Good luck taking back the power if trump is president. Bit by bit he'll erode and destroy the country you now have.
He has a lot of people to punish. People who don't sit at his feet, paying homage to him. And even those, he turns on. The man is mentally sick. He's old and getting closer to death. He wants to leave this life after showing everybody how really important he is.

It'll be like The Duggars have moved into The White House, with a few less kids.

Another thing nobody's mentioned yet - voting for Mrs C probably isn't enough to satisfy Mr Savage and his ilk.

Once upon a time, thinking back to Proposition 8, people didn't ask other people to go against their own consciences. The request was, "Please, if you can't in good conscience support us, just don't vote for the other side." But now anyone not voting for Mrs C is The Enemy. Maybe people can live with that. Go forward a month, though, and who's to say the bar won't have moved to Anyone Who Hasn't Donated to her campaign is The Enemy? And if Mr Silver hasn't called the election for Mrs C come the third week of October, I can easily visualize the demands that every right-thinking person in the universe must be volunteering for Mrs C.

It's one thing to cave to this sort of ultimatum. But to cave to an open-ended ultimatum is something else. It's similar to paying a blackmailer without being allowed to buy all the incriminating evidence.

How about a WA state initiative to use Approval Voti…

@106 "Seriously, think longer term and vote Jill Stein. Stein doesn't have to win the election to be victorious."

Tell me how impact has Ralph Nader had his vote share in the 2000 election? Did the Greens gain ground after the 2000 election with Ralph Nader on the Ticket?

Nader had zero impact on the Bush Administration. Actually the only impact with Republicans with Nader was that they gave him lots of money as a spoiler both in 2000 and 2004.

Politics is a brutal business. No matter how good the ideas, and I would be more incline to be aligned with the Greens than the Democratic Party based on ideology. However, the stakes are too high not to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton for President, and I have serious problems with her.
Nominating sane Supreme Court Justices, a Chief Executive that will use critical thinking to make a decision, protecting Latinos and trying to get something done so many Latinos are not treated as second citizens, trying to help the poor instead of blaming them for America's problems.. I may not agree with many of Hillary Rodham Clinton actions in the past or her present positions, but the stakes are too high. Much like we are still trying to fix the disasters from the George W. Bush Presidency. One has to realize that politics doesn't care about ideological purity, it is how has the power to implement their ideology..

"But now anyone not voting for Mrs C is The Enemy"

True, but you are helping the enemy if you don't vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton for President in 2016. I am not Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton biggest fan. She and her husband have made tens of millions of dollars since they left the White House in 2001. Chelsea Clinton lives in a $10 million Co-op near Madison Park. HRC kind likes traveling by Gulfstream IV to Gulfstream Vs.

However not supporting the Democratic Party nominee, and I would had voted for Bernie Sanders if he clinched the nomination, is just helping Donald J. Trump become President of the United States. If anyone who lived through the 2000 election, knows what happened when our friends voted for Nader, no matter how Al Gore was a bit insufferable. If any of the progressive agenda to have a voice or not destroyed in one sweep, vote for Clinton..

I used to think you were just feisty and opinionated, but you've demonstrated what a vindictive, warmongering piece of garbage you truly are. Just...barf.

I like Dan Savage but I respectfully disagree. I really like Jill Stein and her policies.

Thank you to: Chrissiecrunch, Seb_Castro, & Joejava

Very sensible points

If Dan's mean tone screams insecurity to me. Did MLK need to speak that way to get people to consider the changes he wanted to see in the world?

And why oh why is this comments system so remedial?!!

Trump supporters also say a vote for Stein is a vote for Clinton. Hurling insults and derogatories because people won't support their organization (Democratic Party) instead of the one that aligns more with their principles is vain and many Stein supporters are neither Democrat or Republican to begin with. If an alternative party gets no support then it's impossible to build it for the future and we'll get the same results generation after generation. If we settle for less and fail to plant a seed for the future then policies like abolishing student debt, breaking up banks too big to fail and ridding our country of private prisons will never be implemented. If Jill Stein doesn't win this cycle she can still get up to 15 percent support which will allow her to participate in debates and gain more publicity and possibly more support especially in future elections.

Savage is an asshole and an idiot. I think I used to respect him but I can't now recall why.

