Reply #22: Oh great, here we go again [View All]

Kerry has come out strongly against the war. Sweetpea's post #6 documented that. So we're going to hold it against him forever that he didn't come out soon enough, that he wasn't openly antiwar back in the days when the name "DemocraticUnderground" was a grim reference to an even grimmer political reality?

Did we learn nothing from the Great Green Debacle of 2000? In case some of us have forgotten, about 100,000 people voted for Nader in Florida. If 5% of them had voted for Gore instead, JebnKathy couldn't have stolen the election for Bush.

We hurt only ourselves when we reject compromise and demand ideological purity. If the only acceptable nominee is the leftiest of the left, what are we going to do AFTER the primaries?

The party in power has the luxury of pushing ideological purity, of insisting on "real" (Republicans, Democrats, whatever). The party out of power, especially when it's as far out of power as we are, had better concentrate on getting what it can and liking what it gets. As I said in a post on another thread, is there still anyone out there who could say with a straight face that Al Gore would have been no better as President than George W. Bush?

As I also said in that post, support the guy/gal you like, but don't take up the meataxe against all the other candidates, one of whom is most likely going to be the nominee (by sheer law of averages). We only hurt ourselves that way. Eyes on the prize - defeat Bush!