Greens Are Spoilers When Winner Takes All

Quite possibly the most moronic and self-defeating phenomenon in politics today is the Green Party. These seem like people who remain relentlessly confident that biting off your nose to spite your face is progressive politics. After successfully giving us George W. Bush’s victory in the last election (Ralph: Do you still think that there’s no difference between Bush and Al Gore?) they have set their sights on a new debacle--eliminating Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone. This is despite the fact that Wellstone is possibly the most left-wing and environmentally friendly candidate in American politics and that the Democratic Senate majority is a razor-thin one seat.

One might understand the persistence of the Green Party if its candidates had a snowball in hell’s chance of winning, but they don’t. The difference between a parliamentary system of government, such as is found in Germany, and our winner-take-all system seems vastly beyond their intellect.

I consider myself a left-wing environmentalist--the natural constituency of the Greens, and indeed I used to be a financial supporter of them. But I now despise them. They are a cancer on progressive politics.

Gerald Kamin

Sherman Oaks