Re: Nader's plans

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 03:56 PM 11/17/00 -0500, you wrote:
> (posted on the Marxism list)
>
> >> "He's totally toast among Democrats," says a senior Democratic
> Congressional
> aide. "There is deep animosity toward him among high-ranking Democrats in
> Congress. For now, the relationship is completely ruptured." <<

Jon Flanders writes:

> Hmm,
>
>  I attended a Nader meeting last night at Skidmore College, in Saratoga
> Springs, NY. I arrived a half hour early only to see a line four people
> deep and one hundred yards long waiting to get in to the field house.
> After parking a quarter of a mile away, I waited in line for 15 minutes
> myself, as we snaked through the entrance, down stairs and down a long
> hall to get in.

The "senior Democratic Congressional aide" is expressing the vision of
those who want politics to be a bunch of deals and back-scratching among
the insiders, i.e., the politicians, lobbyists, fund-raising organizations,
etc.

Nader seems to have been kicked out of their midst. That's a good thing,
since it will encourage him to cultivate the grass roots. Only when the
grass roots grow tall will the insiders be pushed to deviate from the same
old game. (Alternatively, they'll be forced to break with the game when
their own aggressive non-cultivation of the grass roots undermines their
influence, as with the DLC's success in cutting off of the US Democratic
Party's own political base or the AFL-CIO's extremely weak efforts to
organize the unorganized until very recently.)

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine