Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: In short, a politically sensible compromise between the Nader/Camejo and Cobb/LaMarche factions within the Green Party would have been Camejo's proposal for free states, i.e., the Green Party at the national convention endorsing both campaigns and leaving each state Green Party free to choose the campaign that is best suited for growing the Green Party in the state. What kind of national party runs 50 separate campaigns? Why not go down to the county level and run 3000 campaigns? I suppose having two tickets is better than '96, when the Greens had four VP candidates (among them, the charming Lorna Salzman). But this looks more like further proof that the party is just too ill-developed to run a national campaign. Running for the office of chief executive of the world bourgeoisie doesn't seem like the time to conduct scores of simultaneous experiments. Doug We are not talking about 50 separate campaigns. We are talking about two factions -- the Nader/Camejo and Cobb/LaMarche factions -- in the Green Party. The question now is which side will survive 2004 better than the other, which will determine what we can do with the Green Party in 2008. As a practical matter in US politics, though, states have radically divergent requirements to gain and maintain ballot status, so each state party, to a certain extent, sinks or swims on its own anyhow. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/07/04 3:50 PM What kind of national party runs 50 separate campaigns? Why not go down to the county level and run 3000 campaigns? Doug questionable whether u.s. has any national parties at all... in any event, electoral college makes for 50 state elections for prez so major parties do actually run 50 campaigns (51 counting prez candidate's own campaign, 51 and 1/2 if one includes vice-prez campaign... and given that ballot construction is responsibility of county elections officers, one could argue that there are actually 3000 county elections for prez... can't recall # of different ballots in florida but there's a whole bunch, gives lie to 5 supreme court justices who moaned about their concern for 'equal protection' of voting rights in 2000... formal voting procedures, no doubt, pale beside other issues but seems that each state could at very least have same ballot for prez election (1787 constitution assigns almost all election responsibilities to states so it may be asking too much for a common national prez ballot)...michael hoover -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
NY Press, July 7, 2004 DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN? The pacifists stick to their guns, and then some. By Matt Taibbi Well, thank god the Green Party came to its senses last week and nominated David Cobb to run for the presidency, ending that whole ugly Ralph Nader episode. I was afraid I might have to make an actual decision before this upcoming electionbut now I can safely be a gutless worm and throw my vote away to a gang of ferrety, querulous, self-flagellating intellectuals who learned politics from the '61 Mets. What a relief! Now, when I have to explain my electoral choices at Upper West Side cocktail parties in 2005, I can have it both ways! I didand I didn't! It's perfect! For those of you who didn't follow this story, Cobb snatched the Green Party nomination away from Nader last week largely through his embrace of the so-called safe states strategy, known affectionately in political circles as the Crack Suicide Squad approach to campaigning. In this scenario, Mssr. Cobb agrees in advance to refrain from campaigning in any state where the Greens might have a chance to affect the outcome of the Bush-Kerry race. Bravely, however, he condescends to campaign balls-out in any state where a vote for the Greens doesn't matter. This is the kind of political warfare that would have made the Mensheviks proud: whistle-stop tours full of rowdy Greens singing Kum Ba Yah and Give Peace a Chance in front of crowds of two dozen in Cambridge and Portland and Seattle. There is simply no way to explain the Green Party's decision to nominate Cobb except as a formal admission/cementing of its national role as a quixotic affectation for the spineless intellectuals of the Starbucks-and-SUV set. This is the kind of politics you get when you raise a generation of people who don't understand the difference between brand identification and ideological conviction. Much the same way that Burger King and McDonald's are scrambling to figure out a way that you can be on the Atkins diet and still spend your money at their vile, ass-inflating restaurants, Cobb and his party basically figured out a way that Nation subscribers can wear Green this fall and still keep their friends. They have turned politics into a shoe and a handbag, a conquered market demographic. full: http://www.nypress.com/17/27/newscolumns/MattTaibbi.cfm -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
NY Press, July 7, 2004 DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN? Right on!
