[lbo-talk] Bush expected to announce candidacy any day now

[Jon Johanning]

The Nader/GP supporters in this thread have passionately declared their 
desire to overthrow the system. That's fine; but I haven't seen 
anything to indicate that Nader or the GP is actually interested in 
doing such a thing. (A few Greens, yes.) From what I can see, they are 
slightly more radical than the left wing of the Dems. If one were 
rather unkind, one could turn the GP supporters' argument in this 
direction: is there really a dime's, or a quarter's worth of difference 
between the GP and the DP, except that the latter has a lot more power 
due to its connections with the rulers of the system? The GP may not 
have those connections, but the disadvantage is that they don't have 
any power, of the system-overthrowing kind. That's the dilemma.

Anyway, I found some excerpts on TomPaine.com of an interesting book on 
the possibilities and impossibilities of third-party politics in the 
U.S., _Spoiling for a Fight: Third Party Politics in America_ by Micah 
Sifry (http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5357).  For example, he 
says:

"An honest appraisal of the future of third parties in America must 
start by admitting that the path ahead is still strewn with obstacles. 
Though we need more choices, it isn't clear that we will get them. 
Money dominates elections as always in all but the few states with 
'Clean Money/Clean Elections' full public financing systems for 
candidates. Winner-take-all elections force most candidates into a 
'spoiler' role, causing many potential supporters to fear 'wasting' 
their vote. The mainstream media haven't changed their tendency to 
marginalize all third-party candidacies, regardless of the candidates' 
actual chances. And in most states the rules written by the major 
parties hinder other parties' access to the ballot and make it harder 
for people to simply find their candidates on the actual ballot.

"More subtly, anyone trying to create a political alternative is 
swimming against a powerful cultural tide of declining expectations 
about politics itself. Why bother with a new party if you think nothing 
good can be achieved through politics, that wealthy special interests 
will win out no matter what, or that career politicians will sell out 
to protect their own incumbency regardless of which party they belong 
to? The victories of a few independent candidates are certainly 
suggestive of the potential for efforts outside the two-party box. But 
they are not the same thing as creating a durable third party. A 
political party, defined as an ongoing, self-conscious organization of 
individual voters and officeholders with a common identity and ideas 
that seeks to win and exercise power, is a rare thing. Building one -- 
even at the local level where most of the real work of politics happens 
-- takes endurance and social solidarity."

He also has what looks to me like a good discussion of the whole Perot 
phenomenon, as well as the Greens.

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
__________________________________
A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You 
should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest 
and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax