... Quite apart from all his lack of skill or attractiveness as a candidate, Gore followed the main line of DP for the last period, the DLC shift to the right. He alienated his base and tried--unsuccessfully--to appeal to the GOP base.
I sez:
(Forgive me if I sound like a talking head pundit on McNeil-Lehrer. Do I ?)
Gore did not "alienate his base." Au contraire, the Dem Party base -- African-Americans, organized labor, mainstream feminists -- pounded the pavement and turned out in droves for Gore, as indicated by the shrillness of the vituperative pre and post- election (well, I guess it's not quite over yet) attacks on Nader issued by these standard-bearers. Your claim only makes sense if you consider those who did vote for Nader, or defected to Gore at the last minute -- anti-globalization and anti-drug war youth, the left intelligentsia, your occasional goo-goo reformer, a sprinkling of anti-corporate and anti- Washington populists in the outback -- the Democratic Party "base."
The irony of this election and U.S. electoral politics in general at this moment is that despite the center- right convergence of both bourgeois parties' agendae, the _constituency_ of both parties has rarely been so clearly demarcated along sectional (i.e. geographic), demographic, and -- to a lesser degree -- social class lines.
As I'm sure Nathan would point out, ever since Nixon launched the "Southern strategy" and "Reagan Democrats" defected to the Repubs, the lines of party affiliation have been much clearer -- no more Rockefeller Republicans in the Northeast and elsewhere (with an occasional exception like Senator Chaffee from Rhode Island) and no more Jim Crow (or post-Jim Crow) Dems in the South (with an occasional exception like LA Senator John Breaux and other "Blue Dogs").
"Cultural" issues like gun control, abortion, prayer in the schools, etc. _matter_ to a huge portion to the white working and middle class of the U.S. South, Great Plains, etc. I'm not saying that either the Dems or the Greens or any other third party should kowtow to cultural conservatism, but to pretend that the Dem Party or the left can build a majoritaritarian progressive movement by simply emphasizing some kind of anti- corporate populism is being unrealistically economistic.
>From the superficial standpoint of focusing on which party
mobilized which sector of the electorate (i.e. not looking at
which fractions of capital back which parties), Gore might have
lost not b/c he antagonized the Dem Party's base, nor b/c Nader
"stole" erstwhile Gore voters (I'm sure you agree with me on
that), but b/c Bush has such a solid grip on white rural and
middle-class voters in the South, the Great Plains, and the
Mountain West (certainly moreso than any presidential candidate
since Reagan). The representative inequities of federalism
and the electoral college allow the Repubs to have more sway
than they otherwise would by controlling votes in these states.
Even if Bush wins (looking increasingly unlikely what with the
FLA shenanigans), appealing to this slice of the populace looks
like a lousy bet for the long-term. Despite the fact that he is a
sucky politician, Gore's triangulation approach worked very well in
CA, as well as Clinton's ever did, appealing to both suburban
moderates as well as the pliant AFL-CIO, mainstream feminists, blacks
and Latinos, etc. In sum, what I'm saying is that from a certain vantage
point it's amazing that Gore did as well as he did (even with
"unprecedented prosperity" and that other bullshit), given that
there was no Perot running to dilute the Republican vote in the
suburbs and the Mountain West/Great Plains/South.
Meanwhile I'm looking for the ecological Marxist lightning rod which will unite urban working class people of color and the rural white working class -- one which both the Dems and the Greens are congenitally incapable of delivering -- I'll give a report back in 10 or 20 years.
John Gulick