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
Louis Proyect channels Matt Taibbi: ...For those of you who didn't follow this story, Cobb snatched the Green Party nomination away from Nader last week largely through his embrace of the so-called safe states strategy... Only those who didn't follow this story will be taken in by this lie. Cobb didn't snatch the Green Party nomination away from Nader for the simple reason that Nader didn't want the GP nomination and made it very clear that he would reject it if offered. Faced with this arrogant ultimatum, the GP did what any self-respecting party would: nominate its own candidate to campaign on its own program. And the safe state strategy, for a party that can expect no electoral college votes anywhere, makes perfect sense in this election. The great majority of the Left protest vote is to be found in places like New York and California, where the case against the *competent* Imperial candidate can be made most clearly because the fear of throwing the election to Ubu and his Bushits is such obviously hysterical nonsense in those states. Ultraleftist naderism--the ill-concealed desire to inflict another four years of Ubu as just punishment on America and the world--is just the symmetrical counterpart of the Stalino/Socialdemocratico/Liberal Popular Front effort to plebiscite Kerry and squash independent Left political action once and for all. Shane Mage When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true. (N. Weiner) Ubu is roadkill. Dick Cheney: Go Fuck Yourself. The election falls on Fortinbras.
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
Shane Mage wrote: Only those who didn't follow this story will be taken in by this lie. Cobb didn't snatch the Green Party nomination away from Nader for the simple reason that Nader didn't want the GP nomination and made it very clear that he would reject it if offered. This is specious criticism, based partially on Taibbi's use of the word nomination rather than endorsement. Nader *did* seek their endorsement, but the realos indicated almost immediately after the 2000 election that they were ready to come home to the Democrats. If they had instead felt like the Nader vote was wind in the sails of the Green Party (which it was), things would have turned out differently, I'm sure. Faced with this arrogant ultimatum, the GP did what any self-respecting party would: nominate its own candidate to campaign on its own program. Except not too vociferously. And the safe state strategy, for a party that can expect no electoral college votes anywhere, makes perfect sense in this election. The great majority of the Left protest vote is to be found in places like New York and California, where the case against the *competent* Imperial candidate can be made most clearly because the fear of throwing the election to Ubu and his Bushits is such obviously hysterical nonsense in those states. If I could understand the above, I imagine that I'd take vigorous exception. Ultraleftist naderism--the ill-concealed desire to inflict another four years of Ubu as just punishment on America and the world--is just the symmetrical counterpart of the Stalino/Socialdemocratico/Liberal Popular Front effort to plebiscite Kerry and squash independent Left political action once and for all. Nader as ultraleft? Help me, momma. I've landed on the planet Neptune and can't find my way back home. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
Louis Proyect wrote: If I could understand the above, I imagine that I'd take vigorous exception.
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
At 2:01 PM -0400 7/7/04, Louis Proyect wrote: Nader *did* seek their endorsement, but the realos indicated almost immediately after the 2000 election that they were ready to come home to the Democrats. If they had instead felt like the Nader vote was wind in the sails of the Green Party (which it was), things would have turned out differently, I'm sure. That is true, but the realos on the steering committee aren't the ones in the Green Party that Nader should have been sounding out anyway. Nader had a good chance of overcoming the hostility of realos at the top of the Green Party (despite their ability to set the floor rules and apportion the number of delegates to each state in such a way as to raise the odds of the Cobb faction victory) by working closely with left-wing Green leaders like Peter Camejo, Jason West, Howie Hawkins, Walt Contreras Sheasby, Stanley Aronowitz, etc. from the get-go, appealing to rank-and-file Greens persistently, and organizing a campaign inside and outside the Green Party to secure the party's endorsement. After all, the votes at the Green Party national convention were very close. At 1:51 PM -0400 7/7/04, Shane Mage wrote: And the safe state strategy, for a party that can expect no electoral college votes anywhere, makes perfect sense in this election. The great majority of the Left protest vote is to be found in places like New York and California, where the case against the *competent* Imperial candidate can be made most clearly because the fear of throwing the election to Ubu and his Bushits is such obviously hysterical nonsense in those states. The safe state strategy is rational and coherent in theory, but here is a paradox of Cobb/LaMarche and Nader/Camejo campaigns in reality. The delegates of the largest, best organized, and most powerful Green Parties in states such as California (where 65 Greens hold elected office), Pennsylvania (26), and Massachusetts (19) supported Nader/Camejo rather than