I'm a Dem, and sincerely say by all means, vote Green. With the caveats that nimh mentioned of in safe states, either way. But sure, more of 'em are safe states than not (I think), I don't object to that at all.
They're all rugged individualists, until they need something from the government.
If you ever read about my notion of economics, finn, you would know it allows for elements of capitalism combined with elements of socialism. In it, the bills get paid. The budget gets balanced. Unlike the Republicans, who spend like drunken sailors, thinking because they are captitalists, the bill that never gets paid is somehow covered anyway. After their drunken orgy of spending, they accuse Dems and Greens of being socialists who take people's money and waste it.
nimh has already answered how it is flawed relative to the potential ascendancy of the Greens. The presidency is high-profile, but it's a high-profile waste of time.
If a Green candidate is the best candidate and gets a congressional seat, or a Senate seat, or whatever, excellent! I have absolutely no beef with that, and have voted Green locally before. I have a major, major beef with Bush being re-elected.
So, if the Greens want to ascend, they should go ahead and do the grass-roots stuff, the smaller stuff, the achievable stuff -- think globally, act locally and all that.
A whole bunch of Greens in local politics will both increase their visibility (a supposed benefit of a presidential run) and increase their ability to effect change (which a presidential run -- doomed to failure -- will not itself do.)
Uh, OK. So you're not surprised. You asked for responses regarding how your position was flawed "relative to the potential ascendency of the Greens". You didn't specify, "unless you support Kerry."
Local inroads will be facilitated by a national presence.
There is a much better chance for the Greens to make their case to America at the national level than through an arduous series of local steps.
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:Local inroads will be facilitated by a national presence.
Quixotic third party presidential bids have come and gone. Perot got 17% of the vote, but the Reform Party never got to be a Party that could make much any inroads on a local level - its grassroots are a joke. Anderson's candidacy in 1980 yielded nothing beyond the 7% he got - no follow-up. Presidency candidates actually have quite a lousy track record in "facilitating local inroads".
Because of the national attention Perot garnered (17% is a significant percentage of the vote), his Reform party had an opportunity to make inroads locally and expand its base. It did not for two reasons:
Perot is an egotist and had no desire to turn his national profile to the job of expanding the base of the Reform Party. His energies are strictly self-directed.
The Reform party had no real platform of its own. It had nothing other than Perot.
Note that Perot's success at the national level had nothing to do with the failure of the Reform Party as a viable third party.
John Anderson, even more so, a candidate without a party platform - in fact he had no party at all.
Its the other way round. A meaningful presence in the presidential race is only likely to be lasting - to be more than a "flavour du jour" thing - if it is based on a party that is well-rooted in the local and state communities and political bodies.
I believe your close here, but still off the mark. A meaningful presence in the presidential race is only likely to be lasting if the capital it obtains is spent on building a local party structure.
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:There is a much better chance for the Greens to make their case to America at the national level than through an arduous series of local steps.
Not necessarily - unless you've got Perot's millions, and you can buy yourself those 15-minute prime time TV ads. Any other media attention you're going to attract is going to wholly focus on your "spoiler value" - what difference will you make to the balance between Kerry and Bush?
Well, of course the Greens need the right candidate. I've never heard of this fellow Cobb, and I agree that Nader is no Perot, but isn't that for those who would advance the Green Party to decide? If they all can get behind one or the other it will register on the national scene.
The image you're going to get through that kind of coverage might help you attract a slice of voters who are genuininely angry at the Dems as much as at the Reps, but it's only going to hurt your name and appeal among the broader community of liberal voters. Basically, any presidential candidacy in which you are going to go after Kerry voters in battleground states with a vengeance is going to be perceived as a quixotic spoiler campaign by nine out of ten liberal voters. Those are the same voters that you need to convince of the need for a strong Green Party to ensure its success at any other representative level. I think that consideration must also have played a role in the choice of the Greens to withdraw from Nader.
