January
2007
Don’t Forget the Greens gave us George W. Bush
Now that there is a Democratic majority in congress we can expect the Greens to get emboldened again to start dividing Democrats. We're already hearing of it in Madison where the Green group, Progressive Dane, is busy trashing dems.
But let's not forget the legacy of the Green party. What have their actions caused? Let's look at that. Without the Greens we would not have George W. Bush as our President. 3000 soldiers would still be alive. No child left behind, which leaves many children behind and the dangerous environmental policies would never have been enacted. Had the Green party not been successful we would have actually signed the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gasses under President Al Gore.
So go ahead, throw it in their faces when one of these lunatics starts talking about the benefits of voting Green.
On the other hand, if Green leaning liberals want to come under the big tent, they should be welcomed. Democrats who understand this concept are the ones that help to build winning coalitions.
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Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
Progressive Dane isn’t the Green Party. Take a look at PD’s Web site’s links page: http://www.prodane.org/links/. Scroll down. See where it says “other political parties?” That’s where you’ll find the Green Party (and the Democrats, and Republicans and others).
From what I understand, many (if not most) candidates endorsed by Progressive Dane *are* actually Democrats.
For a long time I thought this was a splog, it seems most of the content it spam of some sort.
But, the Nader myth has been debunked 100 times. If you believe that line you probably also believe that Iraq had a link to 911.
Al Gore was a centrist candidate who got a centrist fate. Bill Clinton did nothing in 8 years but move the country further to the right. Nader nor the Greens had much of an effect even in 04, look at the FrankenKerry the Dems put out.
PD has been great for Democrats. Prior to PDs influence you had Johnathan Barry for county exec and Klug to represent Dane County in congress. PD has solidified a left leaning majority. Political competition has been relegated to left side of the political spectrum. As far right as our politics get are the un-endorsed Zach Brandon’s. Not too shabby from an electorate where close to 60% of the voting population votes.
Unlike lets say Milwaukee County where in the last election only 20% of the voting population voted. Maybe if you had a PD or a Green Party you could increase that % a little. You’d probably get more progressive candidates for school board, council, and county board. And in races where it mattered like Sensenbrenner you’d have a left leaning coalition that would send him back to where he came from.
No, its easier to blame the Greens and watch year after year the Sensenbrenner’s and Walker’s rule.
Stacie is correct. Of all the PD endorsed candidates only one, Brenda Konkel, is a Green. PD is best described as a non-partisan political party as funny as that sounds. Its main effect is to get more progressive candidates to the general election.
Liberals like Soglin, notice I did not say progressive, have big issues with the PD wing of the Democratic Party. Most of that comes down to economic issues in particular those reforms that compel business to act in a socially responsible manner. Its fine in their view to have government run subsidized housing, but too intrusive to require developers to set aside x % of buildings as affordable.
Nate,
I’m not a fan of your blog either. Most of it is whining about how you hate democrats. Your blog is a perfect example of what winning liberals need to avoid lest they become losing liberals. Watchdog Milwaukee is a news and commentary source — always has been and always will be.
It figures that you, a Green, would try to deflect blame for the Bush election.
As for us not having a PD here in Milwaukee County, we did have a group called Progressive Milwaukee for a while. They supported ineffective liberals who liked to shoot their mouths off without ever putting in the work to affect change. They made endorsements but did little more.
I’m always amused when someone from Madison suggests that if we were just more like them that we wouldn’t have problems. We have something you don’t have and that is a strong following of Republican talk radio. We don’t have an Air America affiliate and GOP radio was used by Walker as an organizing tool.
As for our dismal voting percentage numbers, they follow poverty. Your county doesn’t have a large percentage of impoverished neighborhoods — ours does.
Don’t bother with the inane rhetoric of blaming Sensenbrenner on Milwaukee. He represents the most conservative burbs in the state.
Jim,
Facts don’t bear that out. This is from a post comparing Dane and Milwaukee County 06 election data.
