{"id":320,"date":"2003-08-07T08:45:35","date_gmt":"2003-08-07T16:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/08\/07\/kucinich-vs-dean-its-too-early-for-progressives-to-give-up\/"},"modified":"2003-08-07T08:45:35","modified_gmt":"2003-08-07T16:45:35","slug":"kucinich-vs-dean-its-too-early-for-progressives-to-give-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=320","title":{"rendered":"Kucinich vs. Dean: It's too early for progressives to give up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Dean supporters in the comments<\/a> have been accusing Kucinich supporters of being impractical idealists. They agree with Kucinich’s positions – or so they say – but they don’t think it’s a good idea to worry about ideals while Bush is in office. Be pragmatic, they say. (Stop being so selfish, they go on, verging into personal insults – but let’s not go there.)<\/p>\n

The funny thing is, I think of myself as very pragmatic.<\/p>\n

Here’s the thing – the pragmatic question for progressives right now<\/i> is not “which candidate can beat Bush?” (Personally, I think that IF Bush loses, it’ll be the economy that beats him, not any particular candidate). The pragmatic question is – or should be – “what can I do to best guarantee that when Dean or whoever runs against Bush, progressives at least still have a seat at the table?”<\/p>\n

The way to do that is NOT to join the DLC in declaring that progressive views are unelectable and should not even be considered.<\/p>\n

I think the best way to support progressive views is to support Kucinich – but be pragmatic<\/i> about it. Pragmatism tells us a few things:<\/p>\n

1) Kucinich is almost certainly going to drop out of the race before the primary voting April.<\/p>\n

1a) But the longer Kucinich stays in the race and the better he does before dropping out, the more reason the winning candidate – whoever that might be – has to include and pay attention to progressive views in his candidacy.<\/p>\n

1b) The longer and better Kucinich stays in the race, the more plausible future progressive Democrats will seem when they run in future Democratic primaries.<\/p>\n

1c) On the other hand, if even progressives are unwilling to support progressive candidates – not even nine months before the primaries, when supporting a progressive is perfectly safe – then that just proves Nader right: there is no place for progressives in the Democratic party.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2) On the very remote chance that Kucinich does not<\/i> drop out before actual primary voting begins, it’s perfectly easy to switch to supporting Dean – or some other, more “electable” candidate – then<\/i>.<\/p>\n

2a) From a pragmatic point of view, it doesn’t matter much to Dean or any “electable” frontrunner if you support him now or not; they have all the support they need right now. That’s what makes Dean a frontrunner. It’s later on, when the voting crunch time comes, that your support really matters.<\/p>\n

2b) If Dean (or whoever) is really incapable of winning the Democratic primary if progressives support Kucinich, then he’s incapable of winning against Bush, and the “electable” argument can’t be used to support his candidacy. Bush is a far tougher opponent to beat than Kucinich is (sad to say).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3) If you’re not willing to support progressive views now, you never will be willing to support a progressive candidate. There is no safer time to support a progressive than early in a primary race.<\/i> If you can’t support progressives now, you can’t support them ever<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/b> The pragmatic thing to do is support progressive views when you can, and support other candidates when you have to.<\/p>\n

In March or April – come voting time – maybe progressive Democrats will have to support a non-progressive candidate, in the name of beating Bush. I might do so myself, when the time comes. But now is not that time.<\/i> Refusing to support progressive candidates right now does nothing at all to hurt Bush; all it does is help push progressive views and candidates even further into irrelevancy..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Dean supporters in the comments have been accusing Kucinich supporters of being impractical idealists. They agree with Kucinich’s positions – or so they say – but they don’t think it’s a good idea to worry about ideals while Bush … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-and-admin-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}