Democrats Turning Green At Chances In 2004
By David N. Bass (08/22/03)
The greatest threat to the Democrat’s bid for the White House in 2004 is not George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, not Fox News or talk radio, but the so-called fringe of liberal ideology: the Green Party.
In a July 21 Press Release, the Greens affirmed their intention to run candidates for President and Vice President in 2004. Scott McLarty, the Green’s media coordinator, told Fox News: “As the Democrats have retreated from their core constituencies, they have given the Republicans a real license to move into greater extremes.” McLarty went on to claim that Democrats were crumbling as a political force and opposition party.
Despite ultra-liberal candidates such as Vermont Governor Howard Dean in the mix for the 2004 nomination (a candidate who could only have run under the socialist ticket thirty years ago), the Greens are apparently refuse to fight the good fight and attack conservatives. Instead, they’re turning on their own socialists-in-arms, the Democrats.
Reasonable minds will see the future result of this–the annihilation of both candidates, Green and Democrat, in the 2004 election. The issue would be moot if the Greens commanded a lesser margin, but in 2000 Ralph Nader tallied 2.8% of the national vote, while Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan (the greatest threat to the Republican’s nominee, George W. Bush) only received 0.5%. That 2.8% would have given the White House to Gore.
Harkening back to things gone wrong in 2000, Roger Hickney, head of the Campaign for America’s Future (A liberal organization with ties to the Democrats) said: “If the Green Party mounts a candidate, you could see a replay of last time, where they draw just enough votes to make a difference.”
Peter Camejo, the Green Party’s candidate for the October 7 California recall vote, shot back: “The Democrats are declaring war on the Green Party”. Big surprise there, Mr. Camejo. But even less surprising than the Democrat’s “war on the Greens” is this simple reality: the Green Party is happily returning the favor, and has done so for years.
It’s time we owned up to reality: The Green Party cost the Democrats the 2000 election. With views any reasonable observer could only consider somewhere in the left field bleachers, Ralph Nader commanded approximately 2. 7 million votes that more than likely would have gone directly to Al Gore. When the Democrats stop emoting about dimpled chads in Florida and how the Supreme Court appointed Bush president, most of them will candidly admit this.
If history repeats itself, which it has a nagging propensity to do, we should look for the same in 2004.
Despite claims that supporters of the Green Party may vote for the Democratic nominee simply to oust President Bush from power, the Greens will still command a large enough margin to kick the feet out from under the Democrats. It’s almost a sure bet. The Democrat’s current opposition is not only from “moderates” and conservatives on the right, but from their own rank and file, the far left fringe of their own ideology of liberalism. Is it practical to assume the Democrats can win a battle that not only involves an enemy from without, but also one from within?
Frankly, I sympathize with the Democrat’s plight. They’re one of two major national parties in America, yet they find themselves nagged by a group whose main constituents would have made admirable comrades in the USSR. These are people who believe Howard Dean is too conservative simply because Vermont doesn’t have universal health care; they’re folks who would have made Marx, Lenin, and the founders of the Frankfurt School proud; they help the Democrats in no major way, and by and large serve merely as a distraction to liberal voters.
No wonder the Democrats are “declaring war on the Green Party.” If I were a liberal (the Lord forbid), I would too.
The issue boils down to this: The DNC has a problem. Not only must they take down the powerful Bush tiger, they must do it with the leech-like Greens sucking their political life away. Not a pretty situation for a party that controls neither the legislative nor executive branches of government.
Only the strongest party could survive such a scenario, and with the precedent the last presidential election set and the weakening of the Democrats over the past three years, the likelihood of the donkey party successfully fending off both the Greens and Republicans in 2004 is somewhere between nil and nada.
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