Until meaningful campaign finance reform is passed, and flying pigs deliver snowballs to Hades, the Dems will remain just as corporatist and conservative as the Republicans on the important issues.

Howard Dean started the ball rolling and it’s going to continue. Raising money from more individuals via the net is going to decrease the hold corporate money has on campaigns.

The real roadblock of increasing prices for political ads in the media (t.v., newspapers, radio, magazines) might also decrease as the Internet becomes a more major pipeline for entertainment, news and political discussion. The more people shift away from traditional media which costs $$$$$$ the more there’s a chance for low-cost advertising for campaigns. That would open the door for many more candidates who previously couldn’t even begin to think about running for office.

We need more political parties, not less. And the fact we have a good shot at winning this year doesn’t change that.

We have a winner-take-all electoral system. To split up either the Left or Right into various parties would be like unilateral disarmament against the Republicans. The Left parties would never unite and never have enough to defeat Republicans EVER. There’s only room for two parties (Left and Right, Democrats and Republicans).

Our side needs to be about expanding involvement in the political process, not contracting it. And then set out on a course that inspires people to vote for our candidates.

We can expand involvement if we fix the system to enable a wider range of candidates to be able to compete and win. The Internet is helping on that score. Inspiration can come from many sources as Reagan and FDR indicate. It has nothing to do with the number of parties. Improving the system might inspire more confidence and more participation.

How about we decide whether we should have winner-take-all or proportional delegate selection primaries for the Democratic party and make that national instead of the crazy hodgepodge we have today? Look at our present situation: Hillary needs to catch up and could win some large states, but they have proportional delegate selection, so it hardly matters.

How about we get rid of caucuses which enable peer pressure and silliness? The PBS show of the Iowa caucus really was upsetting. That’s not a good way to decide who should win.

How about we get rid of electronic voting machines, so people will actually know their votes are recorded correctly and counted correctly. That way they won’t feel their time spent in line isn’t wasted.

Getting more Internet involvement of roots will probably shift our party’s elected officials a bit to the Left, so that might bring more responsive government. The Pelosi/Obama initiative to put more of government on the net for everyone to see and comment on could be really terrific. I seem to remember a story about the mayor of Baltimore doing the same and the city of New York doing something like that. Apparently it worked for them and we definitely need more transparency and ‘inside’ information about the federal government’s activities.

We don’t need ‘3rd parties’ to improve things.

According to Ralph, there was no difference between the Reps and Dems in 2000 and there is no difference between the two parties today …

Nader is very simply and completely wrong and to be wrong on such an issue completely disqualifies him from ever being president or dogcatcher.

i’d rather have republican money going to nader than going to mccain.

Great point!

“It didn’t work because Bush forgot to mention that the terrorists were gay. The Republics will not making that same mistake this year.“

And want to be married. And move in next door to take your gun away.

And want to invite your children over to help them burn an American flag while they pray to Allah.

Yeah, I think we’ve seen that page of the Republican playbook before.

IF you want to say “President McBush,” vote for Nader. EOT.

it’s fun, but not helpful.”

I agree with the above as well. Plus the Dems blurred the distinction with the Repugs in a lot of ways (corporate influence, business-oriented, NAFTA, et. al) so it wasn’t too much of a stretch for Nader to say that there wasn’t any difference between Dems and Repugs. We (Dems) created a situation where the self-serving Nader could get some traction. With Obama’s netroots-based funding, we may have a way to fight that perception. Plus the Repugs have mucked it up so much that there’s a clear difference this time. But we have to make sure that we’re electing progressive Democrats, not Repug-lite (like Harold Ford, Lieberman, etc.)

when lots of people get together to act, there’s going to be a lot of different views on the best tactics. so what do you do? how does a large and diverse group act together is that kind of setting?

well, what i found, and liked, was the idea of ally solidarity. for me that means that my allies are those who share my values, and i will work in solidarity with people who’s tactics are very different than my own – so long as the means used are not, imo, immoral. i can disagree with the tactics, i can refuse to participate – but i will support my allies to take part in those actions – so long i don’t think the means they use are immoral.

i just don’t think voting for nader in 2000 was an immoral act.

i can see why people may think it was stupid and counterproductive (although i’m not completely convinced of that).

not sure there’s any more i can say that would explain where i’m trying to come from… but if you like, ask me more questions on a later thread… and i’d like to know more about what you are thinking.

thanks for the discussion.

You gave a response that suggested that those that vote for Nader this time have a very well founded basis for doing so. That’s why I asked. To draw out that logic.

that helps, thanks. i misunderstood.

nader is not my choice – and never has been. but that doesn’t mean i think the people who voted for him in 2000 didn’t have some very good reasons for their votes. i think they did. i can even sorta understand some people voting for bush – if you just listened to his campaign rhetoric, he was not so very far from the mainstream.

those are votes i disagree with – bush way more than nader. but i don’t think those votes qualify a person for condemnation 7 years later.

2004, on the other hand is an entirely different matter. imo, people who voted for bush have a lot to answer for. there’s just no rational way i can see a person doing that out of good will towards our fellow human beings. to me that was a malevolent act – one that requires serious atonement.

but i just don’t see the nader votes in 2000 in the same light. in many ways, clinton was really, really bad. and people feared that gore would be another 8 years of the same.

it’s different now, but remember what it was like then – clinton had caused the deaths of half a million innocent iraqis – with a policy that gore did not reject. gore had gone to kyoto and basically told the world to go fuck itself. and the neoliberal policies forced down the throats of people (especially in latin america) via the imf were truely evil. people who were paying attention were seriously concerned about the dems and gore – especially after he chose lieberman as his running mate. and imo, they had every reason to for their concern.

there are lots of people i disagree with – many of them right here at fdl. but i don’t mock them and i don’t condemn them… because 1) i recognize they are intelligent people of good will who might actually be right. maybe i’m wrong. and 2) i don’t think the limits of rational debate begin and end with what my views are. i try to recognize that different people have different view points.

that doesn’t mean there aren’t limits – of course there are. imo – torture is outside the pale, and there are lots of things (most things that represent our fundamental values) we agree on. the decision to vote for nader was a tactical decision – it wasn’t based on a different set of values (as, i think, votes for bush in 2004 were).

i consider people who voted for nader in 2000 my natural allies – i think we share similar values. and i think that shunning them until they’ve done some kind of atonement is both wrong and counterproductive. (again – different story for the bush 2004 voters).

let me try one more comparison – i think voting for nader in 2000 was not an immoral act… but if it was, it comes nowhere close to voting for the war. so how come we treat people who voted for nader in 2000 worse than people who initially supported the iraq war – so long as they are democrats? just does not compute for me.

imo, there’s something else going on here. maybe some weird kind of defense mechanism because we personally identify as Democrats and therefore see nader and his supporters as the enemy.

and you know… the future is always uncertain…

………

does that help?