[Sosfbay-discuss] "Dare to Win"

[Gerry Gras]

Cameron L. Spitzer wrote:

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> 
> Once you start considering effects of superstition,
> the biggest factor compelling Safe States is that
> hardly any vovers actually believe they live in a
> "safe state" or district.
> There's ego invested in the liberal's belief that
> his vote counts and is counted, and that only
> happens in swing states.
> The belief that they live in a swing district conflicts
> directly with their understanding of gerrymandering,
> but it's superstition, not rationality, so the
> contradiction doesn't dissuade.


One example.  California is enough "left of center" that
it does not matter, in spite of its size.  If California
votes for a Republican Presidential candidate, then so
many other states will vote for him, that he does not
need California.

I knew someone who was reasonably intelligent about this,
and said in 2000 that he would vote for Nader only if it
did not matter in California.

For most days before the election the Zogby poll showed
Gore leading by 8% in California.  But in the last few
days that poll difference went to 0.  So this fellow voted
for Gore.  And then it turned out that California did go
for Gore with an 8% difference.


> 
> The other Green proponents of Safe States that I saw
> were Ted Glick and Steve Hill.  Glick has been
> working for a grand progressive coalition for so long
> that he believes in the imaginary "progressive Democrats."
> Hill has been using Spoiler Effect as a boogyman to
> motivate his argument for IRV for so long that he
> just can't consider that it might not be real or
> even destructive to talk about.
> 
> But I don't think Ted and John and Steve had much of
> anything to do with publicizing the Big Lie that
> Cobb was doing Safe States.  I think it came out of
> the corporate press and its punditocracy, and its
> satellites at progressive but hardly radical
> outlets like Mother Jones and The Nation, reinforced
> by opinion leaders like Medea Benjamin and Noam Chomsky.
> Being terrified of the Spoiler Effect and imagining
> progressive Democrats, they wished so hard that
> Cobb was doing Safe States that they started believing it.
> 
> The shameful thing is that so many Greens believed
> the Big Lie, which was nothing more than a persistent
> rumor promoted by our adversaries, with no direct
> evidence, instead of checking for themselves, that
> it caused a paralyzing rift in the national party
> and many state parties.  We need to learn to trust
> each other, and to distrust the people who wish to
> destroy us.  Or at least distrust what they say
> about us.
> 


I think at some level we all know that we can't really
trust the mainstream media.  But it is hard to filter out
what we see and read.

Gerry