Reply #96: Gore may not have "needed Nader in him"(weird image there, btw)...

[Ken Burch]

...but Gore and the rest of the party do need to learn from the reasons the Greens grew in the Nineties.

The Green Party emerged because progressives weren't welcome in the Democratic Party in those years(or maybe were welcome to vote for the most conservative candidate the party leaders could force the party to nominate, but not beyond that). You can't continually treat a large group of the party's supporters like progressives were treated and then STILL demand absolute loyalty from them. It was inevitable that the Nader campaign or something like it would occur under the circumstances.

To avoid a repeat of that, the party must be re-democratized and re-opened.
We don't need party insiders and hacks. We don't need big donors. We need enthusiastic people who have been galvanized by candidates with real principles and convictions.
We need to represent the Excluded American Majority.

Democrats need to stand up to corporate power, as FDR did. We need to support a defense policy that defends the country from external attack but doesn't go looking for wars just to prove that the country's latest Kommandant-In-Chief is macho. We need to represent the poor, the cities, those who DON'T live like Ward and June Cleaver(and the majority of the people don't btw). We need to be a living, growing party that stands for a largeness of spirit and hope.

No DLC Democrat will ever be able to do any of that.