Well, lining up American leftists _for_ something (rather than against this or that) is like herding cats. :->
2004 will probably be a make-or-break year for the Green Party. Wavering amongst the Green Party organizers and activists had almost doomed the party. Then, Democratic voters in the early caucuses and primaries did a great favor to the Green Party, by eliminating Howard Dean and making only two unsavory pro-war Democrats the remaining contenders for the party nomination. Nader's declaration of his candidacy yesterday is another favor to the Green Party, as it will strengthen the hands of Green organizers and activists -- like Peter Camejo and Howie Hawkins -- who oppose giving away Green votes in closely contested states to the Democratic Party for free:
***** The minute the Greens stop campaigning where they might affect the outcome is the minute no one takes the Greens seriously. The minute the Greens start backhandedly supporting Democrats with a cute "strategic voting" scheme is the minute the public stops taking Greens seriously. This will be because the Greens have stopped stop taking themselves seriously. It is the minute that the corporate Democrats feel free to completely ignore their own Kucinich/ Shaprton wing and take votes to their Left for granted. It is the minute the whole dynamic of the election shifts to the Right, with the Green Party looking like it isn't really serious about wanting governmental power to make changes.
(Howie Hawkins, "'Strategic Voting' Is Strategic Suicide," _Synthesis/Regeneration_ 32, Fall 2003, <http://www.greens.org/s-r/32/32-18.html>) *****
The Green Party will most likely nominate Nader as its candidate at its National Convention in June, as Peter Camejo, Carol Miller, Lorna Salzman, etc. support the Nader candidacy, from what I have heard -- see the delegate counts as the Green Party presidential nomination process progresses at <http://www.gp.org/convention/process.html>.
>[lbo-talk] DSA Youth
>Lance Murdoch lbotalk at lancemurdoch.org, Sun Feb 22 17:15:59 PST 2004
><snip>
>Why don't the Democrats try and go register and inspire and get to
>the polls the 50% of Americans who don't vote, whom collectively
>are poorer than the 50% who do vote? Because that is not the
>function of the Democratic party, it's much, much, much more
>important for them to try and kill off any non-corporate,
>non-bourgeois left-wing popular candidate who might get at most 2%
>of the general population's votes than to go after that 50% of
>non-voters. Killing off the 2% is what they will focus all their
>energy on since the fact that 50% are disenfranchised and alienated
>is a success for them. That's why they will send out Clinton to
>help a millionaire Democrat running on a "get the homeless of the
>street" platform to beat a candidate running to the left of him,
>then sending Clinton to some less important contest like a
>Democrat/Republican race.
Exactly -- if anyone doubts your argument, use the facts at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040216/003522.html>, <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040216/003501.html>, and <http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting.html>.
In addition, take a look at the exit polls in 2000 (conducted for CNN by Voter News Service):
***** EXIT POLLS. . . .
Party Identification All Gore Bush Buchanan Nader Democrat 39 % 86 % 11 % 0 % 2 % Republican 35 % 8 % 91 % 0 % 1 % Independent 27 % 45 % 47 % 1 % 6 %
Vote in Two-Way Race All Gore Bush Buchanan Nader Gore 48 % 96 % 1 % 0 % 2 % Bush 49 % 2 % 96 % 0 % 1 % Would Not Have Voted 2 % 23 % 28 % 9 % 31 %
<http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/epolls/US/P000.html> *****
In 2000, Bush received a larger proportion of votes (11%) from those who identify as Democrats than Nader did. More importantly, if Nader had not run, Gore would have received a smaller proportion of votes (48%) than Bush would have (49%) in a hypothetical two-way race. -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * 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/>