Interesting theory, Bob. But where's the evidence?

One of the largest antiwar protests, some 500,000, led by UFPJ, took place in NYC in the thick of the election campaign campaign -- that's evidence of a mobilization to the contrary of your 'demobilization' theory. Can you name ONE ordinary person who says 'I decided not to go to any antiwar protests because I was too busy registering voters and didn't want to hurt Kerry's chances?'

Funny, I've never run into a single one. And I travel in circles that think voting is important, even if we have lousy choices most of the time.

Sometimes I wonder if a key reason I feel the way I do about this voting issue is that I was one of the kids in the 1960s who went to Mississippi, got whipped and gassed, and learned of others who died, simply to get the right and the ability to register to vote, and then saw what could happen when organizations like the Mississipi Freedom Democratic Party led by Fannie Lou Hamer, or the original Black Panther Party of Loundes County, Alabama, could elect a Black sheriff in a district comprised of a Black majority of sharecroppers.

Some things get seared into your consciousness and stay there, even as your hair gets greyer.

And for the record, I support getting on Hilary's case for running on the war to the right of Bush, which started this thread. My goal has always been to split the Democratic party and supplant it with something positive and progressive. But you don't do that by abandoning the electoral arena and hand it over to the far right.