There are two strictly tactical reasons not to vote for Gore. In the short-term his presence in the White House will perpetuate weak liberal opposition to policies (such as economic, environmental, and military) that would have been pursued equally under a Bush administration but against much greater Congressional hostility.... If he loses, on the other hand, there's a chance that a genuine progressive will get the nomination next time around. And if not next time, then the time after that. The key is that the New Democrats consistently lose their bids for the White House. With a Republican in charge again, particularly an obvious ingrate like G.W., the midterm elections of 2002 would send at least one house of Congress back to the Democrats.
Ted
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Ted (and Gordon),
It still comes down to the same question. Who would you rather fight and over what ground?
I am not arguing for moving the democratic party to the left, but rather for a long list of potential targets of battle, whatever their effect on the democrats.
As for a possible victory of the tide pool critters, do you really want to go wading in there? Have you ever seen what lives in the intertidal zones? These are mostly small, nasty crustaceans, arthropods, mollusks, annelids and brachiopods--things that stick to the rocks and filter sea water through primitive comb-like organs.
Allow a slight diversion into biology. I think you will enjoy this passage as it gives some idea of the territory.
``The evolution of a coelom---an internal body cavity surrounded by mesoderm---was a major advance for the animal kingdom that facilitated the development of complex internal organs. Among coelomate animals, there are two major evolutionary lines: the protostomes, in which the mouth develops from the blastopore, include mollusks, annelids, and arthropods (insects, crustaceans, and related groups), whereas the deuterostomes, in which the anus develops from the blastopore, consist primarily of echnioderms and chordates. Several small phyla of primarily marine animals, comprising the lophophorates, are somewhat intermediate between these two major evolutionary branches in their features. They will be treated here, along with the mollusks (the snails, bivalves, and octopuses), phylum Mollusca. Most mollusks are unsegmented, but it is not certain whether their ancestors were segmented or not. In the segmented worms, or annelids (marine worms, earthworms, and leeches), phylum Annelida, the body consists of a few to many dozen similar segments, lined one behind the other like a string of beads. Mollusks and some annelids (the polychaetes) have similar trochophore larvae; the two phyla probably share a relatively close common ancestor'' (Biology, Mosby Year Book, St Louis: 1992, 804p)
I suspect it's chilling passages like the above that motivate tide pool dwellers to keep biology out of the schools.
Chuck Grimes