[Sosfbay-discuss] No great press out of Pennsylvania

[Cameron L. Spitzer]

Larry wrote:
>Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 11:35:28 -0700
>From: Larry Cafiero_Liaison <larrycafiero_liaison at earthlink.net>
>User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 (Macintosh/20060719)
>To: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
>In-Reply-To: <E1G7xDi-0005lD-00 at truffula>
>Subject: Re: [Sosfbay-discuss] No great press out of Pennsylvania

>Cameron L. Spitzer wrote:
>> 
>> What matters more is the size of the individual contributions.
>> If he gets a thousand apiece from a handful of activist GOPs,
>> something's fishy.  If he gets hundreds of small contributions
>> from real individuals, it just means he's a viable candidate.
>>   
>That's true. But what seems to be fishy here is that they contracted 
>with JSM from Florida to do their petition collecting after having 
>collected this money. Why they didn't get a local firm or pay local 
>volunteers in Pennsylvania is a mystery.

Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by ineptness.
Why does the Green Party of the US contract with spammer-for-hire
Democracy In Action?  Because they don't know any better!
Because they didn't think they could do the job themselves.
Because Dem Inaction (funny name, eh?) told them what they
wanted to hear.  Because DiA *asked for their business*.
I'll bet JSM watches the secretary of state offices and
pitches everybody who files that kind of papers.


>> I believe accepting the "spoiler effect" was the biggest
>> strategic miscalculation in the history of the Green Party.
>>   
>What do you think can be done to stop this, Cameron? We have a flier in 
>Santa Cruz County about the so-called "spoiler" effect, but what else is 
>there?

I don't know.  It's really hard to kill a superstition once
it's established.  Superstitions work at a deep emotional level
and are fairly impervious to mere logic and facts and common sense.
We need an equally instinctive and emotional antidote argument.
I don't have one.

But the least we can do is not *feed* it any more.  *Challenge*
the assumption that there's any such thing as "spoiling,"
every time it comes up.  It's a crackpot theory, after all.
Demand that the crackpots who propose it either prove it or let
it remain a question.  Don't let it be "a given."

There's one thing I've learned.  Don't argue the mathematics.
The Age of Reason is *over*.  We are in a new Dark Ages.
Look at how the propaganda system is getting away with demonizing and
marginalizing scientists today.  When mathematics says one thing,
and intuition and wishful thinking say something else, people
"go with their gut."  Logic is so "bo-ring!" and science is a real
buzz-killer.  Throw her in the water and if she floats, she's a witch.

Wrap that mathematical demand in a joke so it doesn't remind
people of their geometry teacher.  "Gore stole all those votes
from Nader, and then he didn't even use them."
I think in this age of anti-rationality, that's about the best
we can do.


Cameron