While I share some of the avenger's feelings about Naderites and Green Party types in general (I happen to think that Ralph Nader is proof positive that you don't have to be a right-wing Republican in order to be a political or activist has-been that refuses to leave the scene), it's possible that the best way around the Naderites is by reaching out to them.

Ever wonder why the GOP never starts teeing off on the libertarians for making them lose a vote?

Because they have more sense than that.

One, because it's a prime example of the fallacy of false cause.

Two, because libertarians are most likely to vote GOP if the GOP make certain noises, so the GOP realizes pissing off libertarians is stupid - they may vote for some of your candidates but they won't vote for all of them, and if you piss them off maybe they won't vote for any of them.

Ron Paul runs for Pres as a libertarian, and next thing you know, you have the GOP courting him, getting him into their Congressional caucus.

Dems on the other hand just don't get it. People who vote Green over a centrist or right-wing Dem like Lieberman or Biden or Randy Kelly or Amy Kolobuchar do so because they don't buy these particlar Democrats' "ideas" nor do they buy centrist Democratic "achievements" (such as these two things exist).

Given them a good candidate like Paul Wellstone or

Time for y'all to get over yourselves with this "blame Ralph" game you've been playing for 6 years now, it wasn't Ralph's fault, he has a right to run every bit as much as the Social Democrat and the Libertarian candidate has.

In a hotly contested campaign, where the Dem and the GOP are neck and neck, just as folks who folks who vote libertarian in such a situation would never vote GOP, folks who still vote Green would never have voted for the Dem. (That's me in '96 btw, I'm honored to have never voted for Clinton.)

Now, maybe if the Dem leadership actually acted and spoke like Democrats and not the craven GOP-lite poll-driven lobbyist-money-chasing opportunists many of their leadership have become, people would want to vote for them.

That's the real cause.

Jeez.  This is the second person I've had to troll rate this evening.  And I almost never troll rate anyone.

It occurs to me that the Democratic Party would do well to court and otherwise roll out the welcome mat for Naderites, and not just Naderites but also Venturaites, Perotistas, Reagan Democrats, alienated non-voters, Greens, moderate Republicans, and even significant Democratic politicans that the party apparatus seems to have shoved into the memory hole (Richard Lamm and Mike Gravel come to mind).  The key is a big tent Democratic Party where all these people will be welcome and have a voice.  The alternative is a party where anyone whose positions don't exactly mirror Hillary Clinton's gets shown the door before they even set foot in it.  And if that's the party you want, you can have it because it will find itself a permanent minority party unable to muster more than 30% of the vote.  I want a party that represents the American working class in the broadest sense of the term.  This means a welcome mat.  This means welcoming instead of attacking when somebody like Jim Webb joins our side, and welcoming instead of attacking when somebody who worked for Nader and Ventura joins our side.

Reading some of the knee-jerk comments on this site gets downright frustrating sometimes.

Uh. Like you said - the primary's 100 days away. That's a lot of time. And that last report was a month ago, so for all we know he's raised a lot since then.

Plus, he can cut a check from his own money to the campaign. I seriously doubt money is the issue here. It's getting up name rec which matters.