The August 8 Connecticut Democratic primary for US
Senate between Lieberman and Lamont is big news.

Suppose that Senator Lieberman had tried to get a
third person on the Democratic ballot in that primary,
and the third person is (like Lamont) opposed to U.S.
policy on Iraq.  Also suppose that the third person
had no name recognition and little funding.

Would Lamont be smart to take legal action to get the
third person off the Democratic primary ballot?

Probably, most observers would feel Lamont should
instead ignore the third person.  If Lamont tried to
get the third person off the ballot, it would look as
though Lamont lacked confidence in his message and his
campaign.

Everyone in Connecticut who doesn't want Senator
Lieberman to get re-elected understands that the way
to injure Lieberman's chances for re-election is to
vote for Lamont.  If such persons are eager to see
Senator Lieberman defeated, they will presumably
register Democratic (which they can do as late as
August 9), if they aren't already registered
Democratic.  Then they will vote for Lamont.  They
would not vote for the third person in that primary,
just because the third person says he or she is also
opposed U.S. policy on Iraq.

Now look at the Pennsylvania Senate race.  I maintain
that it is smarter for Casey to take no action to get
the Green off the ballot, than to challenge his
petition.  People in Pennsylvania who want a
Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate already know
that the way to help gain that objective is to vote
for Casey.  Those people will vote for Casey, whether
there is a Green on the ballot or not.

There have been 36 Green Party candidates for U.S.
Senate in U.S. history.  None of them ever held the
balance of power.  Their percentages ranged from
13.73% to .27%.  Their support is always much higher
in races when it is already obvious who is going to
win, than in close races.

Greens and others lament the absense of Instant-Runoff
voting, but in a sense, the U.S. already has a form of
IRV in all elections.  They are called polls. 
High-level races, in which there is some doubt about
the income, always produce polls.  Voters read the
poll results, and they decide how to vote, on their
perception of whether their favored major party
nominee needs their vote or not.

I do believe that minor parties of the left were a
cause of Gore's failing to be elected in 2000. 
Although attention focuses on the Green Party in that
race, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, and
the Workers World Party presidential candidate, also
held the balance of power in Florida in 2000, so it is
not strictly accurate to focus only on the Green
Party.

But in 2000, voters torn between voting for Gore, or
for a minor party of the left, didn't believe that it
made a great deal of difference whether Gore or Bush
won.  That's because people didn't understand how bad
Bush would be, for civil liberties, for effective
foreign policy, for effective domestic government, for
judicial appointments.  By 2004, this was all clearer.
 I belive Democrats were foolish to try to keep Nader
off the ballot in 2004.  Two of the nation's leading
pollsters gave extra scrutiny to voters who said they
were going to vote for Nader, in October 2004.  By a
slight majority, these people slightly preferred Bush
to Kerry.  Also, an analysis of Nader's 2004 vote
shows he received disproportionate strength within
each state, in areas that were more pro-Bush than that
state as a whole.

People who were desperate to defeat Bush in 2004
understood that the way to do that was to vote for
Kerry.  Nader's presence on the ballot did not attract
these voters and therefore Nader in 2004 did not hurt
the Democrats.

Casey's announcement that he will try to keep the
Green Party off the ballot was made on August 1. 
Polls conducted since then, and mentioned in the news
today, show that Casey is slipping relative to
Santorum.

I believe that Casey would be doing better now if he
had taken Governor Rendell's attitude.  Governor
Rendell, the Democratic nominee for Governor of
Pennsylvania in 2002, signed the Green Party's
petition, to show that he was confident that he was
going to win, that he didn't feel the need to shoulder
anyone else out of the race, and that he was not a
machine politician.  Casey should have taken Rendell's lead.

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