Over the past four days two mega-threads appeared at Firedog Lake’s (FDL’s) Seminal web site. The first was created in response to a diary by “realworld” called “Why I won’t be voting for Martha Coakley on Tuesday” received 604 comments, a very large number for that site. And the second responding to a diary by Jason Rosenbaum entitled “To the Pissed Off Progressives, Don’t Be Naderites,” which at this writing has received 851 comments.
The arguments of the two diaries are as follows. Realworld’s stated:
I am a life long PROGRESSIVE Democrat. However, it is becoming clear that the Democrats now in the Senate do not represent progressive views but instead the interests of corporations and CEO’s who are continuing to ruin the country. . . .
. . . Stand up for Democratic principles and I will support Democrats again. Until then, you will loose my support even in a close race as Martha Coakley now faces. Is the republican candidate worse. Yes. But, I can no longer support the lesser of the evils. When will the Democrats again represent a good choice and not just the less bad one?
Then you will have my support.
Jason’s reply, in my view, was motivated by the heavy majority of replies favorable to realworld, which included many exchanges between Jason and supporters of the majority position. In it he sought to overcome the negative result for the pro-Coakley position emerging from realworld’s thread. His basic argument is:
”Don’t be Naderites. . . ”
. . . in a plurality voting system, if you don’t vote or if you vote for a third party, you are actually helping the candidate you least want to see in office, because in a plurality voting system it’s a zero sum game. One man, one vote, so if you don’t use it, you’re helping your opponent.
There can be two logical reactions to this reality.
First, you can agitate to change the voting system. . . .
Second, you can work to change the party from the inside. . . .
But not voting or voting for a third party because you’re not getting what you want is politically infantile. It’s the equivalent of a spurned child crying out, “I’m taking my toys and going home!” It might feel good, but it doesn’t actually help you achieve your goals, because you’re helping the people you least support. There has been no instance I can think of – not one – where a purer faction of a party sent a message to the party establishment by voting third party and the party establishment listened. Not one. Though there are plenty of examples to the contrary, the Tea Party’s failed run at NY-23 being only the most recent.
The people who voted for Nader in 2000 sent the country backwards and didn’t help reform the Democratic party. By contrast, Howard Dean and his followers mounted a powerful primary challenge and then proceeded to take over large parts of party infrastructure and create real change. It’s a lesson on how to do things, and how not to do them. . . .
Of the two diaries, realworld’s has the simpler argument, so I’ll comment on that first. For reasons I’ll state later, I agree that Democrats shouldn’t vote for Coakley, and I agree with the general thrust of her argument that the lesser of two evils argument is, beyond a certain point, not compelling when a political party has not been representing you, and when you believe it is not keeping its promises. As realworld recognizes, the cost of opposing Coakley is to elect someone likely to be even worse from realworld’s point of view than Coakley, but on the other hand, unless you punish a party that has had your support for behavior that doesn’t represent you, you can hardly expect that party to change. Ultimately, democracy is about people holding elites accountable, and that means voting against them when they screw up in order to punish them. Coakley, of course, is not a Senate incumbent, but from a progressive point of view she has screwed up by indicating support for the pending health care reform compromise in spite of very strong indications that it will narrow the reproductive rights of women, and in spite of its numerous other faults detailed here, and also by having a very recent fund raiser characterized by a very strong sell-out odor, because Pharma and health care industry supporters and givers were very prominent. Apart from Coakley, however, the Democratic Party has done a terrible job on its HCR legislation so far, and insofar as defeating Coakley represents a punishment for them, if that’s what one is looking to do, than not voting for her is perfectly reasonable, as long as one takes into account the costs associated with that action.
