[lbo-talk] Caldwell on Dean

Shane Taylor s-t-t at juno.com
Mon Aug 11 21:00:58 PDT 2003


One more time! Round and round we go! Wheee!

Shane Taylor wrote:
> The perfect metaphor! You see the glass as
> one-third full, many of us see it as two-thirds empty.

Nathan Newman wrote:
> Because I see two-thirds of the votes coming from
> blacks, latinos, gays, feminists and white unionists.

Such a diversified populist mass isn't writing two-thirds of the remaining $1 million+ checks. And Caldwell's solid piece was about the disconnect between the Democrat's "elitism" and it's popular base, not about their representation by Joseph Lieberman & Co.


> I'll take that one-third full over the 3% of votes
> cast full of Nader.

Nathan, did you not see where I previously said I'll vote in the Dem primaries? Did you not see my post on what I find wrong with the Greens and Nader? And my comments in this thread weren't intended for or about the Greens, but against the "elitism" within the Democrats -- an elitism that can't even stomach a fiscal hawk like Dean. Dean doesn't advocate socialized medicine, has a gun control position any Centrist should love, can't even accept Kyoto, and has a pathological loathing of government deficits -- no matter, he's still too extreme, too left-wing.

Now that you've raised the issue, I don't see how the Nader reference is relevant to the 2004 election. Even if the Greens do run a presidential candidate next year, I doubt they'll get even half of 3%. But perhaps invoking Nader is not simply about the future threat of spoilers. It's more like a charge of betrayal.

When acknowleding the differences between the parties, voting in the primaries, and taking stock of the various faults with third party politics are not enough to appease progressive loyalists of the Democratic Party, it says something. Namely, "Ask not what the Democratic Party can do for you, ask what you can do for the Democratic Party."

-- Shane

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