On Fri Jul 14 2000, Brad DeLong wrote:
> On the other hand, was there ever a faster rightward drift than in
> Britain under Mad Maggie, when the Labour Party was trying to make
> sure the difference between it and her was maximized?
I think the difference between political systems is key here. If we had an imperial Prime Minister, Willie's 43% might have given him a similarly unfettered power to remold things. Who knows, we might have had the stuff in his first state of the nation speech, like universal health care. Instead, it was the ideologically committed opposition, who has been losing electoral ground for the last 8 years because of it, that molded the debate and won the battle of ideas. Willie won re-election by becoming a Republican.
> You move the center to the left by winning the battle of ideas--not
> by electing Republican majorities and a Republican president...
Like I said, this might not be true in America. It seems you can win the battle of ideas while losing electoral ground. The spectrum has shifted to the right in the 90s even as the Republicans have lost ground. Similarly, the policy spectrum shifted to the left in the late 60's early 70's even while the Democrats were losing because of it. That's the only explanation I can think of for why Nixon's welfare policies were so much farther to the left than Clinton's.
> You move the center to the left by winning the battle of ideas--not
> by electing Republican majorities and a Republican president...
The other angle on this objection is that a strong showing by Ralph might actually do more to produce Democratic majorities in Congress than the Gore victory it was thwarting. I might argue further that Bush with a Democratic Congress might be better than Gore with a Republican one, or at least no worse; and that a loss of this sort, clearly due to a left-leaning third party candidate, is the only thing that will ever make the Presidential wing of the Democrats take its left seriously again.
So in short, a Ralph vote might be a risk worth taking even when judged entirely in terms of tactical short-to-medium term results.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com