> You mean my good-natured little jibe at Carrol's support
> for the Republicans as the "lesser evil"?
"Good-natured" is a subjective term, of course, but I'll take your word for it, as to intent anyway. Email notoriously has no tone of voice or body language.
Carrol's argument that the Rs are actually the lesser evil is a good example of what I like, really like, about Carrol, and why I value his contributions here so much. His formulation poses, v ery piquantly, an important question -- Which is worse: an open enemy or a false friend?
> If the DP seems to you to be my "hobby horse", it's because the
> party's base is comprised of those constituencies that the US left
> has always tried to attract.
Not to be pedantic or anything, but this formulation about the DP's 'base' skates over some important questions, chiefly what you mean by 'base'. There's one sense of the term in which the DP's 'base' consists of its big donors. But you probably meant 'electoral base', a group of hapless folk whom the Party regards as morally obliged to vote for it, some of whom, sadly, have internalized this imperative.
There's another sense of 'base', of course: The sense in which you ask, what's the party based on? Ideologically, of course, the answer is simple: Blackmail. Vote for us, because though we will brutalize you, the other guys would brutalize you just a little bit worse. We'll knock out half your teeth; the other guys will knock out half and an extra bicuspid for good measure. We'll throw you over a cliff; but the other guys will throw you over a cliff and then climb down and spit on your corpse. So c'mon, folks, it's pretty clear who's the Lesser Evil here. This is the Democratic Party's marketing strategy in a nutshell.
> [the DP's 'base'] would necessarily form the core of
> any viable third party. Therefore it's important to pay commensurate
> attention to it. You disagree.
On the contrary. I agree. I pay a lot of attention to it, as a householder pays attention to termites in his basement. Carrol was paying attention to it when he argued -- not without reason, I think -- that it's actually the greater evil.
I would have said it's the DP's defenders who aren't paying attention.
> I propose we move on.
With all my heart; but the topic will come up again and again, particularly as the furor-electoralis takes hold. I foresee much hysteria and hand-wringing on the lists, until one Romney or the other becomes Lord Of The Drones.
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Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org
When one does a foolish thing, it is right to do it handsomely.