The same thing happened with Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in 1912. A lot of Republicans left to join Roosevelt, then when the campaign was over he told them to go crawling BACK to the Republican Party!

As Gene Debs said, “I would not lead you into the Promised Land if I could—for if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you back out again.”

Stewart A. Alexander
Socialist Party USA Nominee for Vice President
and candidate for nomination by Peace and Freedom Party

In recent days, ABC in a debate of the candidates excluded Dennis Kucinich from participating in the national television debate of the Democrats while including Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. ABC-Disney is the same outfit that is seeking to destroy the lives and living conditions of the striking writers of the Writers Guild of America. These media monopolies are again showing their true colors.

On the other hand, the Fox News Channel “Fair and Balance” is excluding Ron Paul from the final debate among Republicans before the New Hampshire primary although he received 10% of the vote in the Iowa primary which was much larger that Rudy Giuliani.

These corporate manipulated debate rules are yet another example about why the U.S. elections are being systematically rigged to benefit the corporate rulers. The Peace and Freedom Party and Socialist Party USA, both socialist parties, believes that all qualified candidates should get equal time on the television and radio networks and that this should be provided without any cost. The air waves are public resources and should not be used by the corporate rulers to continue their rigging of the U.S. election.

I also believe that the systemic problems in the U.S. electoral system will only be resolved when we have a mass working class socialist alternative that will equalize not only the election crisis but expose the fact that both the Democrats and Republicans are responsible for this criminal war in the Middle East, the financial rip-off of millions of working people and the destruction of our education, housing and social system in the United States.

The people of the United States deserve a real choice not determined by union busters, profiteers and the corporate control media that is out of control.

I was very against the idea of Libertarians and Greens, who stand diametrically opposed on most issues (especially economic issues), endorsing a candidate together, but I am interested in hearing what others think about Zeese’s strategy.

As far as the Moore/Alexander ticket goes, I think it would make perfect sense for the PFP in California to nominate them, and I have no idea why the PFP has (to my knowledge) never nominated the candidates of the Socialist Party for president and VP.

Either way, I’m sure the Moore/Alexander ticket will (based on the enthusiasm for it that I’ve seen on the internet) do a lot to rebuild the Socialist Party at the grassroots level, which is of course one of the major reasons for running a third party presidential campaign in the first place. It’s an absolutely golden publicity opportunity that only comes once every four years. Since most voters pay little attention to any electoral activity EXCEPT at the presidential level, it’s important IMHO for third parties to participate in the electoral arena at all levels – presidential, state, and local – simultaneously, in order to reach out to as many people as possible.

Let us not forget here that “winning” in this case is a very long term proposition, on the order of decades. The influence, for example, that the Libertarian Party has on American politics now is unbelievably substantial, far more than could have been predicted 35 years ago when it was founded, and this is without winning any races higher than the Alaska state house.

The token candidates have to do with party building by the way.

This sounds like practical advice, but it actually contradicts the reason why any small party runs hopeless candidates in the first place. Although socialists and radicals (we call the latter Greens today) share many positions on specific issues of the day, they do so from very different points of view. Getting the socialist message heard is just as important as getting the radical message heard. For the same reason that Greens should not submerge their message in tactical support for Democrats, the Socialist and Peace and Freedom parties should not submerge their message in tactical support for Greens.

Having said that, I think that running real candidates for local office is a lot more important than running token candidates for President or Senator. The Greens are at the point where they can do that (Libertarians to lesser extent) and are having some success. At present, the various socialist parties mostly are not at that point.

Unintended consequences of IWW [Wobblies Union], WWI draft resisters, and Mister Debbs: [Alphabet soup] Both the ACLU and the FBI were founded in these time[s].

Of course the strongest candidate for President backed by the Socialist Party was Sen. Robert M LaFollette in 1924, who received nearly 17% of the vote, and carried Wisconsin. Perhaps the strategy of a coalition effort, with ideological parties backing a more moderate candidate, could work for todays alternative parties.