Cobb/LaMarche, 2 to 1. The key is California: Cobb won about 5,000 votes in the California Green Party primary, for less than 12 percent of the total. Fewer people than that voted for him in all of the other state caucuses and primaries combined leading up to the convention (Alan Maass, Green Party Shifts Into Reverse, http://www.counterpunch.org/maass07012004.html); in contrast, Camejo received 75.4% of votes in the California GP primary (http://www.gp.org/convention/delegate_tally.html). What does this mean? * Cobb/LaMarche carried the majority of delegate votes in the second round of voting at the national convention, but if you look at primary votes, Nader/Camejo and their allies commanded *a far larger number of rank-and-file Green supporters* than Cobb/LaMarche. Those who are alleged to be better party-builders than Nader/Camejo turn out to have shockingly fewer party-building foot solders than Nader/Camejo. * The state where it made *the most political sense* to run a strong Nader/Camejo Green Party campaign -- because it is a safe state where Green leaders and activists solidly support Nader/Camejo -- will have Cobb/LaMarche (who are little known outside of Texas and Maine respectively and therefore will receive much fewer votes than Nader/Camejo would) on the Green Party ballot line. * As Nader/Camejo can get on the Reform Party ballot lines in two of the most crucial battleground states of Florida and Michigan, the Green Party's Cobb/LaMarche nomination may have an unintentional consequence of making the Green Party presidential campaign absent in the battleground states without making Nader/Camejo disappear from them. In short, a politically sensible compromise between the Nader/Camejo and Cobb/LaMarche factions within the Green Party would have been Camejo's proposal for free states, i.e., the Green Party at the national convention endorsing both campaigns and leaving each state Green Party free to choose the campaign that is best suited for growing the Green Party in the state. That way, New York and California Green, for instance, could have benefited from the prominence of Nader/Camejo whom they supported (and will probably continue to support anyway), while cautious Greens in the Southern states, as well as such battleground states as Minnesota and Wisconsin, whose majority supported Cobb in the primaries could have run a symbolic Green Party presidential campaign with the Cobb/LaMarche ticket while focusing their main efforts on down-the-ticket candidacies. (The only controversial point in the free states proposal would have been what to do with Pennsylvania.) But the Green Party paradox is that it ended up ceding the safe state of California, where the Greens are the best organized in the nation and Peter Camejo is best known, to John Kerry, while vacating the third party ground in Michigan and Florida to Nader/Camejo. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: In short, a politically sensible compromise between the Nader/Camejo and Cobb/LaMarche factions within the Green Party would have been Camejo's proposal for free states, i.e., the Green Party at the national convention endorsing both campaigns and leaving each state Green Party free to choose the campaign that is best suited for growing the Green Party in the state. What kind of national party runs 50 separate campaigns? Why not go down to the county level and run 3000 campaigns? I suppose having two tickets is better than '96, when the Greens had four VP candidates (among them, the charming Lorna Salzman). But this looks more like further proof that the party is just too ill-developed to run a national campaign. Running for the office of chief executive of the world bourgeoisie doesn't seem like the time to conduct scores of simultaneous experiments. Doug
Re: DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
For the most part, we have been spared the agonies of the choice between Kerry and Nader on this list, with the threat of another ghoulish four years of Bush. No attractive choice lies ahead of us. I once spent a couple hours alone with Nader. I don't think he had the slightest interest in me as a person, but when I gave him information he would find useful you could see him intently processing it. When what I said was less interesting, he was somewhere else. His knowledge, his information, the networks he has established, and the influence he has exerted have all been very positive. Kerry, in contrast, with all the advantages he has had in life really has done very little, even though Massachusetts should have given him a safe base for activism. His zombie-like campaign, his support of Israel, and his lack of any real plan are disheartening. In California, my vote cannot harm Bush. I cannot imagine the Republicans taking control of this state, so I can safely vote for Nader without worrying about the effect of my vote. But then, I've never voted for a Democratic candidate for president. I understand the divisions in the Green Party, I cannot understand getting angry about what they do one way or the other. The Greens have not proven to be reliable leftists, even United States were in Europe. They have not developed an effective electoral strategy, but neither has anybody else on the left. The right wing did. Everybody knows it did. Many leftists talk about replicating that strategy. The Green local elections are about as far as anybody has taken this idea. We on the left has never been particularly good about critical support of those who are not with this 100%. Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
