An outrageous and deeply cynical comment by Kos, who should know better: In addition to suspect signatures, entire reams of signatures can be invalidated if the person collecting them is a felon. Turns out that out of the 122 paid people who gathered the Nader signatures, at least 19 are confirmed felons. One of them was convicted for forgery. Considering that these same felonious petitioners were also soliciting signatures for an anti-immigrant initiative and an effort to invalidate Arizona's clean election law, invalidating those petitioners and their signatures may actually serve triple duty, helping defeat Nader's cynical presidential effort AND two nasty Republican-backed ballot efforts. Not much new to say about this. Voting for Ralph Nader is, I firmly believe the wrong choice for someone concerned with progressive change in this country to make, and overlooks the tremendous difference between the greater and lesser of the two evils for those most directly affected by government policy be it creating jobs, protecting the right to organize, keeping bigotry out of the constitution, or sustaining the earth. But how should Kerry supporters respond? By organizing voters behind the Democratic candidate, and organizing the candidate behind a progressive agenda which co-opts Nader's issues rather than demeaning his supporters. Not by drawing from the other side's playbook by seeking out ways to disenfranchise voters by narrowing their democratic choices. Kos, unfortunately does this and descends one step further by lauding Democrats for taking advantage of this country's abysmal treatment of former convicts, a group whose make-up (in case Kos has forgotten) is disproportionately minority, disproportionately poor, and shamefully swelled with first-time non-violent drug offenders. Felon disenfranchisement is the closest parallel this country maintains to a poll tax. Progressives should be working to undo it, not to exploit it for electoral gambits.
6/22/2004
About Me
- Name: Josh Eidelson
- Location: Sacramento, California, United States
Josh Eidelson received his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Political Science from Yale University, where he helped lead the Undergraduate Organizing Committee. He has written about local and national politics as an opinion columnist for the Yale DailyNews, a research fellow for Talking Points Media, and a contributor to CampusProgress.org. Views expressed here are solely his own. Contact: "jeidelson" at "gmail" dot com.
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