Gary Younge (Guardian Utd): Somewhere else to go

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Monday June 14

Somewhere else to go
US Democrats and British Labour leaders are having to learn they have no entitlement to left-leaning voters
By Gary Younge

Hell hath no fury like an American Democrat scorned. Given the pious mendacity of the current administration, anger is currently the Democrats' regular emotion of choice. Just the mention of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, attorney general John Ashcroft or vice-president Dick Cheney will set diatribes in motion. But if you really want to see them in a rage wait until the Bushwhacking stops and someone admits that they voted for Ralph Nader, the anti-corporate crusader, in the 2000 presidential elections . . . .
Because Nader plans to stand again this year as an anti-war candidate. Given his absence from the anti-war campaigns, this is a mistake. But it is also a fact. And there is every chance that he could, once again, make a crucial difference. The most recent polls in the 17 battleground states that will decide the election show Bush and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, each with a clear lead in three. In the remaining 11 they are in a statistical dead heat - and in each one Nader could be decisive.
The Democratic party's strategy to deal with this thus far has been simple. Along with "independent" organisations like StopNader.com, it is doing everything legally possible to keep him off the ballot in different states. "Nader must be nowhere near the ballot," wrote a Texas Democratic official in an email seen by the Guardian.
The trouble with this plan is not just that it employs purely bureaucratic means to prevent a legitimate, if misguided, political expression. It is also that it reveals the extent to which Democrats believe they are entitled to Nader's votes even if they make no appeal to the concerns of those who cast them. The source of their anger is that they believe his votes are rightfully theirs. The logic of their campaign is that if Nader is removed from the equation the votes will automatically return to their rightful owner - John Kerry.
If they want to see where this sense of entitlement could lead they need only look over the Atlantic, where the Labour party leadership has stretched the loyalty of its core supporters until, last week, it finally snapped.

Read more.

[MasonJar]

1. I like the part where the anti-war Nader did not contribute to the

anti-war movement. He is a total arrogant, self-serving, dishonest spoiler.

[WillyBrandt]

2. BS article. Democrats are uniting whilst Labour is disintegrati

The author is simply striving too hard to draw parallels that don't exist, parallels that are hard to draw when one party is in power, and the other is not.

Two things are happening at once here: Progressives are not only getting organized and begining the process--I hope--of ascendance, but they're also closing ranks under the Democratic Party. For now, at least.

Really like the author, but this piece is off