How many would be interested in creating a progressive third party?

[tedzbear]

Poll question: How many would be interested in creating a progressive third party?

I'm ready to ditch the Democrats and unite the people they ignored while trying to win. I think a third party will help many of us heal from this election's betrayal.

Progressives like the Greens, Naders, socialists etc. could unite to create a powerful third party like the Populist Party in the 19th century.

[StupidFOX]

1. That would defeat our own purpose.

We would be fighting to unite while they'd be moving the country further and further to the right.

[Nicky Scarfo]

2. Our system is broken beyond repair. Time to build a new one. nt

[Goldom]

3. Nader is too conservative

Not happening. I'm a Democrat.

[Nicky Scarfo]

7. Not interested in dredging up a useless Nader debate, but I'm curious as

to why you think that?

[calico1]

4. I think a better idea is to fix the Democratic Party.

Splintering into a smaller group we just stay on the fringes. What good will that do?

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I am already a member of one. If you want to be effective as a new party

you'll need to help revamp the election system. Trust me when I say I know how hard it is for tiny new parties to get anywhere in the current system.

*hugs*

-----------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[jmaier]

6. Pretty good recipe for futility

We need some retooling ... not self-immolation.

[rucky]

8. Yep, I compromised so we could win

and we didn't, so I won't

buh-bye

[UL_Approved]

9. If this poll gets any votes....

...the right-wing neo-con movement gets its ultimate victory. They want us to run away and abandon the Democratic party. We were so close here, we cannot afford to lose more. If we have to get massive protest, some violent, to get our point across, then that is what will happen. We seem to be all sheep here anyway. Is there not one amongst us here who has heard of Ludlow, Colorado?

[Nicky Scarfo]

11. I've heard of Ludlow. Rockefeller was a Democrat as I recall. nt

[guntherconcept]

10. Idiotic

Republicans control every branch of government for the foreseeable future, and you want to divide their only opposition and make it even weaker? Brilliant.

[jpgray]

12. If the neocons could hijack the Republicans

We can take the Democratic Party back over. Our first goal should be to get a decent Minority Leader, and a great DNC chair. Durbin and Dean I could definitely see.

[Nicky Scarfo]

14. That's been tried many times since the 1930s and failed, although now

that the Southern Democrats are nearly an extinct species, I suppose its possible because you don't have a racist and socially reactionary contingent within the party to contend with. However, you would have to purge the significant neoliberal corporate contingent within the party (DLC, Clintonites, etc.), and that will be no easy task.

Just remember that at the height of organized labor's power within the Democratic Party in 1947, they could not get Truman to veto the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act. When the Yankee liberals controlled the Party in the 1960s during the Civil Rights movement, they refused to seat black members of the Democratic Freedom Party contingent at the convention. Read up on your history and you'll see what you're up against.

[K-W]

18. We have elections in this country.

All we have to do is get progressives elected. Once we do this, the party will swing to us, if we get enough progressives elected we will control the party.

It is just that simple. And trust me, the DLC types, if shown a way to get votes through progressivism, will trip over themselves to become progressives. DLC democrats arent some ensconced ideological machine. They are a fairly ideologically loose group of moderates who gained power almost purely through electoral success and are now floating around trying desperately to figure out a way to beat republicans right now.

We have one mission, to get people to vote on our issues. If we do it, everything else will fall into place. Any act that doesnt contribute directly to this goal is a waste of effort. The democratic party will be at our door with flowers if we find a way to win elections.

[Nicky Scarfo]

26. Your idea is completely divorced from any institutional or historical

analysis.

[K-W]

27. I prefer fitting reality over fitting outdated assumptions.

Politicians are election machines. Political parties are organizations of politicians. Politicians are the reason parties exist.

Our system selects which politicians are in power in the government, and thus which politicians are in power in the parties. This makes our entire system extremely reliant on votes, which is why so many blocks have been put up between the vote and which politicians stay in office. They try and remove themselves from accountability, because if exercised properly the vote does provide accountability.

If we can create a movement and people start voting for candidates espousing progressive ideals, the floundering democratic party will latch on like a lamprey. They will see what they need like a junkie needs a fix, a way to win offices.

This is why the far right is doing what it is doing. It has overcome the traditional republicans through the sheer weight of votes. Battles were waged all throughout the south and midwest and are still being waged, but right now the extreme right is winning more battles than they are losing, which is why the party is where it is. As they elect more far right candidates the party has become an organization full of far right people.

This is how our system works, we need to do the same thing. We need votes. We need to find ways to make voters vote on the issues we think are important. If we can do this consistantly and we can get enough people to win local political battles, state political battles, and national political battles, we will become the party.