I've never respected Savage much, he always struck me as a more profane but less intelligent Dr. Drew. And I've never thought much of his political engagement. This is a person whose major political contribution so far is associating a person's last name with butt fluid (to add to the hilarity, he actually thinks that mattered and we should thank him! "you're welcome America"? lol get over yourself). So it's not really a surprise to hear that his "measured and thoughtful" response to 3rd party candidates is "fuck you, fuck you all". I'll try to go thru his screed, point by point, and break it down.

"aren't allowed to hold or share political opinions" Savage swings at a point no one even said. Who said you can't hold or share opinions if you haven't run for office??? Savage should brush up on his listening skills, judging by this and how this all started, with a woman taking 1 minute to say she support Stein, and Savage spending 8 saying "fuck you" over and over.

"I'd like to see a breakdown of Green Party membership by race." Guess what Savage? The Democrats will be majority white. As will the Republicans. As will damn near any political party because guess what? The majority of this country is white. Whites, as a single "racial group", make up the largest chunk of this country, so it isn't strange to see so many white people in a political party. What is strange is the leap that this must mean, what? The Green party is "anti-black", that they exclude black people? Here's some info that matters: how many of the green party positions are supported by black people. How many have even heard of the Green party (name recognition between Clinton and Sanders was an issue too). That's what matters. People may not have heard of the Green party, due to barriers of entry, but that doesn't mean those people and that party are incompatible. So instead of taking a superficial headcount and purporting to look out for black people this way, how about showing some respect to the party (by evaluating the positions, not their racial makeup) and the people (by asking about their values, not just who they've heard of). But judging by what I've read and heard so far, respect and thoughtfulness must be like a foreign concepts to Savage.

" proud anti-vaxxer quack and sexist shitbag Dr. Jill Stein."

Here's what Stein said on vaccines "Vaccines in general have made a huge contribution to public health. Reducing or eliminating devastating diseases like small pox and polio. In Canada, where I happen to have some numbers, hundreds of annual death from measles and whooping cough were eliminated after vaccines were introduced. Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure–each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them." Wow, what a quack. Actually no, that seems reasonable. To Savage, she might as well be on the View saying vaccines cause autism.

Stein's "sexism"? She states that Clinton's vote for the Iraq War don't reflect the values of motherhood. OMG, how sexist! That really just puts women down! (wait, isn't this sexist against men by implying fatherhood isn't against war? how is this sexist against Clinton at all?) This is another example of Savage's political "contribution", recycled talking points, but hey, he added some profanity. To date Savage's major contribution to the political conversation has been name-calling.

"117 out of 520,000" I can't wait for Savage to talk about the barriers to entry nationwide, monetary support, political entrechment, eletion rules. Does Savage think there's like thousands more candidates that the Green party could run, but they aren't for sheer laziness? Maybe he could, IDK, talk to the Green party and find out why, like a thoughtful person would. I wonder if he can make a connection between people like him calling Green party candidates spoilers, saying a vote for them is a vote for the Apocyplse, saying they shouldn't be around, and their lack of representation? Did he read the email leaks about how the Dem party actively colludes to keep non-Dems out? Surely he'll consider.... No, none of that? Ok, Savage, just throw in a some profanity as you are wont to do and move one.

"actually doing the work." That's rich" The Green party is working for votes, they are putting their platform out there, aligning with the people, and hoping for the best. Savage and his ilk are the ones saying "any non-Clinton vote is a vote for Trump". Who sounds entitled again? Did Dan "fuck you if you don't vote for Clinton you've ruined the world" Savage just say "guilt trip"? Did that really just happen? He has all the self-importance and lack of self-awareness of a celebrity, but without actually being one. Amzaing.

Dr. Zaius gives us this insight from Ape Planet: "90% of America has no fucking clue who the Greens even are." And 90% will keep shying away from the Greens if people like Savage and his ape conpatriots shit on them at every turn. It's a catch 22. "You need to be popular to deserve exposure, and you aren't exposed enough to be popular!"

"I supported Sawant!" Great! Did anyone tell you a vote for Sawant is a vote for Republicans? What did you say to that? What if some people see Clinton as a "corporate-hack-o-Dem", is that okay with you Savage? you know, Savage you can support or not support whomever you want inside or outside Seattle. That's real respect by the way. Not "I respect you so I won't wear kids gloves and I'll say fuck you and your family and everyone like you who votes for your shitbag candidate".

