While I agree with much of your post, I don’t think one can really judge who a person will appoint as Supreme Court Justice by who they voted to confirm. The problem here is that historically the “advise and consent” clause has been interpretted to mean that you give the President wide latitude in his appointments…i.e., you don’t vote against them unless there’s some real smoking gun that you can point to in order to say “this person is really not competent or is well outside the mainstream of legal/societal thought.” (Personally, at least in retrospect, I think perhaps senators might have been able to pursue this latter point about Scalia, but…)
There is a limit on how much Gore can do with a Republican Congress.
But you have to be able to play defense as well as offense. With Gore in office, there would be a check to the power of the Republican-controlled Congress. (I would like to see a compilation of Republican proposals that have been nixed by Clinton.) For example, Republicans in Congress have long favored elimination of estate taxes and capital gains taxes, policies which could leave the most wealthy members of our society paying no taxes at all, and would benefit the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. (Discussed in this thread.) Someone has to be standing there with veto power to ensure that every “help-our-wealthy-constituency” idea Congress dreams up doesn’t pass into law.
I realize that is still a species of the “fear the Republicans” argument, but there it is.
As far as what Gore can do affirmatively, well, he would control such vital appointments as the Secretary of the Interior, appointments in the Environmental Protection Agency, The Secretary of Labor, and of course, appointments to the Supreme Court. Those appointments do make an enormous difference in the lives of Americans.
Is Gore going to pursue every policy favored by the Greens? No, but he will be a lot closer than Bush, and he has the added appeal of actual electability.
Nader will never be elected. Not now. Not in '04. Not ever. Americans are just too centrist for Green politics. The most Nader will ever achieve is to split the left and hand this election (and possibly future elections) to the Republicans.
Will he pull the Democratic party to the left? Maybe. But if he does, the Democratic party will lose the votes of centrists which (sorry) you must have to get elected.
And in today’s New York Times Nader admits in a large ad and in a letter to the editor that he has no chance of winning the election, and that he’s in it for the matching Federal funds. Or in other words, he’s willing to deceive his true followers and throw the election to Bush just to get his hands on the money.
A Republican President.
A Republican Congress.
From 1 to 3 Supreme Court Judges picked for their position on the separation of Church and State and their position on abortion.
The system of checks and balances becoming a joke.
Nader is willing to overlook all this for government money. I retract my previous statement about Nader not being a politician. He is a politician in the worst sense of the word.
Just read in my local paper today that supposedly Ohio has its electoral votes all set for Bush anyway.
So no one can blame me for putting him in the white house.
The only reason Nader doesn’t have more percentage votes is the media aren’t covering him enough. All I see when I turn on the tv is Bush and Gore over and over again; even the same speeches.
It looks like soft money is needed to influence the voters.
“You keep on saying these things… I don’t think they mean what you think they mean.” -paraphrasing Inigo Montoya
You keep shouting that but it still hasn’t convinced me to vote for Gore. Gore’s been the right-hand man for Clinton’s eight years of Republican Lite. What’s going to change should he get the No. 1 post this time around?
Olentzero, even using your loaded term of “Republican Lite”, the only possible choices for this election is a “Republican Lite” president trying to temper the forces of a “Republican Heavy” Congress and a somewhat moderate Supreme Court, and a “Republican Heavy” president giving a “Republican Heavy” Congress what they want on a silver platter while choosing Supreme Court judges that will swing the court decisions in the same direction.
Y’all have mocked this question, but none of you have had the guts to actually answer it: In what way will a Bush Presidency be better for the Green Party than a Gore Presidency?
I’m not a Naderite, by any means, and I won’t be voting for him. I disagree with most of his ideals. However, I do not believe a vote for Nader is necessarily the height of foolishness for someone of liberal bent.
Say I’m a liberal. Would never vote for Bush, but dislike Gore. Love Nader and the Green ideals. If I feel that contributing to the long-term viability of the Green Party is more important that exercising direct influence in the choice of the next president, then I should vote for Nader. If I feel a Bush election would be such a terrible catastrophe that the growth of the Greens pales by comparison, I should vote for Gore.
It’s a valid choice to make, and neither answer is patently stupid.
So, no, a Bush presidency would not be helpful to the Green cause. If one is shortsighted enough to think that who wins this election is the only thing that matters, the debate ends there. Otherwise, the Nader/Gore decision I outlined above must be made.
First off, my vote for Nader is not going to influence Maryland’s outcome to give its 10 (?) electoral votes to Gore. Nope, not gonna happen. Not in a million years.
Anyway, I believe I posted it above in this thread, but I’ll restate:
If Bush wins, and the elephants retain control of both houses of Congress, we’ll probably see the mirror effect of what happened between 1993 and 1994. Legislation run wild by a President glad he has the power to do whatever he wants and wants to enact revenge upon the last 8 (or 12) years of government.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Remembered what happened in 1994? Yep, a conservative revolution. Ya think that might happen on the left in 2002? I sure as hell hope so.
