial systemic influences on what appears to be "individual choices" - - the falsehood of your position seems quite apparent. That brings to focus a remark kelley made elsewhere about the importance of "middle level analyzis" of the organizational constraints knowledge workers face in the process of knowledge production.
To bring those two points together: self-reflective and critical analysis of the process and constraints of knowledge production (i.e. something that listservs like this one has been set up for) seems to be the most promissing, if not the only, _collective_ (as opposed to illusory 'individual choice') way of overcoming the trap of out-of-campus irrelevance the Left got itself into.
wojtek