I like to think I had some small part in helping the Green Party establish an Atlanta presence. (Thank you. Thank you very much.) And, well, I voted for him too. (No hate mail please. I’m not in a swing state.)
But I may go back to the Dems for this one because of one Howard Dean. If you’re not a political junkie, you may not have heard of him yet. He’s a doctor and a recent governor of Vermont (think Ben & Jerry’s and gay marriages). He’s pro-environment and (still) anti-Iraq War. And he’s fond of saying “I want my country back.” I couldn’t think of a better way to sum up how I feel about the Bush administration.
And he calls John “bad hair” Kerry the “anointed one.” I like Kerry (I met him during his 1996 Senate run, and he’s very tall), but he’s letting his fear of being labeled a “Massachusetts liberal” keep him from using his political clout as a Vietnam veteran and Vietnam protester. He’s plainly not Dukakis, but if he keeps playing it safe, he’ll become Dukakis. And if I’m going to vote for a candidate with bad hair, John Edwards has far, far worse hair. I like Empire Strikes Back too, but that’s no reason to still have a Luke Skywalker do.
So I’m adding Dean’s weblog to the links section. And I’m thinking about attending a Dean campaign get-together next week, especially if it’s at Manuel’s. (There’s probably a meeting at a bar near you too.)
I’m not commiting yet, but I’m growing cynical about my political cynicism. I would love a multi-party system, but I’m starting to think the Green party is the Bizarro World version of the Christian Coalition. As much as I like their platform, I can no longer give them benefit of the doubt. And I’d like to think the spineless Democratic party can get their shit together and change things. Because, damn, they have to.
smeagol is mone all mine!
We hope you do come back to the Dems because of Howard Dean.
Annatopia has a long post on this subject:
http://archives.annatopia.com/000326.html
Come back to the party that gets things done! Howard Dean is just about the best thing to hit Democratic politics since I don’t know when.
I was in Texas this past weekend with their Young Democrats, and the Dallas club had the best t-shirt. “Sometimes the ass kicks back.”
Rachel Morse
Yellow Dog Democrat
There’s supposed to be a result, called “Duverger’s Law,” stating that simple majority voting inevitably leads to two party systems. I can’t find any mathematical argumentation for it on the web, though, so it may just be a sociological conjecture.
OTOH, it seems pretty obvious that simple majority voting will not give anything like an adequate representation of the populace. It’ll over-represent the major groups, and eveyone and everything else will drop out.
Regarding voting for Nader in ’00: I was so digusted that I wrote in my friends in the general election. New York went for Gore anyway.
Seems like Dean is reaching a lot of ’00 Greens (I am one myself). Probably because he has that same “fire” that Nader had– and we all want a crusader to make the left viable again.
Of course, no way is Dean a Nader clone. Despite being from Vermont (certainly the most liberal state east of the Mississippi) he’s probably the most conservative governor they’ve had in recent years. Also he’s pro-gun, pro-death-penalty. So he’s no Socialist Democrat.
But he’s probably our best shot at winning back the WH in ’04.
One thing that worries me is that Dean seems to have
foot-in-mouth disease. He’s made a couple of gaffes that have allowed (or will be used later) for easy attacks from the right and from Kerry.
Sure, but his opponent has foot-in-mouth disease too, so it should even out.
TRUTH FLASH – Nader has been accepting money from the republican party for his campaign. Hm, sometimes when one goes too far to the left, one meets the right. It is Capitalistic machine that is tearing humans apart. “When will ever learn?”