> We may assume that 10% of repentant Nader voters are of the sort who
> have gotten browbeaten into repentance by "the establishment
> progressive media," but such fainthearted voters are a tiny minority
> among the supporters of Nader in particular and the Green Party in
> general. In the meantime, Nader and the Green Party have attracted
> many new supporters to outweigh the loss.
What is it with these Greenies? John Halle thinks Doug has stricken him a near-mortal blow by daring to criticize the party, and now Yoshie assumes that Nader voters in 2000 who change their minds about the wisdom of their votes are not capable of making up their own minds, but must have been "browbeaten into repentance" by "establishment progressive media," and succumb to this browbeating because they are "fainthearted."
The word "browbeat" is, come to think of it, an interesting one, which I have never examined closely. How can one be beaten by a brow, and how painful could it be? Or perhaps it means "beat someone on the brow, i.e., on the head"? Then, I find the answer at <http://www.takeourword.com/TOW170/page2.html>:
"Browbeat dates from the 16th century. It does not appear to refer to beating someone else's brow, but to the browbeater's own brow (that sentence will help separate our dozing readers from our alert ones!). The sense was either 'beat [figuratively] with one's frowning brows' or 'beat (lower) one's brows at'. It has always meant 'to bear down, discourage, or oppose with stern, arrogant or insolent looks or words, to snub, to bully' (from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED))."
One must certainly be extremely fainthearted to change one's political views upon merely being frowned upon! Who wants such lily-livered persons in one's party, anyway?
(BTW, the term "repentance" suggests that the GP is in fact a religion -- or is it a sin, which is the sort of thing one can repent of?)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile