By saying, over and over, that people who voted for Nader did so out of an urge for self-expression, you are reducing their motives to childish vocalization and ignoring the many valid reasons why people did it. I will give you a few, that I’m sure will still, in the minds of many = fucking idiocy.
Despite the fact that it didn’t work out this way, the Green Party’s goal was to get 5% of the vote and thus get matching funds. This would have been a very big step towards establishing the Green Party on a national level. Having more than 2 parties is a deeply held believe and goal for some people, and a noble one IMO. It certainly goes beyond just a desire for self-expression.
No one knew how bad Bush would be, nor the potential that Gore had. They seemed very similar. If Al Gore had shown us his Nobel/Oscar Prize-winning self, I’m sure a lot of Nader voters would have chosen differently. The fact is, he did not. His campaign sucked balls. We didn’t know who he was. That was his JOB to show us. I wish he had.
There was election fraud that also contributed to Gore’s defeat, which he conceded rather than fighting to the end. The way that election was given away… can’t blame Nader for that either.
Bottom line, yes, I think blaming Nader for Bush’s victory is ignoring many other parties with greater responsibility. And dismissing people’s motivation for voting Green in 2000 as mere self-indulgent self-expression is reductivist, dismissive, and inaccurate.
Rubystreak, you make some fair points. They are worth considering one at a time.
I have two issues with this line of reasoning. First, the Green Party raises so little money during presidential cycles that federal matched funding is almost laughable. Federal funding will not catapult the Green Party to the national stage because an extra half million dollars does not really buy anything.
The second is even more troubling. I do not believe that having more than two viable parties should be a goal, and it is certainly not a noble one. The last time a third party arose to true national viability, we endured a bloody and brutal civil war. While this is not an absolute logical consequence of the fracturing of a national coalition of voters, this fracture is a Major Political Event of staggering consequence. Fracturing this coalition to eliminate slavery is a good thing: doing it again should be a handmaiden to some other real purpose. For its own sake, fracturing the coalition is dangerous and irresponsible.
The first I disagree with; the second I agree completely. Most of us really did have an inkling of just how bad Bush would be. I was working for a progressive nonprofit organization in 2000, and as much as we were not at all satisfied with Gore, we damn well knew that Bush would be a disaster. Did we guess the magnitude of the catastrophe? Hell no. But even in the same league as Gore, who wasn’t half the man he is now? No way.
Perhaps it will be our greatest political heartbreak of this generation that Gore the panderer ran in 2000 instead of Gore the prophet in 2008.
And so I don’t. Agreed.
There were a lot of things in play that drove the election in 2000. I am certainly not pointing the finger exclusively at Nader voters. If I am going to point my finger at anyone, it would be the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, I maintain that a Nader vote was either a strategic error, misprioritized self-expression, or based on factual inaccuracy (lack of difference between Bush and Gore, relevance of federal matching funds, etc).
I keep hearing “But Nader was the only one who represented my views!” Okay, whatever. I’m not going argue over that.
But can someone honestly say that they thought Nader was the best person to be president? With the best qualifications and experience? The ability to lead this country forward with a clearly articulated, workable, and reasonable agenda? This is what I’m finding how to swallow. I just don’t believe that most people who voted for Nader really wanted the man to be president. Maybe I’m wrong, but it would only because I’m giving these people the benefit of the doubt.
My belief is only supported by the observation that people who voted for Nader, despite their protestations that they agreed with his stances on the issues, in their arguments ultimately fall back on the fact that they just didn’t like the other two guys. I never hear any explanations for why his opponents suck and why Nader is superior, though. It’s just said and we’re all supposed to accept it without challenge.
I would think if Nader was so great and deserving of votes on the merit of his positions and qualifications, the people who support him would take the time to actually sing his praises rather than focusing on dishing on his opponents. But I don’t see any of that happening, not even in this thread. I mean, look at Ron Paul supporters. They won’t stop talking about his ideas. It’s clear he has fans not just because he’s different but because his positions truely resonate with some people. Why don’t I get the same impression from Naderites? From what I see, they just vote for the man and dare the rest of the electorate to complain about it. Nevermind grassroot campaigns. I don’t even see message board posts that make a compelling case for Nader.
I’m fully aware that Gore would have been an infinitely better president than Bush. I was well aware of this before the election. I stayed up nearly all night in 2000 hoping that Gore would win, and i followed the subsequent wranglings over the Florida vote in the desperate hope that a pampered buffoon like Bush Jr. wouldn’t end up in the White House. I’m one of those people who has actually not been surprised by how bad his presidency has been, because i knew before the election what sort of person he was. Born on third, and thinks he hit a triple, as Jim Hightower likes to say.
But just because Nader used the “both parties are as bad as each other” strategy in his campaign does not mean that everyone who voted for him swallowed that particular line. Nader also had actual policy positions that many people felt were more appealing than the policies of either major party.
I don’t know. What are Tim Russert? Is that the answer to a Jeopardy clue?
See, you continue to assume that my argument in this thread is merely a defense or a justification of my choice to vote for Nader. I didn’t vote for Nader. I didn’t vote for anyone, because i was not (and still am not) a United States citizen. Had i been able to vote in that election, and lived in a close, important state like Florida, i probably would have voted for Gore.
The issue for me here is bigger than the 2000 election. It’s about the idea that no-one owns the votes of the American people, and it’s in opposition to the idea that someone voting for their preferred third-party candidate (for whatever reason) is some sort of traitor to the Democrats or Republicans, and is responsible for their losses in close elections. The lack of introspection, the lack of willingness to accept that Gore and the Democrats represented such an unappealing choice in 2000, and the willingness to fob the blame off on few thousand Nader supporters, is a staggering case of denial.
Yes, it’s true that, had the people who voted for Nader in Florida voted for Gore instead, Gore would have won the presidency. In that sense, Nader voters could be called numerically responsible for Gore’s loss. But you could say the same about any group of a few thousand voters who did not vote for Gore. You could say it about people who didn’t vote at all; you could say it about swing voters who voted for Bush, you could say it about hardcore Republicans. All those people contributed to Gore’s loss in the same numeric way that Nader voters did.
Actually…
No, once again you make the mistake of assuming it’s all about Nader voters.
What i’m saying is that Gore ran a poor campaign and, in doing so, not only lost some lefty Democrats to Nader, but also lost some swing Democrats to Bush. Not only that, but every vote lost to Bush was pretty much twice as valuable as every vote lost to Nader. A lefty voter who chose to vote for Nader instead of Gore merely deprived Gore of one vote. A swing voter who chose Bush instead of Gore deprived Gore of a vote, and added one vote to the tally of his main rival.
Even if the breakdown is completely dissimilar (a possibility i’ll concede not because i agree, but because it doesn’t change my point), you can’t seriously deny that, of the 4 million + eligible voters in Florida who didn’t go to the polls, there were hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, who would have voted Democrat if they did go.
I agree that the reasons for these people’s absence was probably along the lines you describe. What i can’t understand is why their lack of foresight or lack of caring is less blameworthy, in your view, than the few thousand people who actually turned up and voted for Nader. The misdirected rage among the Nader-haters is staggering.
The Green Party can’t even get on the ballot in some states. In 2004, there was no Green Party candidate for president on the NY ticket. I think that’s what the Green Party was trying to change-- get national recognition, be able to participate in debates, get equal time on TV, etc. You disagree with this goal in principle, so of course you will not acknowledge it as a valid reason to vote for Nader in 2000. However, if you can accept that it is meaningful to others, that might diminish your negative feeling towards those who chose to vote that way.
We will have to agree to disagree here, then, because I do, very much so. Hearkening back to the Civil War as a way to discredit the third party movement is missing the point. A viable third party emerging in the 21st century is not going to lead to a fracture of the hegemony and therefore bloody civil war. A diversity of views expressed in a national forum, though…that it might do. How could that be a bad thing for this country?
I think a lot of people had Clinton Fatigue ™ and thought that a Republican would be better at that time. They didn’t realize what they were voting for any more than people realized who Gore really was. This is why I view the presidential campaign season with so much irritation and dread. It’s all about obfuscation, appealing to the middle of the political bell curve, and not about getting to know the candidates for who they will be as president.
Very likely.
A Nader vote was a strategic error (I say this as a person who voted for Nader in 2000; my state went for Gore, so it mattered not at all). But it was an error I made in good faith, with the best intentions. I still support the growth and development of viable third parties in this country. I will still vote for third party candidates in local elections. I would again vote for a third party candidate in a national election if the situation compelled me to do so.
I firmly agree that no one owns anyones votes and that voting for a third party is not treason against the two prevailing parties. I also very much accept that Gore was not an appealing candidate in 2000. But as one of my least favorite people in the world has said, you go to war with the army you have. Gore was a poor choice. Bush was a kakagoria.
The real issue in my mind is that the norm of voting in the US is very much connected with self-expression. Vote your mind, vote your heart, as though this had any value at all. This is counterintuitive to me because it is very well known that politicians fundamentally fail to deliver what they promise to. So why ought we connect our voting choice with promises that aren’t credible? I believe that the norm gets people into the voting booth, but does not necessarily drive what levers we pull. Many of us just own up to it and vote strategically; others do not. Those others, I believe, tend to vote for third parties.
This is a fair question and I will try to articulate my answer. Examples are purely illustrative.
Everyone gets utility somewhere. A lot of people do not get it from politics and voting, and no campaign in the world will change that. They do not feel like the outcome personally affects them, and as such, they do not vote. It is difficult to be angry at a person who, for all intents and purposes, is on a different planet from me. I can’t judge someone else’s private utility.
I also can’t really judge someone for whom the opportunity cost was too high. How many Floridians just got off the three hour voting lines because they had to pick their kids up? My sense is, quite a few. Again, for their own reasons, they could not pay the cost of voting. I can’t really judge that.
The last case is third party voters. They are connected with progressive politics and care deeply about many of the same issues as Democrats. They cheerfully paid the opportunity costs of voting. They are our colleagues in a very fragile electoral coalition that includes radical environmentalists, old union powers, the Catholic church, the LGBT lobby, and every identity political org save the Log Cabin Republicans and the evangelical right. We all hold together because We Are Not Them.
So to pay the cost of voting in a state where you know your vote might be pivotal and to express your dissatisfaction by voting for a candidate who perpetuated a downright evil lie hurts. Maybe it also hurts because I secretly wished I had a messianic third party candidate I could vote for with a clean conscience, too. But I held my nose and voted to block everyone’s least favorite alternative and you didn’t. Again, depending on your state, who cares. But if you voted for Nader in Florida but still preferred Bush to Gore, you probably cared more about your feelings than you did about the outcome, which makes you a false friend of progressive politics. Hence the rage.
This isn’t how I really feel; I am just trying to illustrate the chain. How I actually feel is kind of hard to articulate. But I can say this: what’s done is done and we all know better. One way or another, I hope it ends differently this time, no matter how many people vote for a third party.
Even where the Green Party is prominent, it still doesn’t deliver votes. Hence I disagree that trying to get it national recognition is a cause of its own. It seems kind of pointless when what local recognition it has in, say, the PNW, seems totally incapable of vaulting it to national office of any kind.
No, it is very much not missing the point. The point is that if a third party, by some miracle/catastrophe comes to prominence, one of the legacy parties is going to disappear with a probability converging on 100%. A new party will have to break off a significant piece of the coalitions of both existing parties, and this will cause a painful realignment. This is only a good thing if it is in the pursuit of a truly awesome end. I am not convinced of the awesomeness of the Green Party, especially since I simply loathe Nader. I also fail to see what part of the Republican party the Greens will peel off. If they can’t do that as well, they are doomed.
It is not a bad thing, per se, but it is kind of an irrelevant thing. A diversity of views is not what elects people to office. It is having the right combination of views to capture a majority of the vote share. It takes a remarkable lack of diversity to accomplish this. Having the field muddied with more irrelevant alternatives does not really add anything to this process.
We will never truly get to know the candidates and we have no idea what they will be like as presidents. We have to make a huge honkin’ guess. Unfortunately, that again is baked into our system and will never change unless the rules change.
Things have changed since 2000, when there was at least the delusional hope that there could be a viable third party in this country. The way the 2000 election went kind of convinced me that wasn’t going to work in the way the Green Party hoped it would. I also don’t think that the national office was the real goal of Nader’s presidential run. It was to raise awareness for and support of the Green Party. Of course, it turned out to accomplish the first in a negative way and destroyed the possibility of the second. It’s just too bad, though, I think, because the Green Party has a hell of a sane platform.
Cite? Other demoncratic countries have multiple party systems. Why is it so impossible to think that America could too?
Sort of-- it would have to break off significant pieces of the PERCEIVED coalitions of the other two parties. This is again the prevailing notion that all liberals should vote Dem and all conservatives should vote Pub, and doing anything else is
breaking off a piece of their coalition. Sorry, I’m neither a Dem nor a Pub. I will hold my nose and vote Dem, but I have been disappointed with them ever since Clinton’s second term, so they lost me.
Also, there are a lot of non-voters out there who are a member of neither party who might be motivated to vote if there was a candidate they felt spoke to them. Would it be a painful realignment? Yeah, so fucking what, you know? It would be painful for the major two parties, and would require an adjustment in the way this country runs. Would it be painful for Joe Average living his life? More painful that the crap we deal with now? Nope, so I’m not convinced that painful adjustment would be a bad thing.
Then why not have one party, or none, if the diversity of views isn’t relevant and doesn’t elect people to office? I’m sure there are more than 2 valid ways of looking at any major issue, and more than 2 POV’s whose input would be valuable. Yet, somehow only 2 parties exist. Does that seem right to you?
Why are the alternatives irrelevant? I really don’t get it.
I think the chance for a viable third party is much more likely on the right, as Republicans seem to be more and more exclusionary, rather than the inclusionary Democrats.
Other democratic countries have parlimentary governments, often with proportional representation. Stable multiparty systems occur very frequently in systems with proportional representation.
Fortunately, the vast majority of this country disagrees. A realignment will come to pass when there is a key issue, like slavery, and the unwinding of a binding constraint, like the balance rule. Until then, you may desire a painful realignment, but fortunately, the vast majority disagrees.
It seems absolutely spot on right. Here is a simple example.
Suppose a first past the post majority rule election with 100 voters. Suppose the only important issue is the tax rate. Every voter has a magic number from 1-100 that is his preferred tax rate. Now put all of the voters in ascending order based on their preference over tax rate. Now the candidates get to choose their platforms, that is, what tax rate will they enact when elected?
The answer is, of course, the tax rate that will earn them 51 votes.
The picture is muddier when many issues and private information enter the story, but in reality, candidates will choose the combination of positions that they think will get them 51 votes. While there are many ways to skin a cat in multiple issue space, there aren’t that many. A myriad candidates with a myriad positions is simply not a requirement in our system to get elected.
Every electoral system has drawbacks. Every single one. There is no way of aggregating preferences under the sun that meets even four extremely basic criteria of fairness. Arrow’s theorem lays this out mathematically.
This is exactly the same principle as having your house renovated. You have three things to trade off: speed, quality, and price. You can do it fast and well, but not cheap. You can do it fast and cheap, but not well. Exactly the same thing applies with respect to voting rules. As a society have to trade off among fairness, equality, and rationality since sadly, we cannot have them all.
Many other western countries are willing to reduce rationality to increase fairness and equality. Right now in the US, we don’t do that. What a society is willing to trade off is representative of its values and institutions.
I absolutely would have preferred Nader to be president rather than Bush. He recognizes the danger of a defense bill larger than the rest of the world combined. He sees the corporate take over of America as dangerous and should be rectified. He sees the polluting of our air and waters as something that should be stopped. He sees the takeover of the media by a few corps as dangerous to freedom of the press. Would I rather have him than Bush. YES
Well, he sure as shit isn’t our President AGAIN because of Nader.
Man, that Nader, he shore is powerful, what with the convincing of the Dems to vote for war, and turn a blind eye to the corruption and shenanigans and the damage to the Constitution, and the approving of the judges.
Wow-eee. Can Nader get me a new pony?
You guys, you just want to place this all at the foot of Nader because Gore couldn’t pull off just a few more hundred votes in Florida. Maybe the Dems should have been more aware of the threat. Maybe they should have done something to ensure those voters, if they were at ALL thinking of voting for Gore, marked their ballot for Gore.
But more importantly, they should have STOPPED or THWARTED Bush and his cronies at every turn after he got elected, and they didn’t because they are a bunch of pussies. No, they don’t want to take responsibility for their role in this nightmare, they just want to blame it on Nader.
Aaaaaaand once again this is why I am no longer a registered Democrat. Although you all will be happy to know that I am once again going to vote my principles and of the ticket this year I will vote for the Dem as a way to get the Pubbie out. Like I did in 2004.
Right… because no one on the SDMB has criticized democrats during the past 7 years.
Someone who voted for Nader in Florida with any level of rationality was (presumably) acting under the belief that the benefits of a vote for a third party candidate (which have been discussed in various places) was greater than the risks of a vote for a third party candidate, those risks being more or less expressed as (the probability that the election will be close enough that the votes that go to third party candidates would matter) x (the difference that it makes if major party candidate 1 is in power vs. major candidate 2). In 2000, the second of those terms was monstrously higher than most people suspected, which caused a bunch of people to make poor decisions. Blaming only them for Bush is obviously ridiculous, as they’re pretty far down the list. However, any such person who does not admit that they made a mistake (aguably one that would have been difficult to predict given the information available at the time) is nutty.
Stuff doesn’t have to actually fly over your head, because there’s a giant fucking hole in it where your brain should be where stuff can just fly right through.
So, the Dems are off the hook? They bear no responsibility? They bear no responbility that those votes were their’s to lose? They bear no responsibility for their lack of action/willful collusion in the last eight years? They bear no responsibility that that many people (sticking to Florida) were disillusioned with them? With both the parties? They bear no responsibility that they didn’t have a good enough answer for that many people that voted third party?
That’s pretty sad. Pretty sad that the Dems weren’t capable of pulling off one of the most important elections in my lifetime.
And I say again, Bush most assuredly has a hand up his ass, but it’s not Nader’s.
Holy Jesus, you’re so full of shit. Are you seriously trying to put blame for Bush’s destructive policies on the people who voted AGAINST him?! What the fuck is wrong with you?
Why are you blaming your vote on the Democrats instead of touting the awesome persuasiveness of Nader? Answers like yours is why I find it hard to take Nader voters seriously.
Yeah, so the Dems didn’t put on a shiny enough dog and pony show. Gore wasn’t an award-winning movie star back in 2000. He looked like dork. And he spoke in a monotone! But in spite of all these heinous flaws, millions of people (most of the population, as it were) were still able to shake that magic eight ball and see that Bush + White House = Bad Times. Your failure to figure this out is not a badge of honor.
In other words: Just because you were under the spell of Nader’s mysteriously seductive mojo doesn’t mean that the Dems did anything wrong.