In America, everything depends on political power. And political power comes from being able to win elections, or at the very least otherwise influence the outcome of elections. Nothing else matters. That's why money rules today. Because every professional politician is convinced that money, and the power to buy lots of TV ads with that money, is the key to winning elections. Every politician wants to win. Every politician thinks money is the sure way to win. Every politician does whatever they have to do to get access to that money.
Meanwhile, the left works to make sure it loses. The left works very hard to make sure it can't even influence the outcome of a campaign. The latest example of this comes from Mr. Nader.
Ralph Nader: Pressure Obama with primary
OK, from just the headline, that's a very good idea. The left should of course be challenging a sitting president who's policies are basically those of Ronald Reagan. The Democratic primaries are a place to do this. Of course the majority of the Democratic party that's to the left of Obama and Reagan should indeed be fighting in the Democratic primaries.
But, then you get to the details. This is where you see once again the left taking the political action of picking up a gun and aiming at its own feet.
Nader told POLITICO on Wednesday that he is working on bringing together about half a dozen presidential candidates who could “dramatically expand a robust discussion within the Democratic Party and among progressive voters across the country.” Each would focus on a specific issue where the far left says Obama hasn’t done enough, including the environment, labor and health care.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53825.html#ixzz1KqAt3XT6
Beating Obama in a primary with a strong, unified campaign of all of us who are left of Reagan would be a huge challenge. Splitting the vote between six opposition candidates would of course make it certain that the left would lose.
This is what passes for useless strategy from the left. They want to make a statement. They want a chance to get up on some stage and make strong statements about some cause. The problem is, that by deliberately setting up a strategy that signals an intention to lose from day one, what really happens is that every thing these Democrats say they oppose will be certain to occur.
This is anti-war activists once again trying to find a way to be certain to elect a pro-war President.
This is single-payer health care advocates once again trying to find a way to elect a President who's main concern is the profit margins of health insurance corporations.
This is privacy and human rights advocates once again trying to find a way to elect a President who believes in spying on Americans and even assassinating Americans by executive fiat.
Its a common refrain of mine that I judge Democrats on actions, not words. Well, the same has to go for the anti-war left. This is a proposal for the certain defeat of every cause we hold dear in the next election. This is a proposal for no change at all. That rule by Wall Street and war after war after war is just fine and dandy and exactly what we are looking for. That's the 'actions' that come from this proposal. The proposal would spark a lot of fine words in Democratic debates that no one watches anyways. But, the action that it would guarantee is the re-election of this pro-war Democratic President, and the continuation of rule by Wall Street and more and more war, death and destruction as America launches war after war upon the world.
At some point, the left needs to just stand up and fight for what it believes in. Until that happens, nothing will change. As much as I've admired Mr. Nader in the past, this proposal is a guarantee that nothing will change in this next election either.
There seems to be one political force that could possibly challenge today's political power of money. That's a massive grassroots political campaign. Replace money power with people power. The question is, does having a group of candidates run hopeless campaigns that are designed from the beginning to make sure they lose to Obama make that happen? Can't see how. Will you spend night after night after work going door to door for a candidate that's certain to lose? Are campaigns that exist only to get some politician on stage 'talking about issues' going to create this grassroots surge? Has the left's problem been a lack of talking? Not likely the way leftists like to talk. :)
When will the left get serious about politics in this country? Deliberately structuring the left's campaigns to lose to the corporate Democrats is not the way to do it.
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