Article: This Revolution Could Be Televised on Fox

In many states, first of all (CA, NH, VA, MA, and SC, for instance), you don’t need to be registered in a party to vote in that party’s primary. But even in those states like my own Pennsylvania, where you do need to be registered in a party to vote in its primary, it is an easy thing to re-register in time to qualify for the primary. Just check with your voter registrar and learn the deadline. Then, after you’ve voted, just quit again. The same for party caucuses. Those who are elected to positions like county committeeperson should stay in the party, where they can try (good luck!) to make change.

The important thing is those mass quit events.

The other thing I hear is the argument that people should not be just urged to quit; they should be urged to join a third party.

I disagree. As soon as you start trying to get agreement about joining a third party, you are introducing division into a movement that should be narrowly focused on the two issues of getting the Democrats, now, to end funding for the war and to initiate impeachment hearings. Anything else is a diversion.

Besides, getting significant numbers of progressive-minded people to cut their ties to the Democratic Party offers the potential of creating a new base out of which a genuine mass party of the left might come. The first step though, is for all of us, who have been tethered to the Democratic Party for most of our adult lives, to cut the leash.

If desperate Democratic officials respond by according us the same attention and support that they regularly accord to hedge fund managers and health insurance companies, if they meet our demands to end the war and defend the Constitution, so be it. Maybe we will back them in November ‘08.

If they don’t, then we’re free to go somewhere else, or to found a new party.

One thing is clear: If we don’t do this, we will no longer live in a democratic state. We will live in a one-party state.
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DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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