As far as Manning Marable is concerned, I believe that there is a chance that he will come back to Third-Party organizing in 2008 or 2012, so I'm far from casting him and those who think like him in the hopeless category of "labor bureaucrats, Democratic Party hacks," etc. However, much of Marable's eloquent argument for the Nader/LaDuke Green Party ticket in 2000 still holds in 2004, even if he thinks that it is absolutely necessary for all leftists to do all we can to send Bush back to Texas (or Send Bush to Mars, as many signs said in the March 20th protests against the occupations) -- because the mechanism of presidential elections has not changed since then:
***** There are several clear-cut reasons why it is in the interests of black people, working people and progressives to vote for Nader over Gore. The first is the reality that the national election is really fifty separate state elections, based on the winner-take-all principle. Whoever wins a majority or even plurality of a state's popular vote wins 100 percent of that state's electoral votes. The Electoral College technically selects the president, not the people. And in several instances in U.S. history, candidates who lost the popular vote won the Electoral College vote and became president -- for example, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888.
In practical terms, this means that as of this writing, the presidential election is already over in about 40 states. Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. will be carried by Gore by margins of two or three to one. Gore has absolutely no chance in Texas, in most of the west except for the Pacific states, and the bulk of the South. In any state where there is today at least a ten point margin between Gore and Bush, every voter who is sympathetic to Nader can and should vote for him. Gore doesn't need your vote, and by supporting Nader, we can send a powerful, progressive protest message to the Democrats.
(Manning Marable, 'Vote Strategically: For Nader' -- Part Two of Two, October 31, 2000, <http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/4/2000/502>) *****
Since we still have the Electoral College and de-facto one-party states, Marable, as well as all leftists who want to elect Kerry but are not against the Nader candidacy, might at least say, "Vote for Kerry in the hotly contested states, vote for Nader in the one-party states." As Shane Mage has said for umpteen times, it makes no political or mathematical sense to say, "Vote for Kerry, wherever you live."
As for Doug, as late as 2002, Doug didn't think that the Nader candidacy helped to elect Bush and argued that blaming Nader was the Democrats' strategy of refusing to do anything to win the votes of working-class folks who voted for Nader -- e.g.:
***** Dugger Says Fellow Greens Put Bush in Office-- No to Nader Run in 2004 Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com Fri Nov 15 19:33:19 PST 2002
Nathan Newman wrote:
>Ronnie Dugger, who presented Nader to the 1996 and 2000 Green
>conventions, has rejected any Nader run in 2004 and agrees that it
>is absurb for Greens to continue to deny their role in putting Bush
>in office.
You know, even if this were true, and I don't think it is, you might think that it'd cause Dems to reflect on what they did to inspire this kind of opposition, and do something about repairing the damage. But nooooooo, it's all about finger pointing and blame. Blaming everyone but themselves, that is.
Doug
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2002/2002-November/026858.html> *****
Cf. ***** Fwd: AngryDems.com Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com Wed Nov 6 06:41:18 PST 2002
>Don't blame the media.
>Don't blame the Republicans.
>Don't blame Paul's plane.
>Don't blame 9-11.
>Don't blame the Greens.
>And sure as hell don't blame the American people!
>
>BLAME THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSHIP.
<snip>
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2002/2002-November/025972.html> *****
Doug even voted for Stanley Aronowitz, against the advice of Manning Marable and other supporters of the Working Families Party line for Carl McCall, in 2002!
Since then, though, Doug has changed his politics, moved rightward, and become obsessed with blaming Nader and the Greens, even going so far as to approvingly quote a _New Republic_ (!) hack's hatchet job (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040301/004703.html>).
>If we had Proportional Representation or Instant Runoff Voting in
>some form, I would be a member of Ralph Nader's campaign staff (I'm
>quite serious).
>
>However, because we have no such thing at this moment, and because
>of the massive damage inflicted globally by the Bush regime,
>especially in regards to third world peoples and people of color, it
>seems prudent that we move the more fascistic arm of the ruling
>class out of office, while planning a strategy of tactical
>engagement post-election.
If the Anybody But Bush crowd keep attacking Nader and Nader supporters, as a number of LBO-talk subscribers have, it not only makes it difficult to build a movement to resist whoever gets elected for president in November by discouraging any challenges to and criticisms of the Democrats, de-politicizing actual and potential activists, and leading more people to demobilize post-election than otherwise -- it may even make it possible for Bush to get reelected despite the objective conditions (economic troubles at home and Iraqis' resistance abroad) that strongly work against the incumbent, by allowing Kerry to run to the right of Bush and thereby depressing the voter turnout.
While those who profess to support Anybody But Bush on LBO-talk begin to sound like a Anybody But Nader contingent, it is starting to become clear that the Democratic caucus and primary voters who thought that Kerry was the most electable among the Democratic contenders were probably wrong:
***** The New York Times, March 21, 2004 POLITICAL MEMO Some Democrats Say Kerry Must Get Back on the Trail By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and ADAM NAGOURNEY
. . . As the up-one-day, down-the-next cycle began in earnest, Democrats were wondering if even Mr. Kerry had underestimated the ferocity of the White House attack. In particular, they expressed concern about the potency of the Republicans' use of his Senate voting record to lampoon him as vacillating and indecisive, as he appeared to struggle to explain an array of votes the White House has come across during all these months of diligently researching his records.
"He has to come out forcefully and defend his record, because clearly the Republicans are trying to label him as a flip-flopper," said Gordon Fischer, the Democratic chairman in Iowa. . . .
Democrats conceded that the past two weeks have highlighted some of Mr. Kerry's vulnerabilities, like his penchant for making politically unwise statements. On Tuesday, he responded to Republican attacks that he had voted against an $87 billion appropriation to support, in part, American troops in Iraq. "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," he said.
Republicans inserted a clip of Mr. Kerry saying that into their latest television advertisement in about as much time as it takes to say "on the other hand."
"You don't get a gift like Tuesday every day," said Matthew Dowd, a senior Bush strategist. . . .
Slightly more disturbing, some Democrats say, is whether Mr. Kerry might have underestimated the effectiveness of the White House effort to point out what many people might view as conflicting votes he has cast during his Senate career. This is a common hazard for any member of Congress running for president, and part of why no sitting member of Congress has been elected president of the United States since 1960.
Democrats said that Mr. Kerry had yet to come up with an effective rejoinder. . . .
But a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week found that nearly 6 in 10 registered voters said that Mr. Kerry said what he wanted people to hear, rather than what he believed. Democrats said that reflected early Republican success at using Mr. Kerry's Senate votes, often on incremental or procedural bills, to raise questions about him.
A senior Bush aide said there was a "treasure chest" of votes and statements by Mr. Kerry that would let the White House continue this line of attack throughout the year. . . .
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/politics/campaign/21KERR.html> *****
>By the way, am I the only person on the planet earth who gave Ralph
>Nader huge credit for doing something in 2000 that the rest of the
>country completely missed, that being, his making the race so close
>helped to expose the cracks and flaws in the actual election process
>(voting machines, etc.). Did ANYONE (even a single person) on the
>Left or Right talk about that? Even ONE person? I'm not talking
>about the flaws themselves, lots of people talked about that (and
>are still talking about it). I'm asking if anyone EXPLICITLY
>credited Nader's presidential candidacy with helping to expose what
>was wrong with the election system in terms of the mechanics and
>administration? Anyone?
That's a very good argument. -- Yoshie
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