David Cobb is the Green Party candidate for president. The green party decided to endorse Cobb over Nader in what some consider a decision to orient the party to building its ranks as opposed to supporting non-Green Ralph Nader. I maintain that the GP’s decision to endorse Cobb over Nader was a concession to the “Anybody But Bush” sentiment that dominates the left, and a sector of the Green Party. In Wisconsin (a swing state) Cobb supporters maintain that they are not running a safe-state campaign. While they have the best case (considerign that they are actually going to vote for him in a swing state) I maintain that the overriding sentiment in the Cobb campaign (as counterposed to Nader’s) is that Cobb will not declare his support for a Spoiler campaign (that is – the opposite of a safe-state campaign), as Nader proudly does.
While I share much of what the Cobb campaign stands for, the key question for me, as I put forward in my article, is the following: Is a candidate "running against the ill logic of lesser evilism?" That means rejecting what has become known as a safe-state strategy. And while nominally the Cobb campaign has rejected such a strategy, in content the campaign is very much a safe-state strategy. While defenders insist that this is slander, I have three main concerns:
1) Why did Cobb qualify his call to 'Vote Cobb in Montana' with the insistence that Montana was not a swing state. (http://www.votecobb.org/news/blogentry.2004-08-12.7600029400/)
2) Why do so many Cobb supporters support a vote for Kerry in the swing states? Is it just a coincidence that someone who isn't waging a safe-state campaign is leading a safe-state following?
3) And lastly, why doesn't the Cobb campaign pursue and correct its prominent supporters (such as Medea Benjamin and Ted Glick — both posted on www.votecobb.org) who regularly declare the Cobb campaign as a safe-state strategy. Is their supportive slander any less slander than the opposition slander? Or is there something to the 'slander'?
Let it be clear, that this writer opposes any and all pandering to the sentiment that "The differences [between the two parties], however, may be merely incremental, but they are not inconsequential." (Blair Bobier — Cobb/LaMarche media coordinator). But let it be even more clear, that this writer much prefers a debate within the left about how to build these alternatives than the dominating “Anybody But Bush” sentiment dominating.
