Is Anybody Else Sick of the Political Purists?

I'm getting sick of so many DU'ers insisting on absolute purity. They insist that they won't vote for anyone who voted against them in one way. Often, they seem totally unable to focus on the real enemy: the Bush administration. Instead, we seem content to eat our own.

Nobody says you have to support a person who voted yes on the IWR or voted yes on the Patriot Act in the primaries. But why can't people see the huge difference that exists between two viable alternatives? If the nomination does go to someone who supported one of the above things, can't we look past that and see how much better they are than Bush or any Republican? The perfect candidate NEVER exists, nor does the perfect candidate EVER exist. Insisting on purity will get us nowhere but a place in the political wilderness. We can stand on the outside, shouting and denouncing everybody who appears remotely impure, but then we're never going to get ANY progressive into office. Then what are we going to do?

It's ok to be outraged by the IWR vote or the Patriot Act vote*. But why is that people can't look at the entire record? Why does one bad vote invalidate everything? Again, I'm not saying you have to support a candidate like that in the primaries. But in the GE, if it comes down to a candidate who supported one or both of those things, is it so difficult to grasp the concept that any of our candidates are better than Bush? All our candidates have a long record of fighting for Democratic causes, with excellent, distinguished records of accomplishment. If I have to take somebody who voted yes on the Iraq War in the GE, I'll take that person enthusiastically, because I care about social justice, civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, and an internationalist foreign policy. All of our candidates are for that. Bush is against all of that.

Any DEMOCRAT But Bush (ADBB)

*As an aside, even Wellstone voted for the Patriot Act. It's abominable, but I can't in good conscience not vote for a candidate just b.c they voted for the Patriot Act -- it was a mistake, and most are sorry for it and have promised to undo it. That's why it annoys me to no end when people refuse to accept a candidate who voted for the Patriot Act. It was a mistake, but everyone makes mistakes, and if we try to take purity on that issue, we throw out practically all the Democrats in Congress.

Flame away, I don't care -- I just had to get that off my chest.

I agree with you

The way I see it is... support YOUR CANDIDATE during the primarides

After the candidate for the GE emerges, support that candidate and
work hard to get the house and the senate back as well

in politics you should support the team who can win the superbowl, not "your team" whatever that means. If you team wins the playoffs but doesn't win the superbowl in sports, it's cool. In 2004 politics, it's life and death!!!

That's why I constantly have to field criticism as to why a Red like me would support Howard Dean who is not even a leftist.

The answer I've had to give so often, and I'll give here again, is that he is on the correct side of the issues I hold most urgent and important. I realize that only a small minority of Americans hold my political views. So what. One needs be pragmatic in these things, and vote for the closest to your leanings, who also appears to be the strongest contender against the Fascist in Chief.

I hope you get through to the purists, but don't bet your....ahem...house on it.

That's what I don't get.

dennis kucinich is an idealist
howard dean is a realist

I lived through the election of 68, when anti-war purists refused to vote for Humphrey. And so we got Nixon and the set-up that gave us Reagan and bushco.

I also remember some of the 60s New Left who thought they first had to destroy the liberals (who were not 'pure' enough for them) so that they could then have a clear run at the conservatives.

It didn't make sense to me then and doesn't today.

Have a little pity on those of us who lived through Nixon etc. We are really too old to have to relive and refight all the old battles.

We have a bit of wisdom to impart, if there are listeners to hear.

There is a very different political dynamic going on - in fact a different world in general, so making such comparisons are almost ridiculous.

If things WERE nearly the same, I'd be right along with you.

I would be interested in hearing your opinion on what historical comparison is relevant to today's situation. Any other Du'ers can comment too of course.

Any comparisons to today that I can come up with are superficial at best, meaningless at worst. We are truly living in a unique time and with that comes the call for unique answers. Defaulting to McGovern history is a losing proposition. In fact, I'll go so far as to say it is democratically too conservative to entertain.

