>One such strategy, implicit in Labor Party organizing and certainly
>used by business interests, is support of candidates sympathetic to
>a particular cause regardless of party affiliation.
What if few to no candidates from the dominant parties are sympathetic to a particular cause, e.g., the cause of repealing the Taft-Hartley Act, the cause of establishing single-payer health care, the cause of ending the occupation of Iraq, the cause of terminating financial support for Israel and other human rights violators, etc.?
>Under the winner-takes-all system, the opposite is true. Sticking
>to minority principles and ideological grand standing in
>pre-electoral politics is a sure recipe for a failure - since such
>minority parties have no chance whatsoever of attracting the
>majority need to win the election. Under that condition, it makes
>sense for minority interest to compromise and cut deals with those
>candidates who are most sympathetic to a particular cause and add
>weight to their support to help them win the electoral majority.
<snip>
>All that is not rocket science - and the right and business
>interests figured that out long time ago, as evidenced by their
>behavior. Many lefties, however, still do not grasp it - as
>evidenced by their stubborn support of the ephemeral election year
>candidates like Nader. Such behavior is truly perplexing - it does
>not seem to be rational at all.
I'm perplexed that you are perplexed. It takes two to tango. Business interests and social conservatives have partners in the dominant parties who cut deals with them and produce returns on their electoral investments. In the case of Nader/Green voters, activists, and organizers, they do not have any willing partners in the dominant parties who can and will actually produce political profits for their causes.
No political profit, no political investment. -- 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/>