Even if we take poverty out of the equation that leaves us with 84% of the voting population. Even adding that to the 18% who voted that is still 34%. I think a lot of it has to do with silly laws that deny people the right to vote, like a criminal record. But, with growth of PD and the Green Party election turnout has grown. In contrast to your myth Greens and 3rd parties bring voters with them that even get Dems elected.
Let’s be honest — Gore lost 2000 all by himself. You can look at Florida and try to blame Nader voters, but more importantly you need to look at Tennessee. Has a presidential candidate EVER won the office while losing his OWN home state?
Tennessee 2000 Elections
Bush: 1,061,949 51.15%
Gore: 981,720 47.28%
Nader: 19,781 0.95%
Michael,
I’ve heard that justification before and if it helps Greens sleep better at night, I’ve got no problem with it as long as they understand that it’s really just a justification.
By the way, TN is a southern (read red) state and it’s difficult for any dem to carry it.
Why would anyone bring up Tennessee, or for that matter, any other state, in a vain and desperate attempt to “debunk” the Nader/Green torpedoing of the Gore campaign? You need to look only one place to know that Jim is right here, and it’s not Tennessee. FLORIDA. Didn’t W “win” Florida by something like 587 votes? Do these self-immolating purists seriously expect us to believe that there were no more than 586 of their ilk in the Sunshine State in 2000? Here’s what I remember; lefties besmitten with the self-aggrandizing Nader, telling the rest of us, busy with trying to win an election, that there was no difference between Gore and Bush. No Difference? An ego-driven and disastrous war, record deficits, environmental degradation, assault on civil liberty, the decimation of America’s standing among civilized nations? And now one of thee guys wants to tell us that Bill Clinton did nothing but move the country to the right for 8 years? It is almost too ridiculous for words. When you get called out for being complicit with the Bushies and being just plain dumb with calamitous consequences that we are all still paying for, the best thing to do is just keep your mouth shut and not even try and defend it.
Yeah! The Greenies sure have balls for thinking they can run their own candidate for President, and vote for him to boot! Fascists! They should all go back to Canada if they want legalized pot, universal health care, and gay marriages.
Maybe now that the Democrats (God Bless) control Congress we can pass some laws keeping spoilers off the ballot once and for all.
Nader was certainly one factor in Gore’s loss. Most of the Greens I know (but not all; you out there Nate?) learned an important lesson from that election, and as a result in ’04 the Green Party endorsed a candidate who ran a “safe states” campaign.
The problem is that while Greens as a whole took responsibility for their part in electing Bush, and changed their behavior to greatly reduce the chances of something like that happening again, many Dems simply used Nader as an excuse not to deal with our own failures and clean up our own house. So we lost again in ’04.
But there was no Nader to blame that time, and we started to see the sort of introspection and changes within the Democratic party that should have happened four years earlier. The results in ’06 speak for themselves.
It’s always easy to blame others for our own failures. There’s a lot of that happening in Madison right now, where the Dem Party establishment is busy demonizing PD, when what they should be doing is putting their energy into trying to understand why it is that PD, which has essentially the same ideological base as the Dem Party, even exists. (Hint, PD is far more welcoming to activists concerned with local issues and better at sharing power with its members).
I’m a vice chair of the Dane Dems, and I can’t tell you how sick I am of listening to other Dems whine about PD while doing absolutely nothing to deal with this issue. Either we fix the things about our party that make people want to join PD, or we accept that they have a legitimate political niche that we are simply unwilling to fill.
Paul Soglin is a mighty smart guy, and usually pretty independent minded, but in this case his rant is nothing more than spin straight from the party establishment. It deliberately hides the fact that there is a smoldering revolt within the county party by progressive activists who want to want to make strategic changes, adopt a strong-party model, and be far more proactive about the challenge from PD. I’m a leader of that group.
Why do you think it is that despite the best efforts of the party establishment, all they could do at the meeting last week was a draw? The answer is that this wasn’t just about PD or the endorsements. It’s far broader and more complicated issue, although it mirrors changes happening within the Democratic party at the state and national level.