In 1968, we were embroiled in a war that America had yet to experience - one in which the world's most powerful military was chased out of the jungles by the small but determined patriots of Vietnam. This damaged the national psyche in ways that are still being felt and to be truthful, possibly fuel the drive for war in Iraq today. Well since then we've been involved in several dirty wars, and are setting ourselves up for another Vietnam like exit, but this time we have the acrid shadow of 9/11 over us, and the development of a voting block that is very young, very idealistic and very angry not only at war but about too much capitalist control in the world, too much environmental degredation - you've seen the list. I believe during 'Nam that the driving anti-war force was the draft and the distaste so many American young had at being forced to go fight and die in Vietnam.

So, there's little to compare. Let's look for new solutions based on new realities and get away from these stupid comparisons to irrelevent times and events.

I was not looking for exactly parallel situations of course. But to disregard the past as a learning tool strikes me as a little naive. Personally, I feel the important history to be concerned with is how Americans support their current President at times of war. This gives Bush a pretty strong hand that will tough to overcome. I see no evidence that would allow me to disregard recent Presidential elections either, and the weaknesses of the Democrats in the South. Deans use of the internet to gain the upper hand in the primaries is laudable, but IMHO will not be enough by itself to change history.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I enjoy the chance to read and write posts longer than 2 sentences from time to time.

cheers

May I point out to you that this is a war that this President started all by himself, with some help from people that called themselves Democrats.

Every major religious leader condemned Bush's rush to war, from the Pope, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Dalai Lama. The Pope went so far as to call an American war on Iraq as an "unjust war."

Just as the anti-Fascist Germans opposed Hitler's military excursions, despite the fact that the vast majority of Germans supported their Fuhrer, we must oppose the unnecessary war that the American Caesar has plunged our nation. Oppose this war we must, with every fiber in our being!

This is THE main reason I became more politically active this year, and is why I support General Clark.

Thank you for pointing out the wrongness of the Iraq war. I hope you understand the point I was trying to make, that even with all you said being true, the majority of Americans were not and are not against it. And we need a special candidate to say these things and get Americans to wake up.

I will have no problems supporting Clark, or any of the other antiwar candidates.

If memory serves, it didn't. The American people decided that the economy and Bush's "broken promise not to raise taxes" was more important than the Persian Gulf War, and the rest is history.

The real question is this...can THAT history hold sway over what will happen in 2004, or will 9/11 have so permanently scared the American people that this will always be a truncheon with which to beat an election victory out of them for a republican? I'll bet you hope, for the sake of our party, that this will not be the case. I think Dean is making a great case that Bush's policies are making us LESS secure and safe, not more so. He'll have to amp up this case exponentially as the year goes on because Americans need a lot of convincing when it comes to their security.

Americans weren't dying in Iraq during George H.W. Bush re-election campaign. The Desert Storm campaign was long over. All that was left was the no-fly zone activity.

Yes Dean is making his case, the media and other candidates didn't cut him much slack with some of his recent statements though. It's going to be interesting.

See ya

I think it's essential to hold ANY party's candidates to some sort of performance based litmus test-- in this particular instance, if a candidate used his or her vote to enable the Bushco trashing of our civil liberties, our international reputation, or our foreign policy, then that candidate does not deserve our support, or at least won't ever obtain my support. I'm not especially pure, nor do I expect politicians to be-- my gawd politics is likely the world's second oldest profession-- but I do expect them to have scruples, after all.

NO candidate is 100% 'on' for me, but they're ALL so much closer to what I believe that I can't even conceive of casting a vote for *; it boggles my mind that anyone who would call themself a 'progressive' would rather vote ideologically than strategically in November! :scared:

is what I call it, and it is as destructive as any other form of fundamentalism. I might be totally wrong...........BUT.......at the end of the day it is really ego driven.

purists or not, greens or not, the first priority to get rid of Bush, and if possible, get rid of the Bush family--meaning do not let a one of them ever, ever approach or win another election, even if it is for dogcatcher. The family is stupid, not having the intelligence gene, and they are evil.

I would not worry about the purists this time around. People are too pissed off.

Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton are the only three Dems who consistantly advocate policies which would be considered left of the positions Nixon pursued as President.

Nixon... price contols and progressive tax structure... remember?

So let's get a handle on all these silly charges now, shall we?

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In the Primaries, we have to select the best candidate we see who expresses our ideals; we must! Otherwise, we will never get anywhere significant. That's not to say we won't support an alternate winner of the nomination, but we must try for the best we can do.

