Looking Ahead to the 2004 National Conventions

Re “Political Fireworks Possible in 2004,” Opinion, Nov. 30: I’m most intrigued that Republican Kevin Phillips would suggest that Democrats nominate Al Gore if there’s a deadlocked convention. But Phillips’ description of Gore as ineffective during the Florida recount is wrong. Gore did all he could, short of starting a civil war to defend our democracy against George W. Bush’s attack in Florida.

In suggesting a comparison between Gore and Andrew Jackson, Phillips fails to point out that Jackson had the full support of his party’s leadership to run again in 1828. The outrage over the stolen 1824 election was so great that it led to the structural founding of the Democratic Party at the national level.

With its refusal to defend our right to vote by supporting Gore running again in 2004, the current leadership of the Democratic Party is betraying its very founding and is once again disenfranchising grass-roots Democrats who overwhelmingly support Gore and who remain outraged over Bush’s theft of the 2000 election.

Nancy E. Kuhn

Scottsdale, Ariz.

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I found Phillips’ column about his hypothesized Democratic convention flawed. The analysis required a straw man, which always leads to unsupported conclusions. He appears to have thought up an Al Gore-Howard Dean ticket and sat down to figure out how that could happen. It isn’t an approach that leads to enlightening analysis.

I think the Democratic field is still wide open, and this kind of attempt to “nail it down” prematurely does not help foster the necessary debate.

Leslie Rasmussen

Pasadena

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Phillips rightly notes that Republican delegates should expect drama when they pitch their tent in Madison Square Garden next summer. I am a veteran of GOP conventions who has been attending meetings of a broad coalition that is planning demonstrations during the Republican National Convention. If the coalition is successful, the demonstrators may eclipse the hundreds of thousands who, like me, marched in the bitter cold last February to protest the then-looming war in Iraq.

Groups from ACORN (the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to United for Peace and Justice are coming together to send a message to the world. In addition to opposing the Iraq occupation and the assault on civil liberties, they are outraged by the scheduling of the convention less than two weeks before the third anniversary of 9/11. I will add my voice and again take to the streets with my fellow New Yorkers as we push back against this transparent attempt to exploit Americans’ pain and sense of community for partisan advantage.

Faye M. Anderson

Brooklyn, N.Y.

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After reading “Dean Ruled From the Fiscal Center in Vermont” and Ronald Brownstein’s “Snowballing Debt Awaits Tomorrow’s Taxpayers” (Dec. 1), I think the Democratic primary and the 2004 presidential election should be a no-brainer for the fiscal moderates and conservatives -- young, middle-aged and elderly -- of both parties.

Hortense Friedman

Sherman Oaks