Wouldn't it be easier to attract the smaller number of such not-voting to that primary, boot the DLC types aside, and take over the party line? You wouldn't have the spoiler problem or have to compete for votes with the Dem nominee.
Why is it so god-awful important to have a Green or whatever label when running? When progressives wanted to take over parties in the early twenties, they created institutions like the Non-Partisan League and took over whichever party line, Dem or GOP, was easiest in a particular state. The voters know who were the progressive candidates-- since the capitalist elite sure let them know.
The Left has gone through this routine repeatedly since the Civil War, each time recognizing that the collective action problem of shifting their votes out of a major party was so large that it is far easier just to take over one of the parties.
It is actually far easier to take over party lines today than it was then because of more open primary rules.
So why not run Nader in the Dem primary in 2004?
-- Nathan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 5:55 PM Subject: Re: free ride
>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>What the Greens should think about is not what liberal Dems still
>>committed to DP feel about them, but how to mobilize the silent
>>majority -- especially blacks and Latinos
>
>You've got to get pwoggie whites and unaffiliated/alienated whites
>in this mobilization or the numbers just don't add up.
>
>Doug
The silent majority that I mentioned above have many unaffiliated/alienated whites (anyone has the racial/ethnic breakdown of the silent majority?). As for pwoggie whites, those who think like Nathan will never come along; those who are angry and ready to give up on DP will, if given a chance. Nader didn't look like a chance to them, but a more charismatic candidate may. -- Yoshie
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