"As for that drag-behind-a-truck thing. Yeah, I said that" Yeah, you did. And a apology is nothing if not learned from and the behavior doesn't improve. You've shown your apology was an empty as your political commentary.

"A vote for Jill Stein in 2016 is a vote for Donald Trump." Nope. logic fail. A vote for Stein is... a vote for Stein. Deal with it.

M? Ferret - First of all, not all votes are equal. I suppose a vote in Florida may carry the most weight, as that's been one of the closest states in the closest elections of late, and goes towards one of the biggest electoral prizes. Now, I suppose you could make a case that voters in safe blue states could be risking their safe blue electoral votes (although even then one would know the state to be in play before E-Day and could revise accordingly), but I can't believe anyone is serious about contesting, say, Texas.

Second, I am not a Sander supporter turned bitter. Nor am I a Greenie. I have ample reasons to be unable to vote for Mrs C on her own actions and statements, but accept that individual consciences will vary.

Third, I can do more to defeat Mr Trump as a non-Clinton voter. My opposite numbers, more or less, who cannot abide Mrs C but don't want to vote for Mr T, don't give Clinton voters the time of day, but for each non-party-liner they meet get that much closer to going rogue themselves. Which would count more, one vote for Mrs C or pulling five or six votes from Mr T to Mr J? That much I can do and still sleep at night.

Fourth, you didn't say where it would end. You're already demanding that people vote the way you want. Are you willing to swear on a stack of Mr Savage's best-sellers that you won't pop up in two months demanding that people donate to or volunteer for Mrs C (or else anyone not spending eight hours a day on Mrs C's phone bank is helping to elect Mr T), and will you stipulate now that, if you do go back on your word and later ask people to donate or volunteer, those whose arms you twisted into voting for Mrs C will be free to vote their consciences without being The Enemy? As I said before, who can agree to a demand with uncertain terms?

And, in exchange for people's overriding their consciences, will you at least offer immunity from retaliation for not supporting Mrs C (who, if Mr Gore had the soul of the tenth grade teacher who spoke to all his students as if they were in third grade, has the soul of the tenth grade student who ever since age ten has been the life and soul of student council on nothing more substantial that sheer willpower and the determination to bulldoze anyone who dared not to support her) all along? Mr Savage seems incapable of avoiding retaliation, although perhaps after the election he will be content with Lady Middleton's revenge of giving Sanders supporters a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times every day.

(I'm not reading the other comments first because I don't want to be influenced.)

Dan, I nearly always agree with you and think you present your cases and opinions very well. Not this time. This was a shitty response.

The Green Party spokesperson responded to all the points in your rant – pretty convincingly – with a minimum of snark. Your follow-up response had the following fatal flaws:

1) You seem to expect the GPUS to be holding a comparable number of elected positions as Republicans or Democrats. I don't know the size of the Green Party, but I do know it has to be a TINY fraction of either of the big two. Therefore the right metric is the percentage of offices held *proportional to the size of their party*. I am guessing that even if every single solitary member of GPUS held public offic, it would still be a tiny percentage of all available offices – and a number you would still find lacking.

So are you really trying to say you think they should not put forth a presidential candidate until their party is bigger? If so, you should have just come out and said it. Instead, what it *sounded* like you were implying is that really they should never, ever enter a race if a Republican is running, because it would hurt the Democratic candidate.

2) You used the total Republican-esque diversionary tactic of strategically dropping in totally random things you disagreed with in the GPUS platform. Your original rant had nothing to do with platform. Their response had little to do with it. If you wanted to get into the issues you disagree with them about, that should have been done in another post, or at the very least, in a separate, final, "Oh and by the way…" final paragraph.

3) You also resorted to the totally TRUMP-esque habit of snark, name-calling, sarcasm, and generally sounding like a real ass, especially in comparison to the response the GPUS gave you. And then you actually say that if they would run more local candidates, you would indeed support them. Why on God's green and verdant earth would you do that? Everything you wrote here makes it sound like you hate their guts with a fiery passion.

Did any of you people foaming at the mouth stop to think that maybe Dan talked that way because he's sick and tired of Bernie-bots who can't let go? Who continually talk as if Hilary is the devil and who are so goddam more-evolved and have no qualms telling everyone who isn't voting Green or Bernie or whatever the hell is the latest?
I have family who re-post Facebook rants from Bern-a-holics and Jesus, people, you make Don Quixote seem rational.

