It's the candidate who wins the electoral college that actually gets to be the occupant of the White House, which gives him real power of setting foreign policy and shaping domestic policy.
If you are interested in denying George W. Bush the symbolic power of winning the popular vote and gaining an illusion of popular consent and legitimacy in case Bush wins the electoral college, you should advocate votes for Ralph Nader or other candidates on the left at least in the one-party states like New York and California.
For instance, suppose that Bush narrowly wins the electoral college with only 40% of the popular vote, with 21% of the popular vote going to Nader and other candidates on the left and 39%, going to Kerry -- that will be a far more symbolically powerful way of denying Bush and Bush's and Kerry's agenda of continuing the wars and occupations an illusion of popular consent and legitimacy than pro-war Kerry winning 51% of the popular vote and pro-war Bush winning 49% of it, with all anti-war candidates (Nader, Cobb, Badnarik, Brown, Calero, et al.) receiving zero votes anywhere.
>The subject heading is really misleading. Tariq thinks it's very
>important for Kerry to win the election, and he thinks Nader is a
>"joke" afflicted by "narcissism" with no sense of a national
>politcal strategy. Did you forget that part?
In his elaboration, it appears that Tariq Ali wanted to retreat from his callow judgement on Nader in his radio interview, remembering his "[m]any dear friends" who will be voting for Nader, agreeing with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, etc. who has advocated the so-called "safe states" strategy (in Ali's words, "I do not live in the United States, but am reassured that Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and other veterans hold a similar view"), etc.. If Ali wants to re-elaborate on the matter and flip-flop again like Kerry, I'm all ears.
In any case, the question is if those who are supporting Nader/Camejo have a national political strategy and organizing at the grassroots accordingly, regardless of what Nader thinks. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.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/>