General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: It would be nice if the far left, for once, did some introspection. [View all]Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I'm familiar with the basic arguments. I, too, had them with Nader people in 2000.
I love Al Gore. I wish he had become President in 2000. He should have become president in 2000. But Ralph Nader alone didn't hand Dubya that election. Gore made mistakes. Joe Leiberman was a crapulastic pick for vice president. He didn't belong on the ticket. And he was put there because the same geniuses who lived in fear of the "values voters" thought he needed to be there as a wrinkly, scowling sigil of rectitude to neutralize the damage of the dread Clenis, nevermind that the 1998 elections had shown decisively that American voters were more than capable of being grownups around that shit.
But 2000 is over. So is 2016.
(You must have been really young when you started posting at DU, seriously. Wow....)
I remember that we lost in 2004 when we ran the more "electable" candidate, the one whose history as a war hero would make him immune to personal attacks (whoops) and whose vote for the IWR would neutralize "soft on terror" 9-11 votes.
Whoops.
What ended up happening was, the fact that we ran someone who couldn't formulate a morally consistent argument against a war he himself had voted for, hurt us. And Karl Rove swiftboated the crap out of the war hero thing.
I know, I remember, because I was one of the "sensible" people saying we needed to run John Kerry.
We won in 2008 with a guy that the "sensible" people said we would be insane to put on the ticket. African American one term senator with a funny name. CRAZY!
And we won because that guy persuaded a lot of people to vote for him, he persuaded them that he represented real change and real hope. And some of those people had probably voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, even, the fiends!
But lets be honest, here. This isn't about difference of opinion on actual points of policy like marriage equality (I won't say pot legalization, because apparently the political experts in Manhattan have decided it's not a "serious issue" .... this is about lingering grudge matches and bullshit around re-fighting the damn primaries.
Come on. You know it is.
So someone, somewhere, said "both parties are the same"? Okay, they're wrong. Done now?
Feuding with enemies, real or imagined, on DU isn't going to accomplish anything.
How many people do you think these OP's "persuade"?