What no one anywhere seems to have noticed, even within the Nader campaign (since it wasn't mentioned above), is that Nader/Gonzalez was the only "top tier" non-major party ticket that improved on its performance over 2004. Ralph got 55% more votes in 2008 than in 2004 (724,947 vs. 465,650, and that doesn't even include all the write-ins and provisionals yet to be counted) and a 50% improvement in his percentage of the total (0.57% vs. 0.38%). Both of these stats undoubtedly won't mean anything to all-or-nothing, win-or-lose, 3rd-party-candidates-are-a-wasted-vote people, but in a year that was just horrible for everybody who didn't have the letter "D" after his or her name, they are not insignificant.

This is incredibly sad. Peter Camejo's commitment to social justice and the radical reform of the two-party system goes back many decades. I remember when he was the presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party in 1976, and his vote total that year was the highest ever received by an SWP presidential candidate. Even after he left that group and moderated his socialist views, he continued to be a powerful mouthpiece for change, especially in California where he did as much as anybody to help the Green Party with his well-publicized runs for governor. Most recently, his devotion to Ralph Nader's causes and campaigns over the last five years or so was incredibly steadfast and he was a terrific running mate in 2004. To think of how many people in the Hispanic and other communities became interested in socialism, or the Green Party, or the idea of instant runoff voting, or the cause of better ballot access, or maybe all of the above, because of an encounter with Peter or watching one of his campaign appearances, in California and across the nation. What great work he did.

His last major public appearance was just a few weeks ago, when he basically dragged himself away from his cancer treatment, knowing he was dying, and went to Sacramento to the Peace & Freedom Party's presidential nominating convention to make what I consider to be one of the most astonishing and moving pleas on behalf of a candidate ever made (it's on YouTube, and I defy anyone not to tear up while watching it). He practically begged the assembled delegates to give their nomination to Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez, and they did so, in no small measure because of Peter's speech, of that I have no doubt.

Regardless of where you stand on the various intraparty squabbles that have taken place within the Green Party, and on Peter Camejo's strategic decisions in particular, I hope we all can agree that these things seem very insignificant at the moment. I also hope that we all can recognize the contributions this man made to making the lives of those of us engaged in this kind of political activity a little easier, and that we continue to be inspired by his example.

I agree with Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, and will henceforth be referring to this event as The AT&T Convention:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/20...

So, basically, forget about the appearance of impropriety, forget about massive commercialization and corporatization of the Democratic Party -- 'cause you can contribute ideas (that will be totally ignored) to the DP platform committee! Huh? What a non sequitur. Not to mention the fact that nobody reads or pays attention to the platform anyway.

BTW I think you meant to say "Little League teams," not "softball teams." Nobody cares about corporations sponsoring their own softball teams for their own employees (I played on one myself). Little League teams are sponsored by LOCAL small businesses and those funds stay in the local community. This has absolutely nothing to do with garish, gigantic Coca-Cola and AT&T logos plastered on swag that says for all the world to see that the Democratic Party is bought and paid for. Not only that, it says that the DP has rolled over and decided to play dead when it comes to walking the walk on actually implementing lifestyle changes that will address climate change and the other ills resulting from our overly consumptive society. How does this distinguish the Democrats from the Republicans?

Go Obama go. Away.

Nice try, dispensing with legitimate criticism of the ridiculous level of corporate penetration into the Democratic Party with the non sequitur of pointing out how wonderful it is that people will be able to contribute ideas to a document that nobody reads or pays any attention to anyway. Wow.

Your local Little League teams, which I think is what you really meant to refer to, are sponsored by LOCAL small businesses and there is no appearance of impropriety in doing so. The Democratic Party, with its rampant commercialization of its own convention as well as the one-half share it owns of the so-called Commission on Presidential Debates, has permanently jettisoned the concept of the appearance of impropriety. In fact, the DNC is apparently encouraging as much consumption and commercialism as possible, as symbolized by these ridiculous swag bags, and then coming up with lame justifications. Talk, talk, talk about global warming and the dangers of the consumption society, and then toss the talk as soon as lots of $$$ is waved at you by giant corporations.

Go Obama, go.

This young Princeton person exhibits a typically knee jerk, 2000-era response instead of the type of sophisticated awareness you'd otherwise expect from an Ivy League student that, because of (1) Bob Barr's candidacy for the Libertarian Party, and (2) polls that consistently are showing Nader drawing solidly from McCain as well as from Obama, not to mention the folks who otherwise wouldn't vote at all or would vote for Cynthia McKinney.....the so-called spoiler issue he's concerned about is nonexistent this time around. So, as Ralph said in 1004, relax and rejoice. And go work to get people to vote for Obama, if he's your choice, instead of wasting your time pathetically begging candidates not to run so that Nader supporters won't have the opportunity to vote for THEIR choice.