Yes, there will be those. So what? Does that fact diminish the arguments of those who have no illusions about the Democratic Party, but who are willing to vote for a "lesser of two evils" on tactical grounds? ------------
Yes it does, if they obey the liberal chorus and stay silent after a Dean victory. Will they? Well they were pretty quiet under Clinton for quite a while. Didn't really start to make noise until Clinton sold welfare down the river, only to rally around Bill once again during the impeachment proceedings. But I don't share Thomas' high opinion of the American political left, the majority of whom are _permanent_ strategic, and not tactical, supporters of the Democratic Party, especially via its pet progressive Dems (Lee, Kucinich, etc.) who are, of course, a small faction embedded in the mainstream and therfore politically useless.
Guess it depends on how one defines the political left. I define it more broadly, and also differentiate it from the "base", such as the trade unions and the civil rights movement, which also includes the woman's movement, gays, etc. These latter make the _strategic_ character of the alignment with the Democrats even more patently obvious.
------ I do think that those Leftists who vote for the "lesser of two evils" need to be very explicit about why they are casting such a vote when discussing the topic. -------
But that is usually precisely the problem: they usually aren't very explicit about it as a tactic, it all gets buried under muffled tones. They are voting "for Chirac", after all. It's the ones who advocate it as strategy, such as Nathan Newman, who are the loudest and most explicit. And most consistent, to their credit. --------
-Thomas