In response to Steve Anderson's post:
3rd parties do not necessarily equal progressive parties, nor are all
3rd party candidates that you mention progressive candidates. A
few examples:
Pat Buchanan. Enough said.
Jesse Ventura, an avowed centrist and Independence Party
standard bearer. He is not supporting either Ralph Nader nor Al
Gore for president, as they are both too far left.
Mary Mellen, the Independence Party candidate for State Rep in
62A that Steve mentions. She is anti-choice on women's right to
choose and supports a 24-waiting period. She is against gun
control and even supports a conceal carry law. And she doesn't
report to have any history of work around progressive issues.
While I enjoy the fact that progressive 3rd party candidates can
engage in electoral battles in Minneapolis without threatening to
elect Republicans, let's recognize that not all 3rd party candidates
are progressive!
Cara Letofsky
Seward
Senate District 62
Date sent: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 09:35:14 -0600
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: "Steven C. Anderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Democrats vs. Progressives - in Minneapolis
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm one of the many who've enjoyed the "guilty pleasure" of seeing the
> national presidential debate slip into this forum, but I agree that we
> need to keep a local focus. So lets start talking about local races!
>
> In Minneapolis legislative races, we have at least two progressive
> challengers to DFL supremacy in myself and Holle Brian. Other
> independence candidates, while not identifying themselves as
> across-the-board progressives, are nonetheless very outspoken on some key
> progressive issues: Mary Mellen is very outspoken on being able to buy
> non-genetically engineered food and other environmental issues, while 5th
> CD congressional candidate Rob Tomich has spoken out in favor of
> single-payer health care.
>
> The best part about voting progressive in Minneapolis is that you don't
> have to agonize over the "spoiler" issue. Unless there's an outstanding
> Republican in the race (Hi, Terrell!), we can reasonably expect that
> Minneapolis Republicans will get less than 30% of the vote, so even if the
> vote between (for instance) Wes Skoglund and Holle Brian was evenly split,
> and composed entirely of former Democrat voters, the Republican still
> would not win.
>
> Progressives who care about the environment, about gay rights, about the
> right to choose, about universal health care coverage, and about the
> racial inequities in the criminal justice system should consider: The DFL
> has held the balance of power in the state legislature for most of the
> last 30 years. Are we happy with the result? Or do we think we ought to
> be doing better than we are?
>
> I think we can be doing much better. There are many tough problems out
> there that evade easy solutions - but there are so many others where the
> solution exists but democrats and republicans are ignoring it. We know
> that Canadians, Germans, and the British enjoy longer life expectancies,
> lower infant mortality, lower health care costs, and greater satisfaction
> with their health care system than we do here in America - so why is it so
> difficult for our supposedly progressive DFL to support a single-payer
> system here? We know that money spent on treatment and education in
> combatting drug abuse, but that interdiction and enforcement has been
> largely ineffective. So why can't we treat the drug problem strictly as a
> medical problem, and eliminate the violence of the black market? We know
> that even with the best light-rail system we could hope to construct, less
> than 2% of trips metrowide will be on a light rail system, and we won't
> substantially reduce our auto dependency, so why isn't the DFL interested
> in finding new approaches to transit?
>
> Democrat committee chairs from Minneapolis have blocked consideration of
> single-payer health care. They've prevented hearings on Personal Rapid
> Transit (PRT), while even the Republican-controlled house has allowed PRT
> bills to advance. We can do better than the kind of leadership the DFL
> has been providing. We need to.
>
> --
> Steven C. Anderson 612-722-6658 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> The Independence Party Candidate for Minnesota Senate, District 62
> http://www.SteveAnderson.org/
>
