Only one problem with this one is the claim that
Gore lost Ohio because of being insufficiently
environmentalist. Yes, the toxic waste dump is a
big deal in that neighborhood. But, nobody should
forget that Reagan won votes in 1980 by standing
in front of a steel mill in Youngstown and blaming it
on the EPA. A lot of Ohio industry is tied to the auto
industry. This is like how Gore's environmental
views are viewed in West Virginia. Not favorably.
Also, I don't remember Gore "stridently" defending
the death penalty. I remember him doing so very
perfunctorily, "I support it," and nothing more. I think
he knows better, but is constrained by the memory
of Dukakis going down partly because of his opposition
to the death penalty. Of course, Bush is the biggest
executor in the country, and has reportedly mocked
some who were making appeals to him. Gag.
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, November 09, 2000 10:26 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:4177] Alex Cockburn on the elections
>November 9, 2000
>
>Nader and the Virtues of Gridlock Election 2000: The Best of All Possible
>Worlds
>
>by Alexander Cockburn
>
>So it all came out right in the end: gridlock on the Hill and Nader blamed
>for sabotaging Al Gore.
>
>First a word about gridlock. We like it. No bold initiatives, like
>privatizing Social Security or shoving through vouchers. No
>ultra-right-wingers making it onto the Supreme Court. Ah, you protest, but
>what about the bold plans that a Democratic-controlled Congress and Gore
>would have pushed through? Relax. There were no such plans. These days
>gridlock is the best we can hope for.
>
>Now for blaming Nader. Fine by us if all that people look at are those
>97,000 Green votes for Ralph in Florida. That's good news in itself. Who
>would have thought the Sunshine State had that many progressives in it,
>with steel in their spine and the spunk to throw Eric Alterman's columns
>for The Nation into the trashcan?
>
>And they had plenty of reason to dump Gore. What were the big issues for
>Greens in Florida? The Everglades. Back in 1993 the hope was that
>Clinton/Gore would push through a cleanup bill to prevent toxic runoff from
>the sugar plantations south of Lake Okeechobee from destroying the swamp
>that covers much of south-central Florida. Such hopes foundered on a
>"win-win" solution brokered by sugar barons and the real estate industry.
>Clinton signed off on it , in a conversation with Alfonso Fanjul overheard
>by Monica Lewinsky as her the commander in chief deferentially accepted his
>marching orders.
>
>Another issue prompted some of those 97,000 to defiantly vote for Nader:
>the Homestead Air Force Base, which sits between Biscayne National Park and
>the Everglades. The old Air Force base had been scheduled for shutdown, but
>then Cuban-American real estate interests concocted a scheme to turn the
>base into a commercial airport. Despite repeated pleas from biologists
>inside the Interior Department as well as from Florida's Greens, Gore
>refused to intervene, cowed by the Canosa family, which represented the big
>money behind the airport's boosters.
>
>Just to make sure there would be no significant Green defections back to
>the Democratic standard, Joe Lieberman made a last-minute pilgrimage to the
>grave of Jorge Mas Canosa, once the godfather of the sinister
>Cuban-American National Foundation.. You want one final reason for the
>Nader voter in Florida?
>
>Try the death penalty, for which Gore issued strident support in that final
>debate. Florida runs third, after Texas and Virginia as a killing machine,
>and for many progressives in the state it's an issue of principle.
>Incidentally, about half a million ex-felons, sentences and probation fully
>served, are disenfranchised permanently in Florida. A crucial number of
>these would have voted for Gore the crime fighter and supporter of the War
>on Drugs.
>
>Other reasons many Greens nationally refused to knuckle under and sneak
>back to the Gore column? You want an explanation of why he lost Ohio by
>four points and New Hampshire by one? Try the WTI hazardous-waste
>incinerator (world's largest) in East Liverpool, Ohio. Gore promised voters
>in 1992 that a Democratic administration would kill it. It was a double
>lie. First, Carol Browner's EPA almost immediately gave the incinerator a
>permit. When confronted on his broken pledge, Gore said the decision had
>been pre-empted by the outgoing Bush crowd. This too was a lie, as voters
>in Ohio discovered a week before Election 2000.
>
>William Reilly, Bush's EPA chief, finally testified this fall that Gore's
>environmental aide Katie McGinty told him in the 1992 transition period
>that "it was the wishes of the new incoming administration to get the
>trial-burn permit granted. The Vice President?elect would be grateful if I
>simply made that decision before leaving office."
>
>Don't th
