Thanks for shutting your mouth, Vince.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
Lieberman Tops Democrat Presidential Poll
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 24, 2003; 10:18 AM
Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman had the most support from Democratic voters in a national poll released Thursday, followed closely by Dick Gephardt. But if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York were in the running, she'd outpace all Democrats.
Recent polls have projected Clinton as the winner if she joined the field. That was also true in this survey: she had 48 percent to 11 percent for Lieberman, with others in single digits.
Lieberman, a Connecticut senator, was at 21 percent and Gephardt, a Missouri representative, was at 16 percent - just within the error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points in the Quinnipiac University poll.
Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, was at 13 percent and Dean, a former governor of Vermont was at 10 percent. Other candidates in the nine-member field were at 6 percent or lower. More than a fifth, 21 percent, were undecided.
In several recent national polls, Lieberman, Kerry and Gephardt were grouped close together at the top. Lieberman led early national polls, at least partially because of his higher name recognition.
When President Bush is matched head-to-head against top Democrats in the poll, he leads by margins ranging from 7 points over Clinton to 16 points over Dean. Bush's lead against Kerry, Gephardt and Lieberman was about 10 points.
The poll of 1,055 registered voters was taken July 17-22, including 372 Democrats. The error margin for the overall sample was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
© 2003 The Associated Press
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0724-09.htm
Published on Thursday, July 24, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Green Party Taking the Plunge for 2004
by Norman Solomon
For the 2004 presidential race, the Green dye is cast.
"The Green Party emerged from a national meeting ... increasingly certain that it will run a presidential candidate in next year's election, all but settling a debate within the group over how it should approach the 2004 contest," the Washington Post reported on July 21. The Green Party promptly put out a news release declaring that Greens "affirmed the party's intention to run candidates for president and vice president of the United States in 2004."
That release quoted a national party co-chair. "This meeting produced a clear mandate for a strong Green Party presidential ticket in 2004," he said, adding that "we chose the path of growth and establishing ourselves as the true opposition party." But other voices, less public, are more equivocal.
Days later, national party co-chair Anita Rios told me that she's "ambivalent" about the prospect of a Green presidential race next year. Another co-chair, Jo Chamberlain, mentioned "mixed feelings about it." Theoretically, delegates to the national convention next June could pull the party out of the '04 presidential race. But the chances of that happening are very slim. The momentum is clear.
Few present-day Green Party leaders seem willing to urge that Greens forego the blandishments of a presidential campaign. The increased attention -- including media coverage -- for the party is too compelling to pass up.
In recent years, the Greens have overcome one of the first big hurdles of a fledgling political party: News outlets no longer ignore them. In 2000, the Green presidential ticket, headed by Ralph Nader, had a significant impact on the campaign. Although excluded from the debates and many news forums, candidate Nader did gain some appreciable media exposure nationwide.
Green leaders are apt to offer rationales along the lines that "political parties run candidates" and Greens must continue to gain momentum at the ballot box. But by failing to make strategic decisions about which electoral battles to fight -- and which not to -- the Greens are set to damage the party's long-term prospects.
The Green Party is now hampered by rigidity that prevents it from acknowledging a grim reality: The presidency of George W. Bush has turned out to be so terrible in so many ways that even a typically craven corporate Democrat would be a significant improvement in some important respects.
Fueled by idealistic fervor for its social-change program (which I basically share), the Green Party has become an odd sort of counterpoint to the liberals who have allowed pro-corporate centrists to dominate the Democratic Party for a dozen years now. Those liberal Democrats routinely sacrifice principles and idealism in the name of electoral strategy. The Greens are now largely doing the reverse -- proceeding toward the 2004 presidential race without any semblance of a viable electoral strategy, all in the name of principled idealism.
Local Green Party activism has bettered many communities. While able to win some municipal or county races in enclaves around the country -- and sometimes implementing valuable reforms -- the Greens stumble when they field candidates for statewide offices or Congress.
When putting up candidates in those higher-level campaigns, the Greens usually accomplish little other than on occasion making it easier for the Republican candidate to win. That's because the U.S. electoral system, unfortunately, unlike in Europe, is a non-parliamentary winner-take-all setup. To their credit, Green activists are working for reforms like "instant runoff voting" that would make the system more democratic and representative.
In discussions about races for the highest offices, sobering reality checks can be distasteful to many Greens, who correctly point out that a democratic process requires a wide range of voices and choices during election campaigns. But that truth does not change another one: A smart movement selects its battles and cares about its impacts.
A small party that is unwilling to pick and choose its battles -- and unable to consider the effects of its campaigns on the country as a whole -- will find itself glued to the periphery of American politics.
In contrast, more effective progressives seeking fundamental change are inclined to keep exploring -- and learning from -- the differences between principle and self-marginalization. They bypass insular rhetoric and tactics that drive gratuitous wedges between potential allies -- especially when a united front is needed to topple an extreme far-right regime in Washington.
Norman Solomon is co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You." For an excerpt and other information, click here.
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http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0724-08.htm
Published on Thursday, July 24, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Open Letter to Nader Voters and the Greens
by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich
When we marched against the WTO and the corporate trade regime in Seattle in 1999, we marched together.
When we stood together against the war with Iraq, half-a-million strong in New York City, and 15 million strong throughout the world, we stood together.
When we fought the badly-named "Patriot Act," we fought it together -- and I was the only one running who voted against it.
When we tried to stop this war from starting, we fought it together -- and I was able to pull together 126 of my colleagues to vote no to war last fall, working with my friend and ally Barbara Lee, as Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
We stand together in opposition to the death penalty; in support of living wages; in support of boosting alternative energy rather than wars for oil; in support of medicinal marijuana; in opposition to corporate hog farming; in support of organic farming; in opposition to nukes in space; in opposition to Star Wars; in support of cutting the military budget by 15% and applying those funds to public education.
We stand together for national health insurance, Canadian style. We stand together on public financing of campaigns, on same day voter registration, on instant runoff voting. We stand together on civil rights, and equal rights, and human rights. We stand together on voting reforms for ex-felons. We stand together on ending the trade and travel embargoes on Cuba. We stand together in opposition to the current war on drugs, which is all too often a war on the urban poor.
We stand together in demanding that publicly-owned clean water is a human right. We stand together in demanding that the developing world's debt be forgiven, as if it were still the Jubilee Year; and that we act seriously to build a world in which arms sales decline, hunger declines, poverty declines, and human rights increase.
We stand together on rejoining the rest of the world, and signing the Kyoto Treaty, the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Land Mines Ban Treaty, and all the rest of the treaties and agreements and working relationships that the current Administration has so cavalierly tossed aside.
We stand together in opposition to excessive CEO salaries; in opposition to offshore tax havens for corporations; in support of real pension reforms, real SEC enforcement, real crackdowns on corporate scofflaws. And we stand together in opposition to sweetheart deals for corporate friends of this Administration, whether it's Enron wrecking California for profit, the drug companies ripping off seniors and HIV patients and poor people for profit, or Halliburton ripping off Iraqi oil revenues for profit.
I am a Democrat, but I understand that Greens and Nader voters are not just liberal Democrats. Still, I note that in Europe, even when political parties disagree on issues, they are often able to work together with each other in coalition. I'd like to raise that possibility again today. And I note that Ralph Nader has suggested that my candidacy is worth supporting.
We all know we will do better if we work together. Perhaps we can find common ground on issues and principles. I would like to open up that possibility. And I would like to ask that you give serious consideration to my candidacy for President. Because a better world is still possible.
Rep. Kucinich is a presidential candidate and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
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