Having said the above, there is one thing that disturbs me about realworld’s argument. It is, I think too generalist in nature. While it provides compelling reasons to vote against Democrats, in general, its reasoning always needs to be qualified by the particular circumstances of any race. Those circumstances will have an impact on whether it is reasonable to vote against the lesser of two evils. They may make it either more reasonable or less reasonable depending on the circumstances. In the Massachusetts case. I think the particular circumstances: 1) that a defeat for Coakley would be a severe defeat for the Party, representing a repudiation of its corporatist strategy and poor performance on the economy and on health care reform, 2) defeating her would give the Democrats only 59 votes for the HCR bill, which might defeat this very bad bill provided that House Democrats are unwilling to accept the Senate bill without amending it in any way, and 3) that a defeat for her only elects the Republican Scott Brown for two years to fill out Teddy Kennedy’s term making the cost of a protest vote here in terms of the damage that Brown can do much less than in other cases; all make it more reasonable to vote against Coakley tomorrow.
Moving to Jason Rosenbaum’s post reply to realworld, and other “Naderites,” like me (even though I’ve never supported Nader), the first thing that stands out about it is Jason’s use of name-calling. First, his “don’t be Naderites,” his use of the terms “spurned child,” and “politically infantile,” don’t treat the arguments of “realworld” and his other opponents seriously on their substance, and they’re also bound to elicit angry replies that don’t lead to healthy, rational exchanges on the issues. In fact, insofar as one ideal of progressives is rational, mature, and open debate, then I’m afraid that it’s Jason’s writing that is the more “politically infantile” of the contending positions, since it is he who has been engaging much more in name-calling and labeling, rather than simply arguing substance.
Going past the labeling and name-calling, however, his point that our system of voting guarantees that voting for a third party, or not voting at all, makes it more likely that one’s vote will put the candidate one likes the least into office is completely correct, as long as one accepts Jason’s underlying assumption that one’s purpose in voting in a specific election is, or at least ought to be, to defeat the major party candidate one likes the least to prevent that candidate from getting into office. However, that may or may not be the purpose of one’s vote, and certainly Jason is in no position to tell others what their purpose in voting ought to be. Here are some other purposes one might have for voting in the Massachusetts election:
1. Denying the Democrats their 60th seat and defeating a terrible health care “reform” bill that will set real efforts at reform back for many years. If one votes against Coakley and she’s beaten, that doesn’t guarantee the defeat of the health care reform bill, but it does increase the likelihood of its defeat.
2. Getting the Democrats to think more in terms of reconciliation and the nuclear option than in terms of getting that 60th vote by giving Nelson, Lieberman, Lincoln, Landrieu, and other blue dog “faux Democrats” what they want for their corporatist masters. Again, accomplishing this is not guaranteed by voting against Coakley, or even by beating her, but if the Democrats lose their 60th vote, the Leadership will be faced with some choices. And it is more likely than it is now that they would turn to some method of getting around the 60-vote frame.
Jason argues that this is not what would happen, and that if Coakley is defeated, the Democratic Leadership would move further right by making a compromise with a Republican to get their vote, even if that requires making the bill even less acceptable to progressives. I agree that may happen. In fact, they may even move to the right just by abandoning attempts to compromise with the House and by trying to force the House including its progressives to accept the Senate’s bill without modification. However, these attempts to move right may not work. First, an attempt to move right with a Republican vote may finally persuade House progressives that they need to say “no” and to force the Administration to use reconciliation. And second, it may be even be the case that the Senate Bill as it stands may be opposed by enough House Democrats to cause its defeat. In any case, the Massachusetts voter cannot be responsible for whether progressives in Congress are prepared to abuse them even more than they have so far. Their opportunity is to defeat Coakley and to create a situation where the Congressional progressives, finally at the end of their rope, can decide to say to the Leadership “this far, and no further. Time for you to go beat up on the blue dogs for a change.” If the progressives won’t do that, it’s on them, not on the Massachusetts voters who would be giving them the opportunity to finally do the right thing and back the Administration up against the wall.
3. Letting the Democrats know that they can’t count on liberal/progressive support when they simply ignore what progressives and liberals want. This is a very important reason for voting against Coakley. Progressives in Congress won’t say “no,” to the Administration, so perhaps if progressive voters do say “no,” even at the cost of electing an obnoxious Republican in one of the most liberal states, it may embolden the Congressional progressives to say no, which would create an entirely different dynamic in Congress.
