I don't know about that. The Teamsters and the Carpenters have been coyly winking and smiling at Bush and what did they get in return? Taft-Hartley, that's what.
Screenwriter and novelist Clancy Sigal has an interesting, thought- provoking op-ed in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/opinion/17SIGA.html LOS ANGELES — My liberal friends insist that my soul is doomed to eternal damnation because I worked for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election that threw the presidency to George W. Bush. They're probably right. There are nights when the Devil's pitchfork keeps me awake because I, having reached for the third-party lever, made John Ashcroft our top law officer and war with Iraq a religious crusade.
I'd like a rest from sleep-destroying guilt. But the midterm elections are upon us and I am a Californian.
The governor's race here is between two majestically unappealing candidates: the incumbent, Gray Davis, and his doltish Republican opponent, Bill Simon Jr. Combined, they make a towering argument for any third party. [clip] At this moment Gray Davis is ahead of Mr. Simon and in no discernible danger. But he is so wary of losing votes to Greens that, under intense pressure, he has signed into law several very good bills that Mr. Simon would have opposed or vetoed. These include a path-breaking comprehensive family leave law and the nation's first bill giving farm workers the right to mandatory mediation in agricultural labor disputes.
In other words, Mr. Davis can, if pushed hard, do the left thing.
The Greens have a strong argument that a vote for a Democrat, even a liberal Democrat, validates a corrupt campaign finance system. But a theoretically correct position can, as we saw in the aftermath of the 2000 election, injure innocent bystanders. Witness the Minnesota Green Party's misbegotten campaign against Paul Wellstone, one of the very few progressive voices in the Senate. (Ralph Nader has quietly endorsed Mr. Wellstone.) [clip]
There is a streak of political mischief in the Green belief — articulated most recently by Ray Tricona, the Minnesota Green running against Mr. Wellstone — that the sooner things get worse they'll get better. Referring to his Republican opponent, Mr. Tricona told me, "If Norm Coleman gets elected, it will bring things to a boil and we can lance it quicker."
The Democratic Party indeed may be irredeemable as well as pusillanimous. But at this particular moment, I am willing to vote for a decomposing party that still has room for Russell Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Barbara Lee and, not least, Robert Byrd.
The ironic thing is that I will vote for a mendacious Democrat, Gray Davis, at a time when, in California, there is such widespread popular disgust with both parties that voter registration and participation are plummeting. In the long run the Greens — or something more inclusive than the Greens — have a good future. But as John Maynard Keynes said, in the long run we are all dead. -------- Robert Byrd???