>In the US, which arguably has the least democratic political system among
>developed nations, a small party's need to cooperate with a large one is
>even greater, because absent a proportional representation system, a small
>party will not even register on a political radar screen by itself, let
>alone form a government. What we see, however, is exactly the opposite -
>small parties trying to piss off the large ones as much as they can. This
>appears to be self-defeating behavior, because in addition to reducing the
>small party's chance of getting near the halls of power to nil, it also
>alienates its potential allies.
>Is there anything I am missing here, or - putting it mildly - thinking
>strategically is not the strongest point of American politics, especially
>its left wing?
So far, the main accomplishments of the Green Party has been electing a Republican Governor and two GOP Congressmen in New Mexico and tipping a Senate race in Maine to the GOP. The Greens won one state legislative seat in California only to see that legislator abandon the party.
The hard fact is that the Greens have failed to win any real positive races at the state or national level and have mostly accomplished the negative results of electing rightwing candidates where they have registered on the political richter scale. In New Mexico, where the Greens hit their highest levels of statewide support, this has failed to translate into any serious leftward shift in the state - and many of the Green candidates, including their former Gubernatorial candidate Roberto Mondragon, have left the party since then.
And if Nader does throw the election to Bush, the backlash against the Greens and any third party efforts will probably surprise the advocates. Every bad ruling by Bush's Labor Relations Board will be blamed on Nader and the Greens; similarly with any bad court rulings. In a sense, Nader and the Greens will become an excuse to blame the Left rather than Gore for the election loss.
Those who think a Nader "spoiler" role will be an argument for the Dems moving left will be sorely mistaken. DLC types in the party will actually be able to use the Nader campaign as a handy scapegoat. And a heck of a lot of unionists, environmentalists and womens groups will join in the attack. My guess is that such a Nader success will probably kill any potential union support for the Greens or other third party efforts in a lot of areas.
-- Nathan Newman