If you want to have viable third parties while not splitting votes you need to develop a run off election of some sort. France has a two layer voting system. The first round, vote as you see fit. The second round only the top two contenders are on the ballot. There is no risk of a minority candidate getting into power.

Granted the current major parties won't support this drastic change. This too has to start at the local level to catch on.

I will accept this explanation IF this is THE LAST TIME you DEMOCRATS ask . AND FROM HERE ON YOU WILL ALL SWITCH TO THE GREEN PARTY. DONATE, AND GO DOOR TO DOOR for the GREEN PARTY. If you won't agree to my terms why should I agree to yours?

1 Nobody in their right mind should vote for a Green candidate while Trump is on the ballot. The only anti-Trump vote (required of anybody with a brain and a conscience) is for Hillary, whatever her flaws.

2 Jill Stein should be ashamed of her pandering to anti-vaxxers and homeopathic quacks. But, I read the quote the linked article calling her an anti-vaxxer is based on. She panders to anti-vaxxers by endorsing dangerously delusional conspiracy fantasies, but to the extent that she directly addresses the safety or efficacy of vaccines, she endorses them. Exaggerating isn't nice, Dan.

3. What she says about homeopathy also falls short of providing valuable information that she knows to be true (homeopathy is bullshit that is dangerous to the extent that it encourages people to avoid real treatment), but the most substantive thing she says about it is that it hasn't been proven to be safe.

Stein isn't perfect on these points and she is pandering to the irrational faith-based/conspiracy theory beliefs of some on the left, which is just as wrong as Republicans who pander to the irrational faith-based/conspiracy theory beliefs of those on the right (global warming is a myth, pollution regulations are killing our economy, you can balance the budget by cutting taxes, etc.). However, there is no evidence in this column or the linked article that she is an anti-vaxxer or an advocate of homeopathy.

To me, that's important as I think real ant-vaccination physicians should be tested for mental defects and, if they are found to have normal brain function (no excuse), should be dumped in a latrine pit, doused with diesel and lit on fire. (No, not really, but it's fun to say.)

LavaGirl @107, Trump would certainly try to undermine our system of democracy, but I doubt he'd get far. We have strong democratic institutions and, even if Republicans in the House and Senate blocked Democratic efforts to prevent him from destroying our democracy, I think most Republican-appointed judges would support their democratic peers in finding almost everything Trump wants to do illegal and/or unconstitutional.

Most important of all, I'm still convinced he has no chance of being elected. The more scrutiny is given to his complete unsuitability and Clinton's alleged crimes, the more people will realize that the former is real and the latter are not.

But, I'm generally an optimist.

@122 interesting that you invoke "Bernie-bots" since, as the DNC email dump reveals, it is H-bomb who employed people to engage Sanders supporters on social media

@126 pandering to homeopathic quacks will result in fewer innocent deaths than the ongoing drone campaign, or the continued destabilization of sovereign governments via abusive US policies, or catastrophic weather events caused by climate change, all of which would be furthered by HRC. But hey all of those things will primarily affect brown people outside our borders rather than gullible white shitheads who have never suffered the ravages of preventable disease.

@81:

Your party certainly isn't winning many elections, or frankly doing much of anything at all - and definitely NOT fielding candidates - so by those standards you're not a success either...

@100:

If GP members were winning even a marginal number of those non-partisan races, they'd be posting to that effect on their website, as they've done with the smattering of NP seats they have won to-date, which leads me to conclude they haven't won any more than the handful already listed, and by which in turn it would logically follow they haven't probably haven't run candidates in more than a fraction of a percentage of those 300,000 NP offices. And this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that, because citing party membership is, by definition, verboten in NP races, most voters would have no idea of the political party affiliation of those candidates, and so again it would be logical to assume that factor would have very little, if any, influence on how they vote.

@129: To use about the highest estimate possible, American drone strikes kill maybe 100, maybe 200 civilians a year. (The actual death toll is almost certainly lower.) Measles alone kills over 100,000 people per year, and it's entirely preventable through vaccination. The ONLY reason we don't have loads of deaths from it here in the USA is because we force vaccination on our kids.
You are disconnected from reality.

