So what is an election about? Naderite, "recount anyway" in same mistake

[Inland]

Look, an election is primarily about who gets to wield the power of the office. Sure, you make your "voice heard" in a vague and uninformative way, you commune with your fellow Americans in a ritual, you become part of a process. But it is still about who gets in and who doesn't.

Bush understood that. He got in, and took the levers of power and worked them. He is commander in chief without a "Mandate". He has a veto without a mandate. His appointees rewrite regulations without a mandate. The AG rounds up thousands of suspects without a mandate. It is a government by and for a minority and doesn't care. The voices for Gore were heard, and everyone suspects the election was tampered, and everyone knows that Bush lied like crazy, and the response is: Bush is president and that's what counts. And this year--exact same thing, Bush is president, and that's what counts.

So the Naderites and those who want a recount for the sake of seeing just who got the most votes, or should have won, are going to be ignored because they make the same mistake. If you want to send a message, go to Western Union and send a telegram. Take out a full page in the NYT and state all your beliefs. You wouldn't be the first. But since elections are about electing, not just airing issues, not just making a stand, not just having someone acknowledge your feelings, you have to decide if you want to win or lose, period.

Therefore the most important decision at this time is to give the democratic leadership out blessing to find a *winning* strategy *starting today*, even if it means that we have to back someone with a less than ideal set of attributes for any individual, even if it means boring local elections, even if it means poaching popular republican ideas and office holders. Democrats and people who are sympathetic to democrats have to wise up, let go and realize, without hesitation, and without grumbling, and without actually saying so, that we want to win the election. Not the debate. The election.

Democrats have to understand that if the election is lost,the office is lost no matter how close you came, until the next one. So people are going to have to start *settling for a democratic win* of whoever of the generally democratic persuasion we can find. We came close this time--we picked someone with the chops with the military to stem some of the attacks on that front. But wasn't that mostly by chance, not design? What did Bush have when he was annointed for the republican nomination? Why, a big state in his pocket and no history at all to criticize.

I suppose a post in this vein can be criticized as willingness to accept anything for a win, and I say, if I felt that way, I could put a Bush sign in my lawn today. Nobody is going to go broke over the next four years by backing Bush. We all know there are limits, but with a failed war, neocon fantasies, corporate control, and the establishment of a millenarian christian government in most of the country, for God's sake, do we really need to wait three years and then have a primary fight between whoever wants to volunteer because they have an issue or two they want to AIR? When there are people dying due to this president's incompetence and lies? Dennis, are you listening? Rev Sharpton?

Do we really need a Ralph Nader to complain about a two party monopoly, when I want to grab his lapels and shout in his face, "Ralph, I would be THRILLED if there were two parties controlling Washington, because that is one more party than there is now, thanks to you!"

A platform that will win. Candidates that are going to win. Big states, no money wasted. Issues that will divide America with the dems on the bigger side. A party apparatus that will do it because a forum with a bunch of blowhards like me and you can't do anything except join in the choir.