> By the way, does anyone know if the "nonvoters" were
> asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the
> statement "there is no significant difference between the
> two parties?" And, if so, what the results were?
I'm sure most people would agree with that statement. The very same people would also agree with the statement that "the two parties are too partisan," even though it is the diametric opposite of the idea that "there is no significant difference between the two parties." It's the same kind of vague dissatisfaction that motivated the formation of Ross Perot's Reform Party, a group which has successively nominated Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader, and for the same reason. That may be promising for some kind of politics -- and in the case of the Reform Party, it was a promising vehicle for the Fred Newman cultists -- but it's not a politics of the left.
Voter non-participation is a reflection of two factors: (1) non-voters are disproportionately the natural constituency of the left, and (2) the organizations that would constitute a mass left (the unions, the fighting organizations of the black liberation movement, etc.) have declined under merciless attack, as well as their own ideological weakness and widespread unwillingness to do basic political education with the members they still have. Of COURSE in this context, where they have no anchor or political frame of reference to speak of, people are going to express a general sense of disaffection that is understandable, but woefully misinformed. Of COURSE they say both that there's "no difference" between the two parties and that the two parties fight too much to "get something done"; they don't know much of anything about the two parties and their policies to begin with, because they're barely paying attention and there's no mass organization they're a part of to enable them to analyze real political developments through the prism of their own interests.
In this context, it's the pinnacle of folly to believe that some mythical "progressive third party" or charismatic figure is going to get these voters energized about a progressive program. They have no political frame of reference that is at all relevant to them and to their real lives. Only the most profoundly clueless would think that a rootless "third party" effort -- unconnected with any credible mass organization with a track record of actually organizing and mobilizing oppressed people to fight for their interests -- could magically "get through" to these people.
- - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!