My argument has been a more modest one than the one that you appear to attribute to me: it's one thing to say, "Vote for Kerry," it's another thing to say, "Don't dare to compete with Kerry, or else" -- the latter position will completely deny political representation to those who oppose imperialism and support workers' rights and powers and will push both the Republican and Democratic Parties to the right in 2004, 2008, and so on; but, fortunately, there is a major disconnect between the Anybody But Nader pundits and American voters, indicated by the proportions of Nader supporters (about 7% on the average, higher than in 2000) shown in opinion polls (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040315/005853.html> and <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040315/006157.html>).
Who are Nader supporters? Is support for Nader higher among the politically active than the politically inactive? No survey has broken down voter preferences for Bush, Kerry, and Nader by degrees of political participation in electoral and non-electoral politics, so I have no firm opinion about the question. My hypothesis is that only a small minority of those who are employed by trade unions, liberal NGOs, and the like and/or hold positions of prominence in them support the Nader candidacy, though there may be more than I imagine, as Josh Mason suggests: "As another datapoint, I was recently at a meeting of NYC-area labor leaders (mostly local presidents and people on that level) where there was a discussion of the presidential race. There was a significant minority (4 or 5 out of 20 or so) that were strongly pro-Nader. The most outspoken was an African-American official from a Teamsters local in Queens. So these things don't always break down the way you might expect" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040315/006200.html>).
As for rank-and-file organizers and activists who pay to play rather than get paid to play, the highest proportion of Nader supporters (currently estimated to be 20-26%) is, not unsurprisingly, found in Arab-American and Muslim-American communities, for many of whom positions on Iraq, Palestine, and other Middle-East issues are of decisive importance: <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040315/006157.html>; and <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040315/006158.html>. The electoral significance of Nader supporters in Arab-American and Muslim-American communities is that their votes are concentrated in the battleground states, especially Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, rather than in the de-facto one-party states. -- 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/>