This might be the first article I've read that calls for FEWER voices to be heard in an election that wasn't printed in Russian or Korean. The almost unfathomable depths of ignorance displayed here are, sadly, self-evident so there's little need for a point-by-point rebuttal. I'm glad you could man-splain to everyone how a third party "should" go about operating.

There is no possible way to build a viable third party in a two-party system. Nevertheless, the Green Party has fought tooth and nail with essentially no resources against the two-party system simply by dint of existing as a third party. Same goes for the Libertarian party. Why we don't have a parliamentary system to break up the two parties and actually give some reasonable measure of choice in a country that believes it's the bastion of democracy to this very day is anyone's guess. The ugly truth is that this position, that the green party ought not to exist because it harms the Democrats to have competition, might be "pragmatic" in the moment but in the long run it hurts choice and it means you have two shitty status-quo parties that are complicit in the pocket-picking and leg-breaking of the American people rather than parties that are fairly elected.

A green party candidate will almost certainly lose any election, not because they do not have good ideas but rather, because "Green Party" is attached to their name, so people won't vote for them because they assume they will never win. Well, why is that? Because the system we have now ensures that it is so. The Green Party will always fail because the general public always assumes it will, so there's no point in voting for it if it will fail anyways. Better to stick with the Democrats because then you have a chance of winning, because other people believe Dems have a chance of winning. It has nothing to do with whether or not their ideas are good or whether or not many people agree with them and everything to do with electoral realpolitik. Where has that led us? Ask Trump.

@133 I disagree. There's an easy way for them to win. Vote for them. So simple.

As usual, an attack on a third party that completely neglects to mention the PECF, GEF, much less the function of the electoral college. Dan Savage I know you're smarter than you are angry, but god damn you're bad at showing it lately.

@ 134, progressives, in the broadest application of the term, are a minority constituency in this country. The good news is that the same can be said of any other ideologically-based constituency. The bad news is that the Greens can only appeal to progressives. Therefore, if we all "simply" vote Green, we still lose. Because nobody else will.

@ 135, Dan is being pragmatic here. Everyone knows about those flaws, but we also know nothing is going to change any time soon, never mind by November. So there's no point in discussing that. We have to effect change with the tools at hand, not the ones we wish we had.

I would say that Green Party supporters have gone off their meds, but that would imply that homeopathy actually works.

@134 I am under the same incentives as any other voter. I agree with a third party candidate more than I agree with either of the two mainstream candidates. However, I also know that Dan Savage is right even if he is being as petulant and insufferable as the people he's bitching about. The green party will not win this election. There's not even a little chance that they will. They haven't built up local support, they haven't proven themselves locally. However, there's not really a way to do that, either, unless people believe it's possible for you to win, and people don't believe it's possible for the Green party to win. If they did, then there would be a chance, but they don't, so there isn't. It sucks but that's the way it is.

If I voted green I would be throwing my vote in the trash. Now, I personally think that voting for Hillary Clinton has all the joy and appeal of getting a root canal while being neutered without anaesthetic by a young Helen Keller armed with a power saw, but I know that there's no way around it, it's just a bitter pill that yes, I have to swallow if I don't want Trump. Why? Because other people like me hate Hillary Clinton's guts viscerally and abidingly but unlike me they hate Trump just a teensy tiny bit less than they hate her, so he gets it, and then everyone is fucked.

If everyone does end up fucked by Trump, well, to be honest, we'll have deserved it, but if anyone asks, I'd rather just say I didn't vote for him and move on. America is in the process of being sodomized with a telephone pole, and so long as it's happening anyways, I'd rather we minimized the number of splinters we got, even if I sincerely believe that Hillary Clinton will sell our future. Maybe when she sells the futures of her supporters and reassures us that it's okay that we're all eating shit because she doesn't mind if we're queer or POC or women like her, we'll wise up. Until then, eat it up America.

If Bernie had joined the Greens, however... that would be a different story. It would still split the vote but in four years' time the Green Party would suddenly be a viable player and things would change. He would have made good on his promises to continue the revolution

But he didn't, so we're stuck with it being once again funneled back into the Democratic party like always. Trump is the true revolutionary, it's just that his revolution would suck even more than the status quo. Who knows? Maybe he'll get it and we'll get to watch things fall apart for four years. Maybe Hillary will get it and we'll have four years of tension and unpleasantries of more familiar stripe. It's anyone's game at this point, and by anyone's I mean not ours.

