Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [86]
So, what do we do? The Greens are in much better shape when it comes to true commitment and passion, but let’s be honest—this is not the year of the Greens (and even the Greens know it).
The Democrats wasted two years whining and moaning about the Greens, declaring Nader and Co. the enemy. That’s the sure sign of a real loser—blame somebody else for your mistakes.
In an attempt to rebuild some bridges and mend the wounds of 2000, I have reached out to Democratic leaders in an attempt to forge a Democratic-Green alliance for 2004. The combined vote for Gore and Nader was over 51 percent, enough to win any election. I have suggested to Democrats that Greens may back a Democratic candidate for president who supports the essential elements of the Green agenda, and in turn Democrats should vote for Greens in districts where Democrats are not fielding a real candidate for Congress.
I have found few takers on this offer. In fact, what I discovered was even worse: Democratic Party leaders have told me something that they will not admit in public—that they have basically written off 2004; that they see little chance of defeating George W. Bush. They would rather save their energies for 2008 when Hillary or one of their bigger marquee names—whoever the hell that may be—will run and win.
You and I have to reject the defeatist nature of these sad, impotent Democrats. In truth, this is not their decision to make. We, the people, cannot endure another four years of Karl Rove’s finger puppet. And we cannot wait around for the so-called opposition party—the Democrats—to get off their ass and do their job.
So what do we do? One thing we know is that people will vote for an independent candidate, as Jesse Ventura has shown us. Perot did incredibly well—imagine what a sane person could do! But we don’t have the time in the next few months to mount a serious third party challenge. That work should have been done in the last two years. It wasn’t. Time’s up.
Our only hope is to get someone semi-decent on that disgustingly smug and totally unjustified Democratic line that sits on the ballot in all fifty states. And it must be someone who can beat Bush.
Now, there are two “seemingly” decent people officially running as I write this book—Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean. Kucinich is by far the better candidate on the issues. Dean, who has in past elections been endorsed by the NRA and is for limited use of the death penalty, is strong on many other issues. I would like to believe that one of them could pull it off.
But I’m tired of always being in this spot—and I’m not alone. Just for once, wouldn’t it be nice to win, especially considering how liberal most Americans are? It’s time to start thinking outside the tiny box that exists in our minds. For starters, let’s stop believing the president has to be a white guy. White guys are a shrinking minority in this country—making up just 38 percent of voters. Plus, as I’ve pointed out before, all the Democrats who’ve won the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt (with the exception of Lyndon Johnson’s landslide in 1964) have won by losing the white male vote. They won by getting an overwhelming number of white women and black and Hispanic men and women to vote for them.
If the Democrats would stop watering down their beliefs to appeal to all the dumb white guys out there, they’d win. Women of all colors are 53 percent of the electorate. Black and Hispanic men make up nearly 8 percent of the vote. That means that women and these minority men represent about 60 percent of the entire nation, an overwhelming majority and a powerful winning combination.
Americans are ready for a female president. How about one of our woman governors or senators running for president? The voters want to vote for women—we have gone from having only two women to fourteen women in the U.S. Senate in a little more than a decade. The electorate is fed up with the same old tired men who look like a bunch of hustlers and liars. Isn’t there one woman of the 66 million voting-age women in this country who could beat