Re the Nader discussion.
I voted for Nader and campaigned (briefly) for the local Greens. I have come to regret it, not for exactly the reasons Nathan has cited but for ones very close to them.
I have never seen "no difference" or "no significant difference" between
the Democrats and Republicans. For every horrible thing the Democrats do, the Republicans do the same only worse.
The reason I supported the Greens is that this cycle has no ending until we have a left movement rather than just leftists. I (mistakenly) thought that the Greens had a shot at becoming such a movement. If that had been true - if we ended the election with a real opposition mass movement, it would have been worth the election of Dubyu. But that did not happen. Although many individual Greens, and some Green locals are doing good work, for the most part the Greens as a whole are caught up in infighting and "process" work. Nader, as Nathan points out, passed up the opportunity to use Florida as wedge to fight for IR, elimination of the electoral college or any other major electoral reform. Nor did he start a new round of rallies in , say, February to start organizing for the future. (he did finally start something in 2001 in which I attended.>)
OK, If I don't think third parties are the answer what do I think we should do? Well actually I think third parties may be an answer at some point. But I think the main point right how is that we are not at the point where running for major office of any kind is useful - at least not for the most part. We can win an occasional city council office, or
state legislature office, and perhaps even win a congressional district or two. There is nothing wrong with this.
But I think the bulk of our effort should not be electoraL politics (at least not running for office.) We need to do various types of grassroots
organizing around issues. Not just the big demo stuff, but the type of things food-not-bombs does. And trade union organizing.
And initiatives and referendum in states that have them. (Why leave the initiative process totally to the right?) I never understood why the Unions don't put more of their money into initiatives and less into donations to hack politicians. Last election in Oregon Sizemore and friends managed to get a bunch of right initiatives on the ballot. Only one won. (But is was a bad one - a property rights thing.) But the point was made about the losing initiatives that even though Sizemore did not win this time, he set the agenda. Why don't the Unions put some of their money into qualifying nine initiatives this coming election? They might win a few, and even if the don't the right will have to spend their energy fighting a Union agenda instead of putting forth their own.
And in terms of running for major office - the day there is a real left movement rather that just leftists, that movement will be able to field and win elections. As to whether they will do it in third parties or within the Democratic party -- I would argue probably in third parties simply because the Democratic Party rules are pretty stacked against bottom up control.