This is an excellent argument for a Democrat to make, but by this logic there will never come a time for the Green Party to make their move. The Green Party has no hope of converting dyed in the wool Democratic partisans. They are only viable if they can attract voters who are dissatisfied with both parties. If they can't, it won't matter whether they work at the top or bottom levels of politics.
So I disagree about what level is best fitted to make your case to America as a new party. Its not just about how much media coverage you attract, its also about what image it conveys of what you do. With Green representatives already present on local level, you can make a case there that here's a party that actually works to achieve change that affects people's lives directly. Here's a party that has a feasible program, the value of which is proven by actual decision-making by reliable Green politicians. You can make your case not as some kind of attention-grabbing symbolic expression of protest, but as a party thats here to stay as a force for change. As a party that perhaps can put up House Reps and even Senators soon - Vermont has a Socialist Congressman, so why not?
You are operating from an assumption that the only media coverage the Greens can obtain is negative. Somehow Perot managed to break through the spoiler accusations. No one thought he had a chance to win, but many thought he had a chance to establish a growing viable third party.
Yes, the Greens very much need to make inroads locally. On that we agree. My point is that there is a better chance of them doing so if they can define a presence at the national level.
The track record of past third-party candidates shows that the extra attention a spoiler Presidency run gets you does not necessarily easily translate into extra support at any other level. I'm glad Cobb is there to vote for, for those people whose principles would really stop them from voting Kerry one way or another. They should have a choice. I'm glad he's there for leaners in safe states to vote for, to express their wish for the Greens to become stronger. But I still think that the campaigning resources are more wisely used in races where the candidate can actually be elected.
And I believe that there will never be races where the candidate can actually be elected - except in a place like New Paltz New York where the majority of voters are students or recently graduated students - unless they do something to achieve national attention and capture the imagination of people who may not even currently know they would like an alternative to the two parties.
You seem to be glad that Cobb is there as long as he can't possibly hurt Kerry: He's OK for those who would never vote for Kerry in any case or for those in states where Kerry is a shoo in. In the hotly contested states, you'd prefer he not be there. It's hard to imagine that this preference doesn't influence your position on what is best for the Green Party, but then again I suppose it may be hard to believe that my conservative ideology doesn't influence my position on the subject
And I believe that there will never be races where the candidate can actually be elected - except in a place like New Paltz New York where the majority of voters are students or recently graduated students - unless they do something to achieve national attention
This is an excellent argument for a Democrat to make, but 1) by this logic there will never come a time for the Green Party to make their move. 2) The Green Party has no hope of converting dyed in the wool Democratic partisans. 3) They are only viable if they can attract voters who are dissatisfied with both parties.
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:And I believe that there will never be races where the candidate can actually be elected - except in a place like New Paltz New York where the majority of voters are students or recently graduated students - unless they do something to achieve national attention
Hardly true. In San Francisco last year, Green candidate Gonzalez came to a hairwidth of being elected to the mayor's office. His run was a strictly local one, yet (or "and"??) he received 47,4% of the vote in a run-off against the Dem candidate Gavin Newsom - even tho Newsom had outspent him ten-to-one and had Bill Clinton and Al Gore campaigning for him. (link).
Now SF may be a very liberal city, but we are talking a whole city here, way more than some campus district. Note that the Greens/Progressives have long had a strong local organisation here, and have proven themselves on many levels over the years. Its that track record and organisation that helped them almost win the mayor position, not any way in which they profiled themselves nationally. In fact, the attempt of Clinton and Gore to "nationalize" the race may have backfired, with Gonzalez stressing his commitment to local issues and causes.
Note that Gonzalez can only possibly have gotten that far by pulling in lots of Democrats. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that if the race had coincided with a national Nader Green presidency run, many of those Dems would have turned away in anger from anything Green, and voted Newsom instead. So I'm opining that Gonzalez won 47% thanks to, rather than despite of, the lack of a parallel presidency run.
Interestingly, even Gonzalez' eventual loss was in fact something of a victory, as it has clearly influenced a great desire on the part of Newsom to right away profile himself with a daring liberal cause (gay marriage).
