It’s that time of year again. Fall is in the air, kids are back in school, and frightened Democrats are warning the Green Party not to run a candidate for president next year. “The issues are too serious,” we’re told, “and the incumbent too awful. Just for this election, forget your progressive values, hold your nose, and vote for whichever conservative white male the Dems decide to run. After all, anyone’s better than Bush.”
We’ve heard this before. The arguments Dems are making now are the same ones they made in 2000. “Rally around Al Gore,” they said. In 1996, it was Clinton. Last year, in my home state of Texas, we were told to support the Democratic candidate for governor, a strongly conservative banker who had never held political office, and whose chief qualification was his ability to fund his campaign out of pocket.
So it’s tough not to see the current Democratic pleas as part of a pattern. It’s not just, “Greens, don’t run for president in 2004.” It’s, “Greens don’t run. Not any time, not any race.” Why not? Because, according to... Read more