That crap about electibility, charisma, etc,etc is bunk! It's all propaganda to get you to vote for someone else you would not ordinarily vote for as your first choice. Don't listen to them - they are trying to influence your vote to their candidate!

There are some issues that transcend all others. A vote to restrict women's abortion rights, as Evan Bayh did, is far worse than a vote on some obscure bill. A vote that led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, is morally equivalent to bin Laden's attack on the WTC on 9/11. A vote for PATRIOT Act was a vote against the Bill of Rights, which in case you didn't know, the Bill of Rights is the only thing that kept us from having an American version of Hitler or Mussolini.

I will point out that none of the Presidential candidates that voted for PATRIOT and IWR have shown a shred of remorse. None of them have called for the repeal of PATRIOT or for the immediate US withdrawal from Iraq. Their ongoing complicity in Bush's criminal war, and in Ashcroft's assault on our civil liberties, is as much of a crime as the one committed by those deputies in the Reichstag that voted for the Enabling Act, making Hitler into a dictator.

i'll vote for, say kerry, if he's the nominee.
but i will be hugely uncomfortable with his votes on the patriot act and the war.
and even more bothered that he couldn't stand with the congressional black caucus on the vote in the house.
there was a case of pragmatism at it's most whoreish -- and there may still be a price to pay for that.
there's a good deal to be said for some purity of ideals but we are far, far from it any way you look at it.
and like indiana -- it really bothers me.

And you are entirely correct. None of them* had the courage or honesty to apologize for those acts, or show a bit of gumption in reversing the damage caused because of it (save a bit for Kerry, who made a limp attempt at "addressing" the excesses of the Patriot Act).

I have made no secret that these issues are preeminent for me in this election because I believe down to the core of my bones that America's disastrous war policy and failure to understand the roots of terror against us will spell destruction for us if not corrected. We have fundamentally missed the boat as to why we are hated enough around the world where we are being attacked. We invade and occupy soveriegn nations and then stand their bewildered when we are attacked back. It's astonishing, and very few politicos are standing up and saying this is WRONG.

The case has been made that the Democrats must go along with this because the American people agree with the war and with Bush policy in general. BULLSHIT. Since when do we blithely go along with something wrong, without at least trying to educate the public on another view? Is this leadership, or what the Germans did in Nazi Germany - going along to get along?

This coming election is actually far beyond the election of another president. To me, it is a referendum on America's foriegn policy, view of the outside world, and it's place in human civilization. Those who support the horrid status quo - be they republicans OR democrats - need to be swept into the dustbin of history.

--------

* before you Kucinich supporters throw a rod over this, realize I'm talking about the candidates who voted for the Patriot Act and or the IWR.

Their decisions to criminally murder innocent people will haunt them long past their failed dreams of becoming president.

And as we know, they are a much tougher sell when it coms to opposing a war. My experience as an American, is that we are much quicker to cheerlead a war than to question one. That sucks, doesn't it.....shouldn't it be the other way around?

after the war. Who knows were public opinion will go? It may all shift, but that will probably take a few more invasions and millions dead before all of America wakes up.

and we will see such a shedding of old DU names, this place will look like a well used snake den.

Which of the those single-issue slogans are we willing to adopt in order to gain votes?

Or to put it another way, how important are gay rights and abortion rights to the Democratic Party? How Conservative are we willing to become?

Or to put it in a historical context, how long were the Northern Democrats willing to look the other way on segregation in order to appease the Southern Democrats? How long were many Democrats silent on the carnage in Vietnam in order to remain loyal to an incumbent Democratic President?

At what point does our silence on the war in Iraq, becomes a betrayal of everything the liberal tradition of the Democratic Party stood for?

As Dr. King once said about Vietnam, "somehow this madness must cease."

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
By Rev. Martin Luther King
4 April 1967

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

Or will you use your knowledge and energy to educate the public to a different way?

why are so many DUers hell-bent on IMpurity?

We don't have to take a lesser evil. That's not a requirement. We have actual good available to us.

So why are so many people aching to sell out? THAT's the important question.