4. Discrediting veal pen organizations and their strategy of always bowing to centrists and giving up on core liberal/progressive principles. Coakley, of course, is getting tremendous support from various veal pen organizations. Since these organizations have been much more interested in backing the Administration than in supporting progressive principles, a really good reason for defeating Coakley may be the need to show that these organizations are not representative of the progressive community.
5. Giving President Obama and Rahm a black eye for leading Democrats to defeat in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. This may seem like a less important reason than some of the others, but maybe if someone is really angry about the Administration’s performance in bailing out the banks, providing an adequate economic stimulus, and producing a health care reform bill that does more good than harm, this reason may be a very important one indeed.
6. Showing the Democratic Party that it can and will lose anywhere even in “liberal” Massachusetts if it leaves the base. And, finally,
7. Defeating a bill that, because it would replace existing “RomneyCare” with something close to or equal to the current Senate bill, will actually worsen the health care situation of many Massachusetts residents. This point doesn’t seem to be recognized by many people opining on what the Massachusetts voters ought to do. Ed Schultz, for example, seems to think that Massachusetts Democrats have every reason to get out there tomorrow and support Coakley, and he’s seemingly ignorant of the fact that the Senate bill, as it now stands would be worse for middle class workers than the “RomneyCare” they have now. Given this fact, why would any middle class Democrat in Massachusetts be expected to vote against their own financial interest and help elect Coakley?
This list, of course, isn’t intended to state all the purposes that a voter might have to vote against Coakley, or that might be considered a “legitimate” reason to vote against her. I’m sure commenters on this post won’t be shy about listing other purposes and reasons. But the list at least indicates that there are a range of purposes one might have if one were a voter in Massachusetts tomorrow, and that one’s purpose, or highest priority purpose, may not be to defeat the major party candidate one likes the least to prevent that candidate from getting into office. What happens when we recognize that Jason’s basic assumption about one’s purpose in voting ought to be isn’t valid, and that there are many, many other assumptions about the purposes of voting that one might make?
Well, then the rest of Jason’s argument falls to the ground. Jason says that there are only two logical reactions to the reality of our plurality voting system: we can either agitate to change it, or we can work inside the Party of our choice to change its dominant policies. But this conclusion doesn’t follow if we don’t care very much about defeating the major party candidate we like the least to prevent that candidate from getting into office. If the other 7 purposes above, for example, are more important to us, than Jason’s central purpose, then it may make perfect sense to vote for a third Party, stay home, vote for a Republican even, or otherwise work outside the Democratic Party structure to enable change. In fact, if one has purposes other than Jason’s it may be completely rational to vote to defeat Coakley and many other Democrats as well. Depending on what President Obama does over the next two years, it may even make sense to vote against President Obama, depending on who is running against him, and on just how much he screws up the remainder of his term.
Once again, we must remember that the essence of political democracy is the voters holding politicians accountable by voting those who have performed badly out of office. Without accountability there is no Democracy. What Jason is doing in essence, is arguing against the public holding a Democrat, Martha Coakley, accountable for her statements in support of an Administration that is not performing well from their point of view. He argues against this accountability by trying to make people afraid of the consequences of punishing members of the Democratic Party for its misbehavior. But this argument is reminiscent of the Administration’s own unwillingness to hold people accountable for poor and even illegal performance. It seems that arguments against accountability are a familiar theme in this Administration and among its veal pen organizations, all of whom seem to subscribe to the doctrine of change without accountability. But Jason’s opponents, including myself, are serious about accountability. We know that meaningful change won’t happen without it. And we’re not interested in restricting our efforts at holding people accountable according to Party label. We think that the Democratic leadership and the President also must be held politically accountable, however mistaken and reprehensible the Republican alternative may be. Our view is that Democrats have to perform and represent Democratic constituencies. If they don’t, fear of Republicans won’t save them in the next election.
