The rationale is the fundamental reason why you do what you do + rational explanation of why you think what you are doing makes sense. You have to understand that different factions of Greens and supporters of the Green Party have different rationales.
(A) Left-wing Greens (e.g., Peter Camejo, Howie Hawkins, etc.) and (B) strategic supporters of the Green Party (e.g., non-Green Party members whose reasons, objectives, etc. coincide with left-wing Greens' partly or wholly) believe, based on their theory of political economy, historical evidence (e.g., Mike Davis, _Prisoners of the American Dream_), and/or empirical evidence (e.g., <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040322/006757.html>, based on data compiled by Doug Henwood, et al.) that political investment in the Democratic Party doesn't make sense; that the working class and their allies need a political party of their own; that building a political party to the left of the Democratic Party takes long-term commitment; and that there have and will be many setbacks on the way. (A) and (B) also generally regard electoral campaigns as only one of the many necessary means to fight for the interests of the working class here and abroad. That's the rationale in brief. If the Democratic Party happens to move a little to the left in part in response to Green campaigns in any local or national elections, as Gavin Newsom did in response to Matt Gonzalez, that is a pleasant side effect.
(C) Right-wing Greens (e.g., Green advocates of a "safe state" strategy) and (D) tactical supporters of some Green Party candidates (e.g., Manning Marable) have rationales different from the one held by (A) and (B). For (D), the main rationale for supporting Ralph Nader in 2000, for instance, must have been "sending a message" of protest to the DLC wing of the Democratic Party, without necessarily believing in (A) and (B)'s rationale, though (D) may have had other rationales that come close to (A) and (B)'s. (C) tends to vacillate between (D) on one hand and (A) and (B) on the other hand.
Barry C. Burden suggests that (C) and (D) are a minority among the Nader 2000 voters: "[A]pparently not many Nader voters regret their decisions. Only 1 in 10 Nader voters say they wish they could change their vote after knowing how close the election was" (Burden, "Minor Parties in the 2000 Presidential Election," 4, <http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/hweisberg/conference/burdosu.pdf>).
>I supported Nader in '96 and '00, but things haven't worked out the
>way I'd hoped when I did - there's been no positive ideological or
>organizational change as the result of his candidacy.
Quite understandable, in that you fall into (D).
>So this time I'm against him. As Keynes is supposed to have said,
>"When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?"
One set of facts are the same as before: e.g., just as in 1996 and 2000, the majority of states are one-party states in which the Anybody But Bush/Nader voters' votes for Kerry will make no difference at all; union density continues to decline, income and wealth distribution continue to become more polarized, etc.; the Democrats (as well as the Republicans) have and will continue to be on the rightward march (e.g., more Democrats opposed the Gulf War than the invasion of Iraq that began on March 20, 2003, even though the former offered a much more plausible excuse -- namely Iraq's invasion of Kuwait -- for Democrats to support it than the latter), therefore the 2008 Republican candidate will be the same as or to the right of Bush 2004, and the 2008 Democratic candidate will be Kerry 2008, a model to the right of Kerry 2004, or another Democrat -- maybe Hillary Clinton? -- to the right of Bush and Kerry 2004.
What is different is that the Anybody But Bush/Nader ideology has decreased liberal financial support and cancelled liberal celebrity endorsements for Nader since 2000; and yet, paradoxically, Nader is polling now far better than in 2000: "when Americans were asked about a three-man race including Mr Nader, the 70-year-old consumer activist attracted 7% support, mostly at the expense of the Democrat. . . . Mr Nader's poll ratings are higher than at this point in the 2000 election" (Julian Borger, "Surge in Support for Nader Spells Trouble for Kerry," <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0317-01.htm>).
I've already discussed the doubling of support for Nader among Arab American voters, drawing 20-26% of them.
Youth support for Nader in Ohio is now at an unprecedented level: "The University of Cincinnati's Ohio Poll released Friday showed Kerry at 46 percent and Bush at 44 percent, close enough to be within the poll's plus or minus 3.9 percentage-point margin of error. . . . Ralph Nader gets about 5 percent of the vote although among 18- and 19-year-olds, the figure is 20 percent" (Carl Weiser, "Poll Shows Bush, Kerry Even in Ohio," March 27, 2004, <http://www.chillicothegazette.com/news/stories/20040327/localnews/160225.html>).
>>In any case, the axiom of "the more Nader/Green bashing, the more
>>power to the the DLC wing of the Democratic Party"
>
>Technical point: Kerry was not really the favored candidate of the DLC.
Kerry is a member of the DLC, and, if elected, will disregard rank-and-file Democrats and "critical Kerry supporters," as he believes that he can count on the Anybody But Bush/Nader crowd, who promise not to defect and do all they can to prevent others' defection (though the latter effort seems in vain), finding him preferable to the Republican candidate in 2008. -- 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/>