Support Kucinich in the primaries and work hard for him. But, if he is not the nominee, then you really should vote for the Democratic nominee. I can't tell you how to vote -- that has to be your choice, it's your right. But I hope that you'll take seriously the nominee, even if he does NOT agree with you 100%.

It strikes me as suicidal to insist only on supporting candidates who agree with you 100%. Why is it selling out if you decide to support a candidate who agrees with you 75%? It doesn't mean you abandon your principles. It means that you are choosing between the viable alternatives. Either Bush (score: 0%) or the Democratic nominee (let's say about 75%). That's a pretty wide difference -- it doesn't strike me as "lesser of two evils."

Be passionate about Kucinich. But when the nominee is chosen, please rally behind the nominee.

selling out.

If anybody wants my vote, then they'd better convince me they're going to deliver Kucinich's policies, because I'm not fool enough to vote for someone whose big plan is to deliver more of the BushCo status quo!

The pragmatists have no right to complain about anything.
If you want to sell your soul or believe in nothing for politics, then don't cry about others who are different.
Its like a prostitute complaining about virgins.

running through my brain, but I think it best not to raise the rhetoric level any more. ;)

Why is it selling out your principles if you have to support a candidate who agrees with your principles 75% of the time? Why does one have to insist on supporting only someone who agrees 100% of the time? Elections are choices between viable alternatives. Yes, the system as it stands is imperfect, and I'd prefer if we had what the Greens advocate: a national popular vote conducted by IRV. But we don't have that. Trying to act outside of that system is only going to leave progressives in the political wilderness.

Pragmatism doesn't mean not having any principles. It means balancing and weighing the merits of a particular case. It means choosing what is the best alternative, and what is most likely to succeed. It means choosing the viable path that will result in the majority of what one wants in the long run. Voting for the Greens is romantic -- but they will not win.

Pragmatism isn't a dirty word if one supports the Democratic nominee over the Green nominee or Nader -- pragmatism, in this case, is being responsible. If the viable choices are between Bush, who agrees with us 0% of the time, and the Democrat, who agrees with progressives 75% of the time, AND if the Green candidate, who WILL NOT WIN agrees with us 95% of the time then I'm going to pick the Democrat. Why? It's not selling out -- it's doing what is achievable. Voting for the Green would be fruitless. Try to spin it however you want, but for many progressives, the choice really is between the Green/Nader and the Democrat. 3/4 of those voters, if there weren't a choice between those two, would vote Democratic. That would put a Progressive in the WH. If there's a defection, there will not be a progressive in the WH. We'll have four more years of Bush.

Once the nominee is chosen, only you can decide how you will vote. That's your right. Certainly you have more leeway if you live in a safe red or blue state. But, if you live in a state where it's even somewhat competitive, you really ought to vote for the Democrat. Do as you wish, but if you vote Green and Bush is in the WH, don't complain when:

1) 3 SC Justices retire and are replaced by arch-conservatives who overturn Roe v. Wade, consumer protections, Lawrence v. Texas, and countless other rulings that protect our civil, social, and privacy rights.

2) Environmental laws are gutted and the Clean Air Act is scrapped.

3) Gay marriage is outlawed.

4) The tax structure is moved to a horribly regressive system where corporate fat-cats and the Republican elite grow rich and everybody else wallows in crushing taxation.

5) We invade Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Terrorists attack us multiple times and the situation in Israel goes to shit.

6) Free speech is stifled and the Patriot Act expanded.

The list goes on and on. It's your choice. I'll take a Democrat over a "pure" 3rd party candidate any day.

Could you possibly come up with a more absurd and irrelevant analogy?

A liberal Democrat in Indiana is rare. Evan Bayh is at best a moderate. His father, Birch Bayh, was the last liberal we've had here. And voters turned him out in 1980 for Dan Quayle.

When I look at the two major parties' ideology, I'm a bit sad that Republicans in Rhode Island and Maine are more liberal than Democrats in Indiana. And Democrats in the South are more conservative yet.

I expect to have a favorite candidate or two by the time the first primary votes are cast. But I am more frightened by the advancing police state Ashcroft is engineering and this is enough to motivate me to vote for the Democratic nominee against Bush.

