Workerbee, see if you can hold more than one thought in your head at a time.

Yes, Republicans are worse. Okay, here's where you're going to have to stretch, because I'm going to say something else. The fact that Republicans are worse provides Democrats with an incentive to move in their direction to pick up as many center-right votes as they can. We need some way to pressure them not to move to the right and if all their leftwing supporters unite in chanting "The Republicans are worse", it just strengthens the incentive for drifting rightwards.

Posted at February 26, 2008 7:29 AM in response to Say It Ain't So, Ralph!

Let me echo the first two comments. Just what is the right way to put pressure on these mainstream politicians? If you hold your nose and vote for them no matter what, then they are free to move to the right, and that's just what they do. Obama is notorious (among some anyway) for how he echoes the AIPAC stance on Israel, claiming, for instance, that the Lebanese civilians who died in 2006 under Israeli bombs died because Hezbollah used them as human shields, which was flatly contradicted by Human Rights Watch.

What good does it do for human rights organizations to do their work if the "progressive" Presidential candidate feels free to ignore what they find and spout lies instead?

That said, I'll hold my nose and vote for whichever jerk gets the Democratic nomination. They know there are plenty of people like me out there, people who've been blackmailed into supporting them because the Republican is even worse.

Posted at February 25, 2008 9:41 PM in response to Say It Ain't So, Ralph!