>>Why have the Democrats as well as the Republicans restricted ballot
>>access at all levels of US politics?
>
>Because they want to maintain control of the electoral process.
Which is more important to the power elite of the Democratic Party -- keeping out Green Party candidates by maintaining the electoral system that may make minor parties potential "spoilers," i.e. at the cost of potentially losing to Republican candidates, or defeating Republican candidates by reforming the electoral system to provide full representation so no minor party will be a potential "spoiler"?
Jeff Melton, a Green Party and Solidarity member and a Green candidate in Indiana's 9th district <http://www.meltonforcongress.org/>, writes: "That there was much more interest among Democrats in scapegoating Nader for the outcome of the 2000 election than in seriously challenging Bush's theft of it is [a] telltale sign that the Democrats' chief concern is not that a third party like the Greens would 'spoil' their candidates, but that a third party in conjunction with a strong mass movement would challenge the two-party duopoly and the rule of the corporate elite that both parties support. This is also suggested by the fact that the Democrats' efforts to stop a Green from getting elected mayor of San Francisco, where there WAS NO REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE, were just as strenuous as their efforts elsewhere" (March 17, 2004, posted to <solid2 at topica.com>):
***** Posted on Sat, Dec. 06, 2003 Clinton could be next to stump for Democrat in SF mayor's race
LISA LEFF
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - Former President Bill Clinton has been asked to make a last-minute campaign appearance for San Francisco's Democratic mayoral hopeful, who faces a tough runoff race against a Green Party challenger, campaign sources said Friday.
Former Vice President Al Gore already campaigned for Democratic candidate Gavin Newsom this week and has asked Clinton to come before Tuesday's election, according to Newsom's campaign consultant, Eric Jaye.
Newsom, 36, is in a closer-than-expected race against Matt Gonzalez. Both are members of the Board of Supervisors, where Gonzalez, 38, is president and one of the nation's highest-ranking Green Party officials.
Democrats are pulling out the stops to prevent what would be an embarrassing loss in one of their strongholds.
"The Green Party is a party of protest, and while that's very necessary in the political dynamic of America today, it could be devastating to the people of San Francisco," Jaye said.
He said Newsom would welcome a visit by Clinton, whom he described as "the uber-Democrat."
Clinton has not publicly announced any plans.
Although the specifics of a possible visit remain up in the air, a host of powerful Democrats are urging Clinton to help. After stumping with Newsom on Tuesday, Gore called Clinton, according to Jaye.
Some of Newsom's biggest backers include San Francisco residents Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who has recorded an automated telephone call urging residents to vote for Newsom.
"Every Democrat from here to Timbuktu has been asked" to back Newsom, Jaye said. "And most of them have said yes."
A spokesman for Mayor Willie Brown, who is being termed out after eight years in office, said the incumbent has helped arrange for the Rev. Jesse Jackson to endorse Newsom this weekend, and also lodged his own appeals with Clinton.
"The mayor and Bill Clinton are good friends, so I'm sure he's been helpful in just talking to him," said spokesman P.J. Johnston.
Ross Mirkarimi, a spokesman for Gonzalez's campaign, said the parade of prominent Democrats who have been urged to campaign for Newsom shows the party is desperate to prevent the Greens from gaining any ground.
"It's their blitzkrieg, a blitzkrieg of arrogant proportions," he said. "They don't want to beat us. They want to extinguish us."
He predicted that in the end, the organized onslaught would only further remind voters of the differences between the well-funded Newsom and Gonzalez's volunteer-driven campaign.
"They need Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson and millions of dollars compared to our modest sum," he said. "They bring in the big guns, and today we brought in Dolores Huerta," co-founder of the United Farms Workers.
<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7425207.htm> *****
In other words, the "Anybody But Bush" rhetoric is simply a red herring, given the Democratic Party establishment's consistent hostility to the Green Party before this year and at all levels of politics. Here is another example:
***** DRAWN AND QUARTERED by Britt Robson
It was a behind-the-scenes process with a dull name that moved beneath the radar of the vast majority of Minneapolis residents. But when it was over, some incumbents on the city council had been thrust into an involuntary game of musical chairs and some critics were contemplating a lawsuit to overturn the results. Welcome to redistricting, the once-per-decade reordering of electoral boundaries. Ostensibly meant to reflect the demographic changes revealed by the U.S. Census, it inevitably gets bound up in partisan political maneuvering.
To put it another way: It's April 2002; do you know where your city council member is--or whether you still have one?
SHAPESHIFTERS: THE CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS BEFORE AND AFTER
Residents of the Eighth Ward don't. Under the new boundaries, announced April 12, their elected representative, Robert Lilligren, now lives in the Sixth Ward. Meanwhile, the council member elected in the Sixth Ward, Dean Zimmerman, has been bumped into the Ninth Ward, where Gary Schiff is the elected representative (and still lives within its borders). Over the strenuous public testimony of dozens of residents, the near north side's Fifth Ward, represented by Natalie Johnson Lee, has been significantly redrawn, losing all its downtown neighborhoods to the Seventh Ward and picking up more economically disadvantaged neighborhoods such as Jordan and Hawthorne to the north.
Zimmerman and Johnson Lee are Minneapolis's first Green Party council members. Lilligren and Schiff are generally regarded as the council's two most Green-friendly DFLers. All are just months into their first terms. And they don't think it's a coincidence that they're the ones who've been most affected by the new boundaries.
The night before adopting its final plan, the nine-member redistricting commission held a public hearing that included a proposed map that would have kept all the council members in the wards where they were elected. None of the approximately 200 people who attended the hearing voiced disapproval with that arrangement. The majority of those who testified were angered by proposed changes to the Fifth Ward, arguing that it unfairly lumped together too many low-income people of color, without the economic balance of the more wealthy downtown neighborhoods. The next day, the commission ignored those complaints, and also knocked Zimmerman and Lilligren out of their wards. . . .
<http://www.citypages.com/databank/23/1116/article10337.asp> *****
BTW, "The greater threat to Kerry's candidacy, however, may be Kerry himself. His approval ratings have dropped since he became his party's nominee in February (from 56 percent to his current rating of 51 percent) and his unfavorability rating climbed from 27 percent to 36 percent. And with the Bush camp aggressively attacking Kerry as a 'flip-flopper' on major issues, voters tend to think Kerry changes his positions more to curry favor (48 percent) than out of an evolving conviction (38 percent). Even among registered Democrats, less than half (47 percent) strongly support Kerry; a clear majority (70 percent) of Republican voters strongly supports Bush" (Brian Braiker, "Poll: Neck and Neck," March 20, 2004, <http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4564653/>). -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>