Thank you Dan! I realize now, after 16 years of being a registered Green party member (although mostly voting Democrat out of necessity, such as I will do in Nov), that they have done nothing to build their movement. In that time, I've gotten 1 letter from them about a community Green meeting, in the early aughts. No follow-up outreach about volunteering for campaigns, donating money, etc. I want there to be more 3rd party options, but sadly I think I just need to switch to 'other' for my voter registration.

What a load of shit. Hillary gets nominated through a questionable process that leaves quite a few people feeling left out and shit on by the DNC, yet this jackass still expects people to support the Dems. What a complete idiot. And, Savage you dumb crumb of a man, people have been voting for greens for years in local elections. At first I thought that you couldn't be that stupid, just ignorant. But nope, you are that stupid. I'll say it right here, if Trump gets elected, it's not because people didn't vote for Hillary, it's because the god damn Democratic party doesn't stand for shit anymore and there are too many people just blindly following them like fucking puppies.

Dan, for someone who claims to know what he is talking about, you would have to be a blind moron to call Jill Stein a " proud anti-vaxxer quack and sexist shitbag", when she was never anti-vaccine, you can look to her Reddit AMA for recent evidence of that, and there was nothing sexist about what Jill said about Hillary.

Hillary is someone who pushed for the welfare reform bill, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, a bill that kicked out many MINORITIES, and 70% of those kicked off were CHILDREN, and many, if not most of those people are still struggling, and more people are struggling today for a bigger portion of their lives than those people kicked off in 1996 were. She also voted for a border fence in 2006, explaining in 2015: ""I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in."

What about her support for the coups in Honduras and Libya? The immigrant deportations of many of those families, including children, affected after those coups went south? What about the drone strikes in Yemen and elsewhere?

That is, of course, how a parent looks after their children, Dan, right?

You are ignoring the fact that the Green Party has had a mainstream media blackout by the two major parties, and the Greens do not accept corporate donations, do you realize how much that sets them back? What do you need to get televised coverage, the most important form of political coverage even in today's day and age? That's right, big money. They need to run presidential candidates to help out the ballot access efforts of lesser offices. Abby Martin was illegally assaulted and arrested two days ago at the DNC even though she followed police orders, why? Because the DNC as well as the RNC still have that blacklist for people they do not want at their conventions or debates, just like Nader in 2000, going to a remote screening of the debates, with a ticket, being threatened with arrest. He told the officers that using the state police in that way was illegal. That was why Jill Stein was arrested in 2012, brought to a room, handcuffed to a chair with her running mate, surrounded by police and secret service, detained for hours until the press left. It is a miracle that the Greens survived for this long, because as you should know, many other third-parties of past died out faster.

Yet again, there you go bringing up the hero Ralph Nader, who did not cost Al Gore the election, nor did the NINE other candidates with more votes than the 537 margin between Al Gore and George W. Bush in the state of Florida. I would say the 308K+ registered Democrats who voted for Bush in Florida helped Bush get elected. The fact that this is always brought up is redundant, and it calls for boring talks and writings. This is for you, Dan: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/6/…

@49 partysandy
For those of you who are still on the Iraq war that Obama ended up continuing and expanding on anyway, amongst many other wars, the Iraq war was inevitable, regardless. Use Google.

As for you Dan, for someone who claims to know what you are talking about, and speaks so strongly for what you are talking about, you are rather misinformed on many things.

Instead of bitching about third-parties, push your legislature for ranked-choice voting, they can pass it quickly. Jill Stein's campaign filed that bill in 2002 when she was running against Mitt Romney, and the Democrats buried it.

http://www.fairvote.org/

@26 Bravo. All Bernie or Bust's go to this entry. Soak it in, cause you need to trust something as truth, swallow pride and push Clinton to the left. My simple idea is just to go out and demand that Sanders become senate majority leader. That post would serve us better than having him remain just a senior senator from VT. Schumer is rumored to be the next maj. leader for the dems. Oh and go out and defeat the Republican incumbent senators. Easy Peezy.

Nowhere in the link provided did she say she was against vaccines.

I'm over the "vote for us or evil people will take office" mentality.

I want a third party. The Middle Way is broken, rife with corruption and cronyism, and doesn't represent my political values.

Are they closer than the far right? Yes. Is the Democratic Party a Centrist organization? Yes.

Move the platform left, or lose my vote. Reform ballot access or lose my vote.
Stop bullying me into voting for the lesser of two evils.