One kind of purist is the discussant who refuses to understand nuance, and so defines others in extreme and misleading terms. In this way, only one's own point of view is rational, and the people being described are merely truculent or naive or extreme or irrational.

Even deciding ahead of time to receive other viewpoints in terms of "flaming" is a kind of insulating oneself against understanding other points of view, even as one calls in the same breath to be understood.

Some people connect politics to ideas. Ideas count for something, and some are more important than others. Anyone serious will understand that without tarring an argumentative opponent with the term "purist."

I am so tired of having to explain this over and over again.

One kind of purist is the discussant who refuses to understand nuance, and so defines others in extreme and misleading terms. In this way, only one's own point of view is rational, and the people being described are merely truculent or naive or extreme or irrational.

I understand nuance, and I'm neither saying that you nor anybody who disagrees with me is flaming me. I am refering to vicious diatribes I get when I post an opinion -- that's not something I approve of whether or not it's the view I espouse. What you wrote wasn't a flame, but I've posted enough to know what is. I've gotten enough, and I've read enough.

You're entitled to disagree with me -- it's your right. I have no problem discussing a disagreement with you or anybody who disagrees with me. That's why I'm having a discussion with you. What's wrong is for anybody to engage in childish, self-righteous slurring -- that's a flame, and that's what I'm refering to.

It's clear that you and I disagree on the issue of "Purists." It is true that this is an issue I feel strongly about. If you disagree with me on this issue, yes, honestly, I will feel disappointed, and I will try, probably in vain, to bring you around to my way of thinking. My post is an attempt to try to rally us and unite us against the person we all can't stand -- pResident George W. Bush. Whether I will succeed or not is unclear. I respect your opinion, even if I disagree, and I would like to discuss it. If in the end, we have to agree to disagree, then I will continue to maintain that we need to unite behind the nominee, and you will continue to maintain that some things are more important than unity. That's your choice.

But I'm not tarring you or anyone who disagrees with me as "flamers." I'm tarring flamers as flamers.

I hope that I have misunderstood you, and by your description it appears that I have.

Like you, I have been treated to viscious diatribes, the solid majority of them based upon my preference for the Green platform. Maybe by being attacked too much, I am sometimes overly sensitive to this and related points.

On the issue of Bush's awfulness, I am sure that we have no disagreement. On the extent to which we need to mimic that awfulness in order to displace it, I am sure that our opinions are not identical. A considered disagreement is well within the range of normal.

...beyond not being Bush*. The world isn't that black and white, I'm afraid. We need to make critical decisions before casting our vote for ANYONE, whether democrat or any other party. Absolute party loyalty is how we got saddled with dubya in the first place, it's just that the repigs were the ones putting party loyalty before common sense. I don't think that's a compelling argument for going down that road ourselves.

I'm arguing that the world is nuanced. It's a black-and-white position to insist that the only decent candidates are Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton and that the rest are as bad as Bush. That's looking at things with a polarized perspective that doesn't respect nuance. That's exactly what I'm arguing against. Support whomever you like in the primaries, we should support the nominee. Not doing so *IS* purist.

That brings me to your other point. You are right to an extent -- blind party loyalty is no way to go. Were the Republicans to nominate a principled conservative (say, Dick Lugar) and the Democrats to nominate someone who was clearly a Fascist, then, of course, I would vote Republican. But an objective look at all the candidates will show that they are ALL significant improvements over Bush. Insisting that only a few candidates who match your views 100% are acceptable is purist.

And you prove my point exactly when you say that Republicans backed Bush. THey didn't splinter, and the man was elected -- or, rather, in a position to allow himself to be selected. If we had united behind Gore in '00, he would be President right now, NOT GWB. Any one of this candidates is better than Bush, and if we have any sense of where Bush is taking the country then it's imperitive that we support the Democratic nominee.

To my mind, none of the candidates are pure. Thus, to me it is all shades of gray. Bush* on the other hand is morally repugnant on so many dimensions that any of the Democrats running stack up well against him on a moral standards basis. Some I prefer compared to others on what I see as moral grounds.

It may sound relativistic, and to some extent it is, but there will in fact be a single viable choice to make. Bush or the Democratic nominee. There may be third party alternatives on the ballot, but a vote for one of them is at best an anonmyous statement of conscience and not a meaningful attempt to select the person who will lead country.

