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There is no progressive third party in this country with a chance of winning national elections on any kind of effective scale. None. A third party can have the best ideas in the world, but if they are unable to translate a single one into legislation, they're worth my work but they're not worth my vote in the general election, barring IRV. Good ideas are nice, but good actions are better--most good third party candidates will sadly never have the chance to put their ideas into action.
It's true there are some unsavory characters in this new Democratic majority. There are people who are not very progressive, are mealy-mouthed, are beholden to banks, corporations, and all sorts of other bad influences. But there exists an elected minority within this new majority that is -very- progressive. Kucinich, Feingold, Conyers, Sanders, Boxer--you all know these names, and most share their values. Their power to turn ideas into action has just been increased exponentially by the simple virtue of more Ds replacing Rs. The Ds this year are in every case superior to the R they've replaced, but even those who may seem insignificantly different to you have increased the power of each and every liberal/progressive congressperson you treasure. The most consistent period of modern legislated progressive thinking in this country was during the New Deal, but like it or not this would have been impossible without some truly racist and deplorable Democrats from the "Solid South."
You can't have party purity. If we were to only identify progressives as party members, we would have the same division of Congress we have now only with the majority left/moderates divided and the unified minority Republicans holding all the committee chairmanships. Pat Roberts -quashed- investigations into intelligence for both 9/11 and the Iraq war. Singlehandedly, despite a mandate from the people, he quashed it. After 1994 Congress took 140 hours of trivial Clinton testimony while testimony on intelligence/defense failures leading up to the Iraq disaster was given only 20. This is the power of committee chairmanship. This is the power of simply having more people who identify together as a party.
If we did insist on litmus test progressivism for party membership, we'd have all the same heroic Dems up there, they'd just have a lot less power. A moderate or even conservative Dem increases the legislative power of a progressive, liberal Dem. I'm all for electing liberals and progressives wherever we can, but when we can't, just remember that moderate candidate doesn't go up there in isolation--the D next to his or her name does a lot of good all by itself. Kucinich, Conyers and Feingold can now bring legislation to the floor, hold important committee chairs, and enact their ideas. If they were all alone in a party of pure progressives, they would still have all the great ideas, they just wouldn't be able to do anything with them.
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