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In reply to the discussion: Ralph Nader: 'Cowering' Democrats face defeat [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)Roseanne Barr, who doesn't have any trouble getting publicity, is the next largest delegate-getter, at least thus far.
I have no idea how those guys run their conventions. Will it end up as a Stein-Barr ticket, or will Roseanne try to steal the show by making empty promises to the other petty candidates with a delegate or ten here or there, and turn the whole exercise into another "all about me" candidacy? I don't know if the organization can survive another candidate like that. Pat Paulsen had more credibility than Nader--at least he kept people listening.
You're seriously telling me you've never heard of Jill Stein? This ain't her first rodeo, not by a long shot.
I absolutely know that the Greens will not prevail--they never do, because they have a shitty organizational structure, and they haven't 'grown' it at the state and local level. They are more interested in being on the national stage than doing the Ground Up thing, it would seem. Certainly, in some small pockets, they get local candidates elected, but they just don't have the clout or networking on a national scale and they don't get their message out at all on a grassroots levels. Plus, they'll spend a decade just getting over Ralph--he really humiliated them, IMO.
Bold is fine. Stupid isn't. Nor is "over-the-top" or "unrealistic." People forget that the Democratic Party IS a big tent. I know some people just don't like hearing that, but that is the truth. What's also the truth is that those status-quo-ers and centrists that people like to mock and be rude and dismissive about are the ones who donate to the party in large and reliable and generous numbers, and they're also the ones who vote in reliable numbers. The people who yell and cry and say "Give me what I want or else I'm leaving!!!" are a shitload of heat and very often zero light. Unreliable in the extreme, both in giving and voting. All talk and very often no walk (ask Howard Dean--he counted on those kids in the orange hats and they screwed him). And these same "take my ball and go home" types aren't going to get their way, because they aren't getting in there and trying to make their case from the inside. They have no real credibility, particularly when all they can do is point out fault and not put their shoulder to the wheel to do any of the hard work.
I mean, really--Paul Wellstone didn't love the way his caucus colleagues conducted business all the time, but he got in there and nudged. He won some, he lost some, but he kept smiling and he kept nudging. He never threw the baby out with the bathwater. Ted Kennedy was the same way. Win some, lose some--and even (gasp) compromise.
That's how it's done--incrementally. If it's too slow for some, oh, well...!
You're not going to see a major sea change, and to expect it or demand it is a fruitless exercise.