I prefer make my statements of conscience in public opposing bad policy. I go to vote because I want to replace republican leadership.

You certainly said so more succinctly than I did.

...especially those on the left.

Michael Moore on Wesley Clark

http://www.liberalresurgent.com/mooreclark.mp3

There is no candidate running that I agree with on every policy position. Were I a purist, I could not vote for any of them. Further, were a candidate to run who agreed with me in every way, he or she would not be elected. Some of my personal policy preferences consistently poll at between 10 and 20 percent support nationally.

The IWR vote for me is about more than policy. First, it is estimated that the direct results of this vote include the deaths of between 20,000 and 50,000 Iraqi civilians. Secondly, those who reportedly voted for this measure because "they trusted the President" showed a serious lapse of character judgement. I am convinced that there are leaders in the larger world who are much brighter and much more difficult to fathom than GW Bush*.

If the none too subtle prevarication and manipulation this misadministration pulled was sufficient to sell them this bill of goods, what future misadventures may we be headed for with one of them at the helm?

That being aside, they were clearly not the authors of this mess we are currently in. Bush* was. In a contest where the only other viable alternative is Bush*, any one of these candidates has my vote and full support.

The political process. Legislation. Policy. Ideology. It's all about them, baby. America is a great big Burger King, and they must have it their way.

Seriously though, "purists" is too kind a term. These folks are authoritarians pure and simple. Their psychosis is not one iota different than Ralph Reed's--they know what is right and pure and deviation will not be tolerated. And you must agree with them on every issue. And they mean every.

What I don't understand is why they don't just get it over with and become State Troopers.

And you must agree with them on every issue.

Straw man argument. No one has demanded agreement on all issues (I could have mention globalization, NAFTA, DOMA, ENDA, abortion rights, etc).

The war in Iraq is only one issue, but it is an issue over which people have died, and people continue to die to this very day. The war in Iraq is the one issue over which millions of people in this country and around the world demonstrated and petitioned their governments and elected representatives to prevent. The war in Iraq was declared an "unjust war" by none other than Pope John Paul II, and was condemned by religious leaders of mainstream Protestant denominations, as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

There is but a handful of issues that are black and white, there is no pragmatic middle ground on them. The death penalty is one such issue. One is either for the death penalty or against it. There is no such thing as being for the near-death penalty. Abortion is another such issue. One is either for abortion rights, or one is against them.

The war in Iraq is only one issue, but it is THE issue!

some are idealists, some are naifs, some are activists for their causes. Many should be respected for what they believe, and they should get our support-- at least where we agree on issues.

Having said that, though, the point is is still to win.

If we had a multi-party parliamentary system, I would be solidly behind Kucinich. Of the current crowd, he speaks my mind better than the rest, and I'd want his voice heard.

But, we don't. We are enslaved in a two-party system, and the winner takes all in the Presidential election.

Electability does figure into the calculations. It's not us on this board we have to worry about-- it's the 60,000,000 or so people who we would have to convince to vote for a leftish candidate against Bush. It will be difficult enough to beat him no matter who we put up, and the stakes are high enough that we should take no chances.

Personally, I believe the country is still in its rightward swing and the pendulum has not begun to swing back. Even if it has, I doubt we could get the numbers we need with anyone perceived as too left-wing.

Am I happy with this situation? Of course not. I want a strong difference between the candidates and a real choice.

The American voting public has been wary of too much change throughout our history. Even during a crisis, it is suspicious of what it perceives as a radical, but in a crisis is where there is the best chance for radical change.

I don't wish for a crisis, but the economic news can go either way, Mad Cow can explode, Iraq can descend into another quagmire, and many other things can happen between now and November to make the public want to throw the bums out. Barring that, the Administration will attempt to frame the debate over gay marriage, guns, abortion, taxes, and other emotional side issues.

We are then given the simple choice of winning with a centrist who doesn't scare the voters, or going down in a blaze of righteous, ideological glory.

It's not McGovern's race to nowhere we should study, but William Jennings Bryan's.

I am sick of political sellouts and corporate whores who bend over for the GOP, without the Crisco.

Nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

I'll vote for anyone other then bush or clark.