So long as 9 out of 10 black voters vote Democrat, any candidate who effaces the differences so obvious to them discredits himself, loosing this constituency. Certainly, there is no monolithic Black Community, but when you get a chorus this clear and this consistent, it's best for white leftists to stop and consider. That's Doug's point, *not* that the Dems are the vanguard of anti-racism.
Simply because the Republicans aren't the only opponents of the left doesn't make the Greens the solution. (I'm taking it as accept that lone wolf candidacies are a well-established dead end.) That many Greens continue to support Nader today suggests the party is stagnating and not learning from past mistakes. Frankly, Nader screwed the party over, and now I hear some of them want to _draft_ the guy for their nomination.
The only case left for Naderites I've been debating locally is that they must vote their conscience. They must show they cannot be taken for granted, lest they, as Mitch Cohen says, cave into the pressure. There is little real dispute here over what Kerry won't deliver, but I don't see what is lost in voting for Kerry. Nader's current run makes no real pretense of party building. Kerry would have to loose for Nader to be blamed as a "spoiler," otherwise Nader's electoral pull has been far to small to be read as anything but irrelevant. Wasn't this part of the reason for the Labor Party's hesitance to run candidates, not advertising the party as an impotent fringe?
Perot broke the famed 5% mark twice. Why hasn't Nader done it once? It's a fair question because of the reliance on such campaigns to build a challenge to the duopoly. Nader had a better chance at this before with a Democrat in the White House, but not today. Perhaps Nader's alienation of black voters was a major factor in falling short of this goal last time, when the odds were better.
-- Shane
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