Here's the start of the Meyerson article (L.A. WEEKLY) I referred to:
>Let's start with two propositions; first, Ralph Nader is a genuine
American hero who is running on what is the progressive community's dream
program for America. Second, his third-party Presidential candidacy is a
monumental exercise in wrong-headedness that, far from building the left
"for the long haul, as Naderites are wont to say, will cripple it for any
haul, long, short or in between.
It's one thing to vote for Nader in a state like California that
appears to be a likely win for Gore (but keep checking
those polls). In states too close to call, however, a vote for Nader could
surely trigger a Bush Fratboy Restoration, with all that entails. Some
prospective Nader voters acknowledge that a vote for Ralph comes at a real
cost--but not one that in the end is too high to pay. Writing in sunday's
Los Angeles Times, Clancy Sigal, (author of one of the great unsung
American Novels, Going Away) concedes that "people may be hurt by my Nader
vote.. the economically disenfranchised.. the elderly and the ill" who
would suffer if W. becomes president. However, he argues, "I am into
along term struggle to help build a 'new, progressive coalition' that
outflanks the Democratic Party..."
This raises the age old question of whether the end justifies the
means--but we need to pose an easier question first:
Does a "successful" Nader candidacy (which Naderites define as one that
pulls 5 percent of the national vote, thus qualifying the Greens for
federal funding in 2004) build a "new progressive coalition" at all? (this
is a question that pertains even in states that are safe for Gore, since
we're talking about aggregate national totals). Suppose the Greens do
become political players after this election. What will that mean for the
future of left politics?
To the best of my knowledge, Nader has addressed this question
specifically only once; in an interview with David Moberg in the October 30
issue of In These Times, the independent left periodical. Nader begins by
acknowledging that if he lived in the
congressional district of Henry Waxman, the West Los Angeles Democrat who's
long been the most successful legislative champion of consumer rights and
higher health and environmental standards, he'd vote for Waxman
unhesitatingly. (indeed, when he was asked by a reporter at this summer's
Green Party Convention to name three things he liked about America, Nader
listed Waxman as thing number two.
At this point, though, Nader's sketch of his strategic vision for the
Greens becomes mind boggling. Two years hence, if
a Green runs against his number two favorite American thing, says Nader,
he'll back the Green. "There's an overriding goal here, and that's to
build a majority party," he says," I hate to use military analogies, but
this is war...After November, we're going to go after Congress in a very
detailed way, district by district. If (Democrats in a particular
district) are winning 51 to 49 percent, we're going to go in a beat them
with Green votes. They've got to lose people, whether they're good or
bad." Moberg goes on
to report that "Nader is willing to sacrifice progressives like Russ
Feingold in Wisconsin or Paul Wellstone in Minnesota." Nader explains.
"That is the burden they're going to have to bear for letting their party
go astray. It's too bad."
I'll say it's too bad! What Nader is proposing is a policy of "no
friends on the left" that the Greens target as their main enemy such left
leaders as Wellstone and Feingold, the only political members who both
share their beliefs and who actually win elections. Most progressive
Democratic House figures have safe seats--but some don't. The late George
Brown Jr. who cast the first vote against the Vet Nam war, led the
successful fight against Reagan's Star Wars lunacy and who voted against
the welfare reform bill of 1996, represented for nearly thirty years a
center-right district in San Bernardino. He was repeatedly re-elected by
51 to 49 percent margins, at best, he went right on casting one politically
suicidal vote after another to follow the dictates of
his conscience.
It's precisely the George Brown's who Nader's Greens would defeat.
And progressive senators (since senators represent states, not safe
congressional districts) like Wellstone -- the Senates leading advocate of
universal single payer health insurance -- and Feingold -- the Senates
leading advocate of campaign finance reform.
And to what end? There isn't one chance in a million the Greens could
become a majority party in the U.S. Nowhere in
the world (except for a time in Tasmania) have the Greens even managed to
win a plurality in multiparty elections. Where they are in government as
minority members of left coalitions, as in Germany, it's because they have
won between 5 and 10 percent of the vote--in nations where such a vote
entitles as party to seats in Parliament. And in these nations, voting
Green isn't agonizing, it's easy. In these nations, a Green vote doesn't
come at the expense of the Social Democrats: The two parties can and often
do join together in coalition. In the American electoral system, by
contrast, with it's winner takes all vote count, Green votes will always
come at the expense of the Democrats. Which is to say, the only possible
effect of running against the all too few Wellstone's Feingold's and George
Brown's of this world will be to elect Republicans. <
for the rest, see: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/50/powerlines-meyerson.shtml
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