Jim, again I urge you to be more careful before you weigh in on issues that you’re not intimately familiar with. I love your work, but you tend to jump the gun on things before you understand them fully. Intra-party politics and power struggles are often complicated, and can reflect wider societal trends, as is the case here. You would better serve the interests of our party by getting all sides of the story, and ensuring that your positions are both well informed and defensible.
Russell,
The Greens haven’t really taken responsibility for their part in getting Bush elected. To admit it would be to admit their utter failure at achieving the goals they were striving for. They are responsible for Florida. Just over 500 votes made the difference. Greens are responsible.
I have mixed feelings at times about groups like Progressive Dane. Part of me says that they’re sticking their heads in the sand when it comes to respecting that varying districts will not elect people who are progressive on all issues. Another part of me says that it’s not a bad thing to pull the dem party back to their roots. If they focused on districts where they could make a difference in the primaries without sacrificing the seat in the general I probably wouldn’t be as critical. People should understand that it’s important for democrats to have a strong democratic wing of the democratic party and if the dems fail to understand their responsibility in that matter, there’s a place for PD or other groups to send them a not so gentle reminder.
As for the rush of PD members who came to a dem meeting after paying their dues — well I guess I can’t condemn that as long as they really do espouse the values of the party. Often times the entrenched party leaders do little to affect change and they get their positions because no one else at the meeting wanted the job.
That being said, it is not a good thing for members of PD to take over and then not be sincere in making improvements in the party. Power for power sake is wrong and I think that was one of the points Soglin was making.
We Democrats do not believe in a litmus test to be considered a Democrat. “Progressive Dane” members are trying to drive quality people out of our big tent party. Note to PDers: we are not Republicans and believe in a wide variety of opinions.
Thank god I live in Milwaukee and do not have to put up with this crap.
Al Gore won Florida, if we’re taking voters into account.
Dems ought to get their own house in order. A strategy on Iraq would be a good start. In Wisconsin, Dems will do well to remember that the issue is “health care” reform, not “welfare” reform or “juvenile justice” reform.
It seems to me that both parties have a lot of “repairing” to do. However, the Republicans are in worse shape. It would be nice to see some fresh ideas from both sides.
The Greens took over the Kenosha County party and the Unions took over Racine. What happened to the democratic party?
I am angered by the way Russell Wallace tries to portray himself and PD as the mainstream party establishment. The vast majority of Campus Dems, Dane Dems, and WI Dems dislike the way PD conducts their business, and the way Russell Wallace conducts his business. Russell has burned more bridges within the DPW than Mark Green. Ask Joe Wineke what he thinks about Russell Wallace, ask Wayne Bigelow why he truly opposes Russell, ask Oliver Kiefer – the Chair of the College Democrats of Madison – why his hat is in against Russell. You will begin to find the way Mr. Wallace conducts his business is inappropriate and allover the kind of behavior that continuously brings our party into turmoil when we should be winning elections. While I will conceed to say that many of the policies of PD are much more progressive than what the mainstream party establishment is purusing, the leaders pursue them in undiplomatic ways. Leaders like Mr. Wallae make the PD look bad; they give progressive politics a bad name.
Don’t be a tool, Bill Murray.
You’re rhetorical sleight of hand trying to put Russell and PD in the same place is just flat-out wrong – not to mention disingenuous.
Russell has only belonged to one political party in his life as far as I know – and it’s the Democratic Party. He’s done way more than anyone else I know to heal the rift between PD and the Dane Dems and to correct the problems within the Democratic Party (and it goes far larger than one county) that brought about the rise of PD.
Do your homework kids. Find out where PD came from. Read a book or an article. Get some history. I recommend starting with Joel Rodgers from COWS.
And anyone in Milwaukee criticizing the Democratic Party of Dane County immediately loses 5 points. The Milwaukee County Party is pretty well a joke and it’s starting to hurt the statewide Democrats and the DPW in noticeable, alarming ways. Milwaukee Dems need to get to work at rebuilding a party there before worrying about the internecine quarrels of Dane County.
That may be some inspirational stuff. In no way realized that viewpoints may very well be this different.