@147: The platform moved left, and all you BoB types immediately threw a shit fit that you didn't get everything you ever demanded (because this is how political compromise works).
Demanding further concessions as a response to being thrown a bone is the tactic of House Republicans. Don't stoop to it.

The links intended to show that Stein is anti-vaccine, pro-homeopathic, and sexist actually show nothing of the kind, and in fact Stein's measured, detailed remarks on the Reddit AMA suggest the exact opposite. Savage blithely accepts the conclusions of the writer of the linked article, which are a completely inversion of the actual substance of Stein's comments.

The rest of Savage's miserable rebuttal is pure childishness and raw anger. When he isn't lying, he's pouting and whining.

I'm going to vote for Clinton, but it isn't because Jill Stein has heinous positions - she doesn't. Savage has a lot to answer for here. The only appropriate response would be a re-read of Stein's Reddit comments that he gleefully misrepresents and subsequent apology.

The Green Party can't build a viable third party because every time they run someone people insist they're throwing their vote away by voting for them, no matter how far down the ticket they are.

I live in MN and I voted for the MN Independence Party (not the same as the U.S. Independence Party) gubernatorial candidate in the mid-terms. Her name is Hannah Nicollet and no one ever even heard of her or her positions because she polled so low she couldn't even get on the debate stage!

I will argue vehemently with you that supporting a presidential candidate is a great idea because enough support=debate presence which is how the lower-level contenders get known by the public. That's why I'm thinking of supporting Gary Johnson. We need someone in the middle or this country will be ripped apart. Hillary is not the way to go for unity.

@145:

Sanders will never become SML. Even if the Democrats take control of the Senate in November, Sanders will be returning with a big "I" next to his name, and there is simply no chance that the Dem Caucus will elect someone not from their own party to that position, particularly after going mano a mano with their preferred presidential candidate.

@150:

Voting third party in down-ballot races CAN be effective; the fact that the Libertarians and Greens have actually had some very modest successes at that level is evidence that it is at least feasible. But, their biggest problem is their inability to field anything close to a full slate of candidates at any level. Imagine if Greens and Libs ran candidates for ALL Seattle City Council races, for example. That would help boost their name recognition, get their candidates out in front of the voting public, allow them to articulate their platforms, and begin to lay the groundwork for other candidates farther up the ticket. But that's not what they do. Instead, their approach seems very scattershot: a candidate here, a candidate there, spread over hundreds, if not thousands of contests, which makes it impossible for any more than a handful of them to gain traction. It's not just about having good ideas, it's about having enough people expressing those ideas to grab voters' attention; and to-date none of the third parties in this country seem to have made that a priority.

Dan is right. I know that folks hate Hillary Clinton, but do they really want to risk Donald Trump being in office? Is Having Clinton as president really no different than having Trump as president?

>complains about jill stein being sexist
>links to a blog wearing a misogynistic slur in their name

k

Without 34 Green Party Senators to protect her, how would a President Stein fend off removal from office by impeachment and conviction in the Senate?

Should Michael Moore be correct and Donald a Trump is elected, he has the same issue. Even if the Republicans keep the Senate, there are a significant number of Republican Senators who would join a move to oust Trump - Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio (if he wins), John McCain, and Mike Lee. Evenagelical Christians in the South might support removal to get Mike Pence.

Sure, impeachment is supposed to be based on crimes and facts, but that's theoretical

The Presidency is not a lifetime achievement award bestowed by the electorate. Clearly, the sociopaths running for it think it is. Both the current candidates emphasize their entitlement to the job. I suggest that no one vote for the person. Instead, visualize the nation after the election under each candidate. Either Trump or Clinton will be President with 100% certainty. Based on their own words, not what others say about those words, which world do you want your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to live in? I do not think your vote should reward or punish a candidate. It should reward (or punish) the nation.

Stick to writing about things you know, Dan. You obviously know nothing about politics if you think a Vote for A is a vote for C. Now, Granted, this may have actually been the case in Florida 2000, with the ballot controversy. But you know what, Dan? Democrats forfeited the right to pretend they're the spokesparty of the dispossessed when they chose National Unity with the GOP over the voting rights of what they obviously view to be "their" pocket constituency: Black Americans.

