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December 08, 2003
The Nation (somewhat) gets it
I don't make a habit of reading the Nation, partly for articles like this one about Wesley Clark. However, this article about the Green party and Ralph Nader's threatened rerun for the White House is informative and for the most part dead-on.
I'd wager that Nader's star has fallen considerably since 2000 and would only crash into earth if he ran again in '04. For one thing, the image of Gore as a pandering poll driven "conservative" has been shattered by his recent MoveOn speeches. As more leftists read books by Al Franken and Eric Alterman, it's increasingly clear that that image of Gore was painted solely by the big media that they distrust so.
Similarly, the other-half of the "Gush-Bore" syndrome, the acceptance of Bush as a "compassionate conservative," more or less equal to Gore, while still generally agreed upon by moderate voters, is thoroughly discredited by leftists. Even if they still consider Gore (or Liebermann, Clark, Dean or Edwards) too close to the center-right of the spectrum, there will still be a stark contrast between the eventual nominee and the President. With four years of Bush behind them and, potentially, four more ahead, the lesser of two evils never sounded so good.
It's clear from the article that many of the grownups in the Green party have a good understanding of local and national politics (many also started their careers as Democrats) and that the Naderites are living in a fantasyworld. If Greens started costing more Democrats elections, many Democrats would come around to instant runoff voting. This is a common theme among the Naderites of the party. Unfortunately, the Republicans who will be winning those elections aren't likely to vote for a "solution" that will send them out of office unless, and this is a big if, a libertarian like party starts doing the same to them.
Finally, if you're hawking instant runoff voting as a panacea to elect more Democrats to office from progressive areas, it would make a lot more sense just not to run or to switch party affiliation and run as a progressive in the Democratic primary.
Posted by Chris at December 8, 2003 12:24 AM
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