This isnt your great grandpa's government. The way information flows now, grassroots movements can become extremely powerful. Just look at what the christian right has done. They created a grass roots movement that has given them near control over the nation.

[camero]

31. It won't happen

Progressives don't have as much money as corporations. The system is too infested by money.

[69KV]

32. Truman

Truman did indeed veto Taft-Hartley. Congress then passed it over his veto.

[sangh0]

13. Yes, I've heard we have a real shortage of progressive 3rd parties

yeesh

[K-W]

15. This would be a complete and utter waste of our time.

Why spend all that time and effort to create a party when there is a floundering party just waiting to be led.

We need to focus on developing progressive organizations that exist outsider of parties. We need to focus on getting votes. We need to find a way to win elections for progressives, when we can do so, the party will come to us.

We need to get more people interested in our issues and iealogy and forming a party is not a good way to do that at all.

[welshTerrier2]

16. i'm not sure ...

i've been thinking about this for a very long time ... not necessarily creating a new party but trying to decide whether to leave the democratic party ...

since i haven't decided yet, i can't really answer your question ... i respect your question though ... i think it's very worthy of consideration ...

here are a few points i can make now ...

first, regardless of whether you work within the democratic party, you join an existing third party or you start a new party, you're going to need a well-defined set of issues ... it seems to me creating a new structure before you define what contents you want to store in it is getting it backwards ...

why not start with a series of issues, i.e. platform proposals, and try to build a consensus for them among all warriors on the left ... this would include democrats, greens, socialists ... promoting your ideas and building an energy for them is always a good idea ... i see no need to exclude anyone who might agree with you regardless of their party affiliation ...

even if you eventually opt for a new party, i think you should cooperate with those in other parties who might share some, or all, of your positions ... you can already see the fragmentation your "new party" theme created ... there's no benefit in alienating other "anti-republicans" ... we need as much unity on the left as we are able to build ...

[maddezmom]

17. no thanks, I'm staying

but good luck and let us know how it goes. :hi:

[found object]

19. nothing will change unless something changes

Jumping ship by massive numbers will leave the moneyed elite with two choices -- give their contributions to the republican party, or make changes from within by axing the DLC.

[Demos]

20. We are basically stuck in a two party system. How can we

break out of it? A vote for Nader, the Greens or the Libertarians was a just a vote for Bush. I had friends who tried to tell me they voted for Nader, thinking somehow I could accept that as an alternative. I am not a very good Democrat, but anyone who didn't vote for Kerry voted for Bush, and I think most of them knew it. My son (the political science graduate) tells me there is a voting method catching hold in Europe, and in some cities here in the USA, where you can vote for several candidates, but specify who is your first, second, and subsequent choices. They recount until someone has at least a 50% majority. Maybe a constitutional amendment adopting this system is an answer.

[info being]

21. GREEN

[rockydem]

22. It's called the Green Party and maybe

before you run someone for the Presidency you should try and win at least one House seat first....

Just a thought....

[Liberal_Andy]

23. Nader made it "OK" to hate Bush and NOT vote for Gore/Kerry

and that killed us last time, and didn't help this time.

[darthmix]

24. Instead of creating an anti-democrat platform, how about we

just create a strong liberal, progressive platform, and then bring the democrats to us?

[American Tragedy]

25. Oh right. You mean divide the progressive vote between two parties

while the conservatives place all of their votes into one massive party that consistently defeats both? Oh yes, count me in.

That would be especially interesting at the national level. If the third party candidate somehow garnered enough electoral votes so that nobody received a majority, each state REGARDLESS OF POPULATION OR NUMBER OF REPRESENTATIVES would send a House delegate to select the president from the three highest. With apparently more than half of the states firmly in the red, would you care to guess how this would generally turn out?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. Forget Nader and start from the bottom up

The Republicans began by "paying their dues" on city councils and school boards and other unglamorous local government offices. Greens are doing that now in both Portland and Minneapolis.

[tedzbear]

29. I like the Green Party.

Enough to join it right now.

:hi:

[camero]

30. Let the DLC have the dems

Those Dems who are progressive should form another party. The Progressive Democrats would be a good name. It's not like we're winning with the set-up as it is now.

[intheflow]

33. I fear the DNC won't listen to me until I'm 60 with a good portfolio.

Gimme a party that works for just economic and labor conditions, universal healthcare, education and child care, no death penalty, and what the hell, legalization of weed.

[Cozmosis]

34. This is my party

Have to stay the course. Very important time.