Lawrence, LAWRENCE! I love ya, man... but REALLY?

And Ron Reagan Jr....

What the hell is he thinking?

n/t

And I thought he was talking crazy. I would think Raygun won Ca, in 80. I already voted here in Ca and I voted for Obama. Obama lost here in Bakersfield in the primaries.

unjust and THAT's bad not only for everyone, but also for 3rd party building.

They aren't even pretending any more.

I mean, I live in a deep red state, but the fact remains is that the only poll that truly matters is the one on Election Day. Encouraging liberals to vote for left-wing third-party fringe candidates will only cost us, maybe not this time but in the next election cycle. Ralph Nader was buoyed by his showing in the '96 election, so that he ran again in 2000...with disastrous consequences for the Democratic Party and the entire nation.

I have NO intention of giving any third party candidates for President my vote.

2000. Still... just not good practice in GENERAL. Take NOTHING for granted, goddamnit. NOTHING.

We should give him a piece of our mind.
There are lots of states that are close, even if they are blue.

grassroots organizing. They're just along for a free ride when it's time to vote. I actually like Green Party policies, but I don't do anything for them, because they aren't about DOING anything concrete.

My longstanding experience of the Green Party here is that it's all hat and no cattle, looking for a free ride at the last minute on the vote, without doing the basic ground-work, at the bottom of the heap, of grassroots issue activism. Most of the time, they do little more than put on their little workshops and panels and tell everyone how wrong everyone else is and how right they are and then make a big fuss when it comes to the vote to scalp off as many voters as they can.

With the exception of Libertarians this election cycle, 3rd parties are small and therefore do not believe in the importance of doing the fundamental ground work of organizing. Apparently they don't believe that the work of a few people is worth doing, so they are like parasites on the activism of others.

I agree with them in principle, but in practice, until they start showing up to do some of the work . . . fuck 'em!

anyone else that makes them "wrong".

They're leadership around here is STILL quite hierarchical, very uni-directional; I suppose that's the drive toward finances higher up the political food-chain, climes that provide token respect, but no substantial commitment because it's more than a little obvious that Greens are more ideology than functional productive real politik. I have been to dozens of their meeting and have never seen an authentic attempt at horizontal empowerment and all of the risk that entails. They go through the liturgy of new-agey motions without explicitly giving complete autonomy and support for activation at the "lowest" most dis-empowered levels and they don't know what to do when someone pushes. It's a club; their internal relationships are good, deep from being together a long time, but too self absorbed, kind of agoraphobic.

Think there is disrespect now?

http://www.gp.org/elections/officeholders/index.php

They don't just trot out a presidential candidate every 4 years and then do nothing. But the MSM doesn't cover them so....

office, however.

You're right; the MSM does NOT cover this.

land.

All blow and no daily discipline for the go.

fact of the matter is, we have a winner-take-all, two-party system.
As a result, the better a third party does, the more likely the candidate who least represents your side winning is.

No. No. No.

M$M is all about TV ratings and advertising revenue. MSNBC does fine work the rest of the year, but their encouragement to Democrats to peel votes off, after all the hard grassroots work we're doing, is sickening.

Millions in the South who are voting Romney Ryan AND Against Themselves 'cause their Brainwashed?

Use the drop downs here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48780726#__utma=34328804.1168261787.1351134368.1351134368.1351134368.1&__utmb=34328804.7.10.1351134368&__utmc=34328804&__utmx=-&__utmz=34328804.1351134368.1.1.utmcsr=%28direct%29|utmccn=%28direct%29|utmcmd=%28none%29&__utmv=-&__utmk=93123103

Gad, what a nasty looking link, I hope it works!

Talking about a tie Electoral Vote going to the House Speaker. Why is MSNBC trying to get us depressed

see how Lawrence does that with this 3rd party push).

All it does is give them ballot lines and infrastructure to be a spoiler down the road

Every vote counts. Period.

Can you imagine Oreliy saying some stupid bullshit like this to Republicans?

If Obama wins the electoral college but loses the popular vote his mandate will be shot. The msm will become obsessed with Romney's popular vote win and it is all they will talk about for the next two years.

Exactly right. We want to get Obama a mandate. Congressional Republicans are going to fight him tooth and nail on everything -- sequester, Bush tax cuts, ACA implementation, everything -- just as they have for the last four years. He's going to need all the ammunition he can get. We want both the electoral college and the popular vote.

on the organizing efforts of others. Showing up at voting time with flakey candidates and without having done any of the most basic work of organizing. That's damaging to everyone, but most especially to 3rd partiers who are NEVER going to grow any kind of party without committing, at minimum, to the daily grind of concrete issue activism.

In TN today, I voted for the Green Party candidate for Senate.

As many may know, the teabaggers slipped one of their own into our primary (Clayton). He WON because he was first on the list. (I don't know what actually happened that we didn't get our primary candidates better exposure.)
The state Dem party has disavowed him. So, instead of NOT voting against Corker, I made the best choice I had.

Wouldn't be a first time this happened.

Some democratic candidates slip by in primaries that even democratic party doesn't support.
In that case, it's perfectly fine to vote green.

You need a Democratic majority in the Senate to control the agenda. Unless you're certain of that majority, you need to vote for the Democrat regardless of how odious he or she is. Voting for the Green candidate will just help put the Republican in office.

In which case I also voted green.

The Green Candidate whom I voted for is more Dem than lots of Dems in office now. The Dem guy would be more likely to caucus w/the teabagger Republicans. He was a sneak in to test their idea that if a candidate is listed first on the ballot, they have a better chance of being elected (cuz we have so many uninformed voters.). Most of the ballots in TN have the Republican listed first in ALL races. Not alphabetically, or w/incumbment listed first. More Rovian slime trickery!

Here is some info on the Dem candidate (make sure to read the second & third pages):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/2012s-worst-candidate-with-mark-clayton-tennessee-democrats-hit-bottom/2012/10/22/77da926e-1b8a-11e2-a146-ccabc9c85c53_story_1.html


Here is info on the Green Candidate:

http://martinpleasant.com/about/

http://martinpleasant.com/platform/

Now. What would YOU do if you were in our shoes?

because he felt it was a conflict of interest. Total , imo.

Plus O'Donnell said he has only voted for a winning Presidential candidate once. No support for 6 out of these 7-8: Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton twice, Gore, Kerry, Obama?

Frankly, if I wanted to listen to Rush Limbaugh spout sexist, racist buffoonery, I have a radio. I don't tune in to indulge LO's rush obsession. And if it's not Rush, it's O'Reilly. I think it's intellectually lazy, and I know Lawrence is nobody's fool.

Drop the Rush crap Lawrence, and stop promoting third party b.s. while you're at it.

Votes during his show for Obama, while former California state governor Gray Davis looked on.

Can't even stick with his own advice: thank goodness.

Lawrence causing a ruckus! Glad he gets it.

If he is telling people not to vote or to vote 3rd party, he is doing it for a reason. That makes him the enemy as far as I'm concerned. There is NO middle ground right now and anything less than a vote for Obama is a vote for Romney.

Lawrence O'Donnell is not on our side. He is a Romney man, no matter what his argument is or his twisted rhetoric is playing on. He either recants or he is a right winger. And that is that.