> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >I agree with Brad and Deborah that combining local and national
> >campaigns makes eminent sense. I'm only opposed to the idea that
> >the Green Party (or any other third party on the left that may come
> >into being in the future) should concentrate only on local
> >elections, abstaining from national politics.
>
> What do you mean by "national politics"? The presidency? That seems
> hyperambitious for a party that can barely tie its shoes, and has
> shown no sign of having grown from a series of presidential runs.
> Congress? That seems a lot more reasonable to me. I'm voting for
> McReynolds for Senate in NY, in fact.
>
> Doug
----------------------------
Can anyone cite any cases in a capitalist democracy where a party vaulted
straight to national power without first winning elections at the municipal,
state, and national legislative levels and demonstrating the capacity to
secure gains for its supporters? I can't imagine the organized trade union,
women's, environmental, civil rights or other movements transferring their
loyalty to the Green party nationally, for example, without some prior
evidence it's more able than the Democrats to deliver on the legislative and
regulatory changes, and court and board appointments, which are essential to
realizing their goals. You would have to be a hopelessly incorrigible
idealist (which of course no one on this list is) to think you can appeal to
the people in these movements (aside from a minority of students and
intellectuals) primarily on the basis of ideas without first having
demonstrated your capacity to effectively lead them in their current
struggles.
This is why the free-floating Nader-Camejo run seems so quixotic; perhaps another small radical party will issue out of it, but that party would also have to prove itself at the lower legislative levels if it had any serious designs at national power. And, as its earnest supporters would soon discover, it would have to make the same compromises on its way up, short of a revolutionary crisis, as other mass reformist parties have or it would not be allowed to govern. Just ask Joshka Fischer and the German Greens.
Marv G