But I dont' see a vote for Nader as being non-pragmatic. For progressives, voting for Nader or Cobb is pragmatic, because we know, if we can get enough of the national vote (even a measley 7% between Nader and Cobb) to spoil the election for the Democrats, they will HAVE to abandon the New Democrat strategy.

Problem with most people is they think in the short term, and only in terms of this election. I don't see that much will change, despite the philosophical and policy differences between Kerry and Bush, in the next four years under Kerry. Kerry isn't willing to go far enough to dismantle the Reagan Revolution to have any real effect on the country and the future of the Democratic party.

I don't support Nader to try and gain some nebulous moral high ground. My purpose for supporting Nader is completely practical: I want to get rid of the New Democrats more than I want to get rid of Old Republicans this year. Voting for Nader or Cobb is the only way to get rid of the New Clinton Democrats, and steal the Democratic party back from the corporate elite who are running it into the ground. It's the traditional constituencies of the Democratic party that need to be energized, not the middle class checkbook liberals.

Michael Moore knows who the people in those constituencies are, because he comes from one of them, which is why any ticket to an event with him this week is the hottest ticket in town. He only has a high school diploma, but he was voted onto the Flint school board at age 18.

Who are those traditional constituencies?

A third are in their teens or twenties. Nearly six in ten have a high school degree or less. Twenty-eight percent are African American or Hispanic. And 57 percent are women.

A whopping 72 percent of those whose record indicates they won't vote in November — despite the fact that they're registered to vote — think the country is on the wrong track. They prefer Kerry over President Bush by 54 percent to 30 percent. But, of course, this won't matter if Kerry can't convince them to come to the polls and actually vote.

They are the crucial bloc for a new prgressive coalition that I keep talking about. They have no time for the disingenuous, tired old New Leftie checkbook liberals, who have treated them like shit while exploiting them and their votes to line their leftie pockets. They are contemptuous of the New Left liberal unions who have done nothing for them. They are contemptuous of the meritocracy that keeps the high school educated, regardless of how smart, talented, ambitious, and competent they are, out of the good jobs, and out of the political process. They absolutely detest the media whores, probably more than anybody. They thumb their noses at sneering "middle class nice" values (even the college educated kids who are children of that class!) that flushed them and their families down into the sewers of the Wal Mart economy with their multi-culti boho shows, their "welfare reform" and "workers compensation reform" and "health care reform" and "better wages" lies that devastated the working class in this country.

Michael Moore has touched THEIR nerve with his chutzpah, if not the actual content of the film. Because they know that the entire veneer of "normal" in our society is a crock of shit. They know the media lies to them all the time. They know that the politicians lie to them, and try and sell them a bill a goods all the time. They know that the New Left liberals are sneering at them, looking down their noses at the unwashed masses of them with their high school diplomas and GEDs, and perpetual on the job training that lasts a couple years until the next recession hits and they get laid off from their "promised land" secure jobs.

There are at least two pragmatic models for building a coalition in a time of need. One is to promote the politics of fear and scarcity. The politics of culture wars and racial animosity. The Republican party focuses on the same group I have mentioned both in this thread and in this post above. That group includes the dispossessed working class that leans progressive and the dispossessed working class that leans conservative. The Republicans make their appeals to those who are dissatisfied with their lives in some way and, rather than seek true causes, choose to blame gays (if you are a minority), women (all races), and minorities (if you are white).

Progressive coalition building also focuses on that group of dispossessed poor and working poor, but instead of appealing to their fears and feelings of impoverished disempowerment, shows them there is a better way of life ahead if they are just willing to get on the progressive train and work for positive change for a better future, instead of reverting to and entrenching themselves in the negative, impoverishing traditions of the past.

Hell, even the DLCDNC paid lipservice to the progressive tradition in it's platitudes this week, even though we could tell their words rang hollow.

Like I said, "Hope is on the way" coming from the national Democratic DLC party sounds too much like "The check is in the mail". Non-voters know that it will take a whole lot more than empty campaign promises and pretty rich white boy convention speechifying before they will climb on board ANYBODY'S train.