First of all, Dan there is the issue of the contempt your party has for progressives and the Left in general. This contempt was made explicit by the party boss known as Rahm Emanuel who famously cursed the left as "fucking idiots" when they didn't fall in line behind the DNC's rebranding of Bush's corporatist domestic and interventionist foreign policies under the "New Management" of the Obama administration.

Fuck your party, Dan. We are not your party's personal constituency that can be ordered about the way some sort of robber baron would order his serfs.

You are old enough to remember the scrubbing of voter rolls which occurred in the run up to that election, Dan. You are also old enough to remember the fact that Gore and Lieberman (who, I might add was a vocal supporter of the War that you and your party claim was "Bush's" illegal war - not to mention the fact that Lieberman threw his endorsement to McCain (further proof of the Green thesis that there is essentially only a UniParty or a single party State with two Potemkin parties put up as false "opposition" to each other.

You are also old enough to remember that when it came down to the proverbial "brass tacks" Gore and his campaign choose to unite with the GOP in the name of "national unity" rather than to actively fight for the right of black people to vote and have those votes counted.

Instead of blaming Greens for your party's dismal showing in 2000, you would do well to look at your own party leadership. The number of votes by which Gore lost in Florida was considerably less than the number of black Floridians who were disenfranchised by one of the UniParty's dirty tricks teams.

If the Democrats were as interested in fighting for the rights of "their" voters as they are in scapegoating Greens for their failures, perhaps Democrats would not be in such miserable shape that a party which polls a mere 5 percent can act as the "spoiler" which you and others deep in the DNC pocket allege it to be.

Here's some relevant quotes lest some of your younger members be confused by your lack of forthrightness on this matter of "spoilers" in Florida:

"Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. For the sake of our unity and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. In one of God's unforeseen paths, this belatedly broken impasse can point us all to a new common ground, for its very closeness can serve to remind us that we are one people with a shared destiny."

Al Gore
Concession speech in Washington DC Dec 13, 2000

So, just to recap that quote: Gore chose unity with the very same GOP which worked to actively undermine democracy, by systematically purging blacks from voter rolls, but Gore choose to align himself with JIM CROW in the name of (wait for it - you can't make this up!) "The Strength of our Democracy." (The one that doesn't allow blacks to vote, you see).

THIS is what Your party represents, Dan.

You said nothing Dan. When they came for the black voters you, like Pastor Niemoeller, said nothing. You and your party seem to imagine that Black voters have no alternative and so you don't really have to represent their interests. This is why Obama has been able to wage systematic class war against the African American community with nary a peep from the likes of you or any of the party shills.

While the Greens are building a real alternative, you're still busy peddling the tired old Senator from WalMart who never met a military dictatorship (Honduras, Egypt) that she didn't approve of.

Here's more relevant quotes, Dan:

Jesse Jackson: Blacks were disproportionately disenfranchised
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, claiming “a clear pattern of voter suppression of African-American votes,” wants the Justice Department to begin a formal investigation in Florida. “African-Americans were targeted to be disenfranchised,” he said yesterday at a news conference in Tallahassee, Fla. Jackson said a protest organized by civil rights groups and the AFL-CIO is planned for Wednesday outside the Florida State House in Tallahassee.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that its computer analysis found the more black and Democratic a precinct, the more likely a high number of presidential votes were not counted. About 2.9 percent of Florida’s presidential ballots, roughly 180,000, were not counted because no candidate was chosen, two candidates were picked, or a ballot was not clearly marked. Traditionally, 2 percent of ballots cast nationwide do not record a presidential vote. In Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county, roughly 3 percent of ballots were excluded from the presidential tally. But in precincts with a black population of 70 percent or more, about 10 percent were not counted.

Source: Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press, in Boston Globe, pg. A10 Dec 4, 2000

@131 You're assuming that Jill Stein would try to convince the nation to stop vaccinating its children. She would not, nor could she. Most parents aren't that stupid.

Conversely, no amount of logic, reasoning, or statistics will convince some crackpot parents from to vaccinate their children, which they obviously can't be forced to do or we wouldn't be discussing it.

Might I also point out that drone deaths of civilians are even more preventable than measles deaths? If the USA would stop fucking over other countries, it wouldn't need to resort to such a chicken shit tactic to kill the very extremists this creates.

why does Dan Savage even bother, why not just put "DNC" in the byline? The Stranger has become a joke.

Has Dan always been a caustic queen?