Nathan:
> Well, us leftwing Democratic hacks seem to have nothing to fear from fringe
> third party activists since the really loony fringe seems set to to destroy
> anyone who steps up to bat.
I'm with Nathan here, and for once. This is the sort of stuff that makes me despair of the left.
You know, in the real world, you will not find the ideal candidates who match your particular profile of political purity. And if you did, they might not match mine. (Oh no! I hear he uses Working Assets VISA phone service, which subcontracts to Sprint, a nonunion company! Oh no! I hear that he belongs to the Sierra Club, and everybody knows what Cockburn says about them!)
There are limits and litmus tests, but if you have any hope of actually making a difference, for example, in the present case, building the Green Party, attracting some attention and membership, and getting a protest vote that is not ridiculously negligible, you will have to swallow some stuff you might not approve of taken by itself.
I supported Ron Carey in his unsuccessful fight to stay in charge of the Teamsters even though I believed that he had in fact done the illegal things with campaign contributions to Clinton that brought him down in the end, and even though he had handed over his reelection campaign to Democratic Party hack spinmeisters instead of relying on his rank and file reform base. Carey wasn't ideal, but he was good enough.
The Greens should consider themselves fortunate that someone of Nader's profile would consider running as their candidate instead of savaging his choice of personnel on what I will add are remarkably vague and unclear grounds.
--jks