Democrats: Time for a third party?

Despite Michael Goodwin's well-thought out argument to the contrary, many democrats have extrapolated the results of this past midterm election to mean that Americans desire an abrupt end to the war, punctuated by a "phased redeployment" (read: surrender). So confident are they in this assertion that some are willing to form a third party to see their aims to fruition.

John V. Walsh at Counterpunch has the details:

An end to the war is what 60 per cent of the voters wanted in the election of 2006, and the desire for it grows by the day. What are we to do, then? Simple. We can work now on mounting a third party challenge to the Democrats in 2008. The platform of such a challenge would be simple. We are against war and the police state; these are the over-arching issues of the moment and we shall not compromise on them for any reason. The current test of these principles is Iraq. If all troops are out of Iraq by November, 2008, then our issue is gone and we cannot expect to win. If the U.S. remains in Iraq, then we may or may not win ­ but the Democrats will have to confront us; we may defeat them or we may spoil the election for them. But either way, we will be a force to be reckoned with.

How to begin? We must have some nationally known leaders who could start the ball rolling. I can think of Kevin Zeese, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Lew Rockwell, Alex Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair, Cindy Sheehan, Lila Lipscomb, Patrick Buchanan, perhaps even maverick Democrats like Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters, James Webb, Jack Murtha or Carol Shea-Porter - or maverick Republicans like Chuck Hagel, who, Lieberman-like, might declare their independence even while "caucusing" with one of the war parties. There are endless possibilities.

I've always been a subscriber to the notion that when your opponent is in the process of making a fool of himself, it is best to get out of the way and let it happen.