In the course of his criticism of those who plan to vote against Coakley, Jason brings up the old saw that Ralph Nader voters caused Al Gore to lose the election in 2000, and that they, and their decision to act outside of the regular party structure are responsible for all of the evils that have followed upon Gore’s loss. It’s difficult for me to believe that he thinks this dog whistle will work once again with those observing this debate. We know now that if Gore had done a better job of campaigning in his home state he could have won. We know also, that if he hadn’t sighed in the first debate with George Bush he would have won. We know that if he had availed himself more of Bill Clinton’s help that he most probably would have won. We also know from newspaper analyses that he would have won in Florida and therefore gained the presidency if he had only insisted on a state-wide recount, instead of being both cautious and “noble.” Finally, we also know that if he had run even a bit more to the left, he probably would have won in a number of other states, and the election might not have been close at all. Ralph Nader and his voters had nothing to do with these failings of Gore and his campaign, so that the best that can be said is that Nader’s vote was a negligible factor in beating Gore, and that, in any case, it’s very size was due to Gore’s own campaign actions and not “Naderites,” per se.
Jason also says that “there has been no instance I can think of – not one – where a purer faction of a party sent a message to the party establishment by voting third party and the party establishment listened. Not one.” But I think that Jason’s inability to think of a case like that, reflects says more about his memory or knowledge of history, than it says about reality. For example, in many states, Democrats in the 1880s and 1890s voted for the Populists because the Democratic wasn’t effective at fulfilling its historic mission. By 1896 and 1900, however, Populist ideas had been incorporated into the Democratic Party and gradually the Populist Party died out. The same thing happened with the old Progressive Party. Democrats voted for that Party in large numbers in the North Central States in the opening decades of the 20th Century. By the time of the New Deal however, the Democrats had incorporated progressive goals into their platform and saw to it that progressive measures were implemented. The need for the Progressive Party then disappeared and it died out as a national force. Other examples include the American Socialist Party which was making serious electoral inroads against Democrats during the depression until Roosevelt stole its thunder with the second New Deal. There are also other cases in American history where third parties failed to influence one the primary parties seriously and, as a result, the third party became a primary Party. You can see this with the Republican Party itself and its success in replacing the Whigs, and also in the case where the Democratic and Whig Parties replaced the old one-party regime of the Democratic Republicans. Jason may be right that the recent history of the United States may not be hopeful for third parties. But history shows that third parties were successful once in our plurality voting system and this history suggests that it is a myth that they cannot be successful again.
Also, as with realworld’s diary, the arguments used by Jason are very general in the way they are cast and it is not clear how the concrete case of Martha Coakley, and voting for or against her, modify Jason’s general case. My statement of alternative purposes relates much more closely to the specific Coakley context, and the general arguments behind the idea of voting against her are extensive, and are given in various blogs on my page here. They are arguments about why the health care reform bill emerging from Congress is an immoral bill that should be killed, the progressive power of no, the strategically inept health care reform activities of progressives (assuming good faith in wanting reform) and the importance of the Democrats getting rid of the filibuster, or failing that, using reconciliation.
Jason, has never successfully addressed any of these arguments even when he has commented on them, and since they apply here and suggest voting against Coakley, they are part of the background of the dispute over the two diaries, and part of the reasoning behind the recommendation that Coakley must and should be defeated tomorrow.
Finally, I don’t agree that people should vote for a third Party in the Massachusetts race or stay home. Those actions reduce Coakley’s margin toward victory by only one vote. On the other hand, a vote for Brown is worth two votes on the margin and makes it more likely that the objective of denying Democrats the 60th seat, and this lousy HCR bill, will be achieved. So, my advice is don’t fool around. Bite the bullet. You may regret it later, since nothing in life is without risk. But, Coakley’s defeat will send the message that people are angry with the Democrats, will induce a bit of panic in the Party, and may help their powers of concentration. They may even realize that part of the reason she lost is that she is willing to throw woman’s reproductive rights under the bus, and also is neck deep in corporate fund raising arranged for by lobbyists, and that voters are sick and tired of “corporatism” from “the party of the people.” There will be ample chance to return the seat to Democrats in two years time, provided they nominate an anti-corporatist Democrat, who will prioritize jobs and Medicare for All above all else.
(Also posted at firedoglake.com and correntewire.com where there may be more comments)