I'm not advocating that anyone support a Democratic presidential candidate, as if doing so will alter race and class dynamics in the U.S. I'm simply making an observation about what is likely to happen: I don't think any third party candidate will have the slightest chance in hell of making a dent on the two-party system -- not in 2008.
The elections are a horse race at the national level, as far as I'm concerned. I enjoy watching them and watching intelligent people offer analyses, examine the polls, take educated guesses, etc. I agree with John Mage about local politics, something that Deb convinced me of years ago. It matters, there, and its precisely there that Green and third party candidates have a chance of truly making a difference. To me, it's where energies ought to be focused.
All the bickering over the Presidential elections ... it's only entertaining to observe the extremes to which people will go for something that nearly everyone will say has little bearing on our ultimate goals. (Though, as I recall, you made some interesting arguments as to why you'd changed your mind on the voting issue. Forgive me but I can't recall them at the mo/)
So, all that said, my story is: there'll be a very high black voter turnout and hostility to any third party candidate who might enter the fray. And I"m stickin' to it.
Those who think otherwise should pony up and put their money where their digits are. :)
k
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 18:28:12 -0400 From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
Kelley wrote:
> I predict the biggest 2008 GOTV among blacks in history. If you
> thought the Black Caucus was pissed at Nader last election, if any
> third party tries to get them to mobilize votes to a third party
> candidate, he'll be more than cussed at.
Most Black votes in the South don't count in the presidential election, so Democratic Party operatives don't bother to spend money to mobilize them either. Take a look at the Louisiana exit polls from 2004, for instance: <http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/ results/states/LA/P/00/epolls.0.html>. If Blacks who lost homes to the hurricane want to vote Democratic and want their votes to matter at all, they had better move to Florida or (better yet) all the way up to Ohio, a Great Migration redux.
If anyone thinks that Democrats manage hurricanes better than Republicans, remember how FDR treated the Bonus Army veterans in 1935: <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ ErnestHemingwayWhoMurderedtheVets.pdf>.