-The fact that they couldn't convince their colleagues that the treaties -were an affront to democracy speaks volumes.
Why should their colleagues be convinced of anything by their colleagues? Their colleagues have little or no power over them.
It is this silly idea that the US has a party system where parties have any power over candidates that makes the "third party debate" so poor. The US system is not analogous in any significant way to most European countries, where the parties essentially decide who runs for office and who does not on the party ticket. When Ken Livingston wanted to run for mayor of London, the majority of grassroots party members voted for him, but party mechanisms allowed Blair to deny him the nomination. He therefore ran as an independent, which made perfect sense in that context.
But in the US context, he would have won the nomination no matter what the DNC or the US President in his party wanted.
The US essentially has 435 separate parties loosely affiliated, but with no party discipline. At the moment, the parties are more polarized from each other and more homogenous internally than at any time this century, but for most of this century, each party would have votes going in completely opposite directions on almost every vote.
At the moment, any votes that are considered pro-union get 80-100% of Democratic votes. That's not bad return on union support.
-- Nathan Newman