bad nooz for Dems

[Nathan Newman]

This is the typical definition of "success" by the Greens- adding a couple of
more (usually white) liberal members of a city council where many if not most
of the other Dems are already very liberal or left, but because they use the
Green label, this is considered a magic moment of left transcendance.   The
Greens have been organizing in various ways for almost a decade and a half
and they have no offices above the city council level.  And those are only in
the most liberal and eco-friendly cities in the country.

They've helped elect more Republicans to higher office than they've elected
their own.  Hell, if they had even one state legislator to show for the
various races they've thrown to the GOP, I might take the strategy even a bit
seriously, but it's been an unmitigated failure from New Mexico to the Nader
campaign -- which have been the two high points in voting totals above the
city council level.  I know, I know-- it's empowered so many grassroots
activists-- which is nice to say, but I'd like some empirical measure of that
success.

As I noted at the beginning of this thread, Greens made various predictions
about how to measure the success of the Nader campaign, from how little a
Bush administration would differ from a Gore administration and how it would
lead the Democrats to move left.  Well, using their own empirical measures,
the campaign failed.  Now, they want to substitute other measures
retroactively which is always a nice strategy to never have your opinions
disproved empirically, but it's kind of bullshit.

I'm pissed as shit at Gephardt and if I thought voting Green would change his
behavior< I'd do it.  I just see no empirical evidence that it will.

-- Nathan Newman

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 12:46 PM
Subject: Fwd: Re: bad nooz for Dems

X-From_: john.halle at SNET.Net  Wed Feb  6 12:09:06 2002
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 12:21:53 -0500
To: dhenwood at panix.com
From: John Halle <john.halle at SNET.Net>
Subject: Re: bad nooz for Dems

Newman writes:


>  > marginal, spoiler
>  > Green parties that can wield no power but make them feel good
>  > with their righteous no-compromise no-success purity.

"marginal": of five races we entered in New Haven, we elected two
with substantial majorities, lost by 15 votes in another ward, got
42% in the fourth and 33% in the other

"spoiler": there was no serious Republican opposition in any of these wards.

"no power": we are now the minority party in city government, with a
seat on all aldermanic committees and city commissions

"no success": Greens have won more than half of the races we have
entered since Nov. 2000.

"no-compromise":  correct. we haven't sold out. See

http://www.newmassmedia.com/nac.phtml?code=new&db=nac_fea&ref=18241

and from last week:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=17822

and from today:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=17995

And that's just the beginning.
--
John Halle
Green Party Alderman
Ward 9, New Haven, CT