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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Shane Taylor wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>"Nader's
current run makes no real<BR>pretense of party building. Kerry would have
to loose for Nader to be<BR>blamed as a "spoiler," otherwise Nader's electoral
pull has been far to<BR>small to be read as anything but irrelevant.
Wasn't this part of the<BR>reason for the Labor Party's hesitance to run
candidates, not advertising<BR>the party as an impotent
fringe?"</FONT><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Yes, that's one way to describe the Labor Party's
electoral position. The '98 LP national Convention in Pittsburgh decided
to run candidates, but only as LP candidates (no fusion) and only if it
could be demonstrated that the candidate may likely win, and thus
avoid the "impotent fringe," image that some charged the Greens with
being. Severe electoral criteria were imposed (organization, money, union
and community support, etc.) that required serious party building to meet.
Some LP loyalists called it top-down micromanagement. I thought
it was rational, and one of several ways to build the party. </FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>Some LP chapters set specific, but long-range, electoral
goals, and began to think electorally. This required serious strategic
planning, a very tough job.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Then in 2000, Ralph Nader and the Greens came along
and helped to stultify the LP's electoral thrust by raiding some of the best LP
activists. Nader was where the action was. Tony Mazzocchi and Nader
were radical buddies for years around corporate, environmental,and other issues,
so it's not surprising that Tony was a keynote speaker at the Green national
convention in Denver in 2000 when Nader became presidential candidate.
Nader accepted the Labor Party's economic justice program, which was
compatible with his own, and pushed it into the Green platform.
Class suddenly became part of official Green wisdom for the first time, a step
forward in Green party building.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>But the Nader-Green phenomenon emerged at a
delicate point in LP development and contributed to its decline. The
electoral question was always internally contentious, but by 1999 the
national LP and a few of its community bodies seemed to have come to
terms with it. Shaky bridges had been built to some unions
and community groups, only to be undermined with unfounded generalizations
that left-leaning third parties are automatic spoilers of
"progressive" Democrats. The LP wasn't able to put into play some logical
alternative strategies, like avoiding campaigns against truly progressive
Democrats while retaining its independent working class character. Of
course, there's more to the LP decline than this, but that's for another
time.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bob Mast</FONT></DIV>
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