Another possibility: the Republican Lites (heheh, I like that Olentzero!) do what they haven’t done since 1988: do some serious ass kissing to the liberals. Perhaps they’ll come to their senses on issues like capital punishment, the drug war, and other liberal causes.
I think the best thing Gore could do now is cut a deal with Nader, and offer him a Cabinet position in exchange for an endorsement. Neither will do it, of course, but that’s my political wet dream for this week.
Unlike Gore or Bush, I believe that Ralph Nader sincerely believes what he is saying on the campaign trail. I do not believe that Ralph Nader is saying things to satisfy certain types of voters, certain demographic votes, and certain campaign supporters. If you want a candidate that speaks his mind, then I believe that you should vote for Ralph Nader.
My problem with Nader is that I believe that HE DOES NOT HAVE A CLUE HOW THE ECONOMY WORKS! I have not heard a single proposal or policy from Ralph Nader or any of his surrogates that makes any macroeconomic sense. For example, there is a basic concept called “value added” - this is the amount of value added to an input by a worker’s labor. Now, a company losses money when it pays a worker more than that worker’s value added (e.g. a worker is paid $15.00 for $7.00 of work). Ralph Nader does not get this point. Should his policies regarding wages come into effect, then a lot of people in low value added jobs will become unemployed. Why? It will be more efficient to fire the workers and move the jobs to places where wages are less than value added.
In summary - I believe that Nader is sincere in his beliefs, but his beliefs are a function of fundamental ignorance of how the world economy works.
No. As I’ve said, the plan is to elect a non-corporately held liberal to the Presidency. The question you asked was really asking what a contingency plan would be, and I gave one.
And, I don’t care if it’s the Green Party, Democrats, or hell, even the Republicans that adopt the liberals. I just don’t want us to be left out here in the cold.
And my plan is to win the Powerball jackpot and retire this Wednesday. Fortunately I have a back-up plan involving going to work and earning a living.
The facts are:
Nader doesn’t stand a chance of winning.
The President will be either Gore or Bush.
Unless your only source of information is Green Party literature, you realize that one of these candidates will try to bring this country to the right moreso than the other.
Do try to look beyond simplistic “Politicians BAD-Nader GOOD” arguments. Nader is just another politician, albeit one that wants to take a shortcut to the seat of power.
I saw Phil Donahue on FoxNew tonight, talking about this very thing. Phil is a big fan of Nader, and is very empassioned on this issue.
One thing he asked that caught my attention: He asked - if not this election, when? Should the Green Party wait around for “permission” from the Democratic Party to campaign and build their party in earnest? How long do you think that will take?
Here’s a novel idea: Maybe they should try to run a city government to see if they can accomplish their goals on a local level while working within a political arena. Then maybe they can try to get some state senators elected, or even a governor. Once they show that that they are capable of doing more than organizing protests and suing, and actually accomplish something by using the political system Mr. Nader so badly wants in on.
And I thought my reply was pretty clear-they should build their party from the bottom up. Instead, they want to take the top prize without having to go through the trouble of showing us what they are capable of.
Voting for Nader because he’s a nice person, loves the envirement, and isn’t a Democrat or a Republican may be enough for you. I, on the other hand, would like to see what he does with a small bit of political power before we hand over the whole enchelada on a silver platter.
With all due respect, it’s not really a direct answer to the question, slythe.
Phil Donahue’s question was “Should the Green Party wait around for ‘permission’ from the Democratic Party to campaign and build their party in earnest?”
I think that could be answered with a simple “yes” or a “no”. With all the detail you go into about how they should build their party up from the bottom up, etc., it sounds like you mean, “yes”. You don’t like the way they are doing it now, you want them to do it the way you think they should do it. Or, what am I missing here?
Either join the Democratic Party and try to rebuild it from the inside, or ignore the Democratic Party and try to gain political power bit by bit, city by city, county by county, state by state, and show us that you can be trusted with the reins of government. Why the hell should the Democratic Party give Nader squat when he enters the race at the last minute and says that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans?
Ralph Nader wants his allowance? He can mow the lawn and earn it.
Still waiting for the direct “yes” or “no” answer to Phil Donahue’s question…
But I will assume it’s “yes” since you haven’t contradicted my previous assumption. You think the Green Party should wait until the Democrats think they are “ready”. And then the Democrats will give their “permission”. OK.
Many Democrats are asking (or more like demanding) that Nader supporters NOT vote for him, but vote for Al instead. Why should the Green Party supporters “give” the Democrats squat? Why should they “give” their vote to the Democratic Party, when they really want to give it to the Green Party? Why?
