I’m just curious if the people who voted for Ralph Nader in the last election, many of whom claimed there was no real difference between Bush and Gore, still maintain that positions in light of recent developments. I personally voted for Gore and while I was never a big fan of his and actually agreed more with Nader’s positions, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Bush and Gore were the same…consequently I voted for Gore knowing Nader hand no chance of winning because I felt Bush was significantly worse…
This isn’t an I told you so thread, I just want to know if Nader voters who felt Bush and Gore were essentially the same still feel that way given the pending war, Bush’s economic plan, and all other relevant issues?
While I think Gore is an extremely nasty guy, and I would consider him to be about the same as the average Republican candidate (say Bush Sr.), no, I wasn’t really expecting Bush Jr. to turn out to be the antichrist.
Like my wife says, it’s like those movies in which Damien or whoever becomes President. He knows he can’t get reelected anyway, because he’s, you know, the antichrist. So he just does whatever he damn well pleases without any regard for the consequences- in terms of the environment, international relations, public opinion, you name it. So no, I don’t think Gore would be forcing a situation which could potentially unravel decades worth of diplomacy, and I don’t think Gore would have stopped pre-Sept 11 investigations into Bin Laden.
OTOH, there’s clearly a bit of similarity which deserves mention. Bush routinely responds to opposition by saying “Who cares what you think?” (Sometimes he even says it in those words.) Any other politician would say things like, “Well, I’m sorry to hear that you disagree with me, but I’ve listened to your concerns and thought them over, and hope you’ll see in the long run how my plans will help everyone involved.”
Gore was the same way: Don’t like me? Who are you going to vote for? A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.
Clearly Gore didn’t really give a damn about what the public wanted any more than Bush does, and neither has been willing to even make much of an appearance of connecting with the American people. In Bush’s case, he figures he can get away with it because he’s the President already, and he has all them nukuler weapons. What are you going to do? Vote him out? He didn’t even win the first time. In Gore’s case, he figured that he could take the liberals for granted, since he was their only viable option. What are you going to do? Vote for Nader? A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.
Let me also say that I don’t think Nader actually sank Gore’s chances. From what I understand, Nader’s voters wouldn’t have overcome the voter fraud in Florida, and they wouldn’t have swung a compensatory state Gore’s way anywhere else.
I have a similar understanding with respect to the Florida results. I’m not certain that Nader voters actually cost Gore the election…I definitely see merit in the argument that Gore cost Gore the election with a poor campaign, lack of vision ect…Thanks for your honest answer with respect to the heart of my question which was, in essence, whether Nader voters still held the same POV now that they did then.
This was a heated debate in my household with my father voting for Nader and believing that Gore and Bush were essentially the same corporate puppet (I am oversimplifying the arguements). My stepmother on the otherhand is very passionate about social issues (particularly reproductive rights) and felt that Gore and Bush were worlds apart…incidentally she was appalled at my fathers position and felt it was a luxury he could afford as an uppermiddleclass white male liberal. I saw both points of view but in the end voted for Gore because I felt to some extent she was right and Gore, while far from perfect did have substantively different positions on enough issues (environment, abortion, foreign policy… not to mention he’s about 20 times smarter than Bush…god Bush is an idiot…ok getting sidetracked) that I felt a vote for Nader was in fact a vote for Bush and I wasn’t prepared to do that.
Fast forward to now and taking into account the unforseen events of September 11th I nevertheless am convinced that Nader voters have in fact been proven wrong. Reserving all judgement on the Bush adminstration, the fact of the matter is, and I welcome anyone who would argue otherwise, Bush and Gore are light years apart.
I’ll be the first to say that I always liked Gore more than Bush. However, I agreed with Nader on many more issues than I did with Gore, and so I voted for him. On my scale of evil, by which all politicians are rated, Bush was (and still is) most evil, Gore still somewhat evil but less so, and Nader, while far from perfect much less evil than either of the Big Two. Such is the state of modern politics. sigh
For what it’s worth, my vote made no difference at all in the end result. My state (Washington) was solidly won for Gore, with or without my vote. I was pretty much aware that this would be the case when I voted, so I voted my conscience rather than along the lines of party politics.
I certainly would have prefered Gore to Bush. In fact, I would have prefered Gore to Nader. However, I stongly feel the need for a viable third party (and fourth and fifth, for that matter) so I voted for Nader to throw my support behind someone who was neither a democrat or republican, and who I thought had a chance of getting the 5% of the vote needed to qualify for federal funding. I was wrong about that, but I was correct in guessing that 331,985 (give or take) more people in my state would vote for Gore than Bush, so I didn’t make anything worse.
Now I have a friend who voted for Nader in Florida; her, you may want to talk to…
Avalonian - would you have still voted for Nader if you weren’t already sure of Gore’s victory?
To those Nader voters (and to Nader, himself) I quote the bully boy in the Simpsons “haa haa”. 
But do you concede that, had all the Nader voters cast their vote for Gore instead, that he would have won? Or are you saying that’s not the case?
Anyone who would vote for a candidate running on a platform that has 0 success of every winning a national election has raised a red flag in my book. If a third-party wants to be viable, it needs to run on something other than a vanity campaign.
—I definitely see merit in the argument that Gore cost Gore the election with a poor campaign, lack of vision ect…—
This argument is, of course, made by a press corps who bent head over heels to slam Gore at every opportunity. Whether or not a candidate had any vision or not was for them to portray… and what they portrayed were strange throat clearings, half-baked stories about love canals, the internet, and amazing changes of attire.
I certainly think Bush nailed Gore but good with a great campaign led by a monster-genius of politics (Rove), but the idea that Gore’s loss was due to serious problems in his campaign… don’t buy it.
I voted for Nader, and I agree with Ben. Had I known how bad Bush would be, I would have vote for Gore. However, I do think my vote did count, it helped send a message to the Democrats that they can’t stray too far to the right, lest they lose more and more votes to the Green Party. Too bad they haven’t heeded that message.
I would have to agree that the press played a major role in Gore’s defeat. (And let me clarify that what I mean is that although he won the election, he could have won by an undeniable margin that would have put him in the White House.) Reporters said outright that they didn’t like Gore, and their official take on everything was “If Gore makes a mistake it’s a lie, if Bush makes a mistake it’s because he’s a friendly good ol’ boy who doesn’t need to be smart.”
I do, however, feel that Gore had some problems of his own. Like I said, you’re not going to get votes if you tell the voters outright, “hey- vote for me. I’m the lesser of two evils. What choice do you have?”
And my understanding is that Gore is, indeed, quite evil. He makes a lot of noises about the environment, but from what I understand he was constantly trying to start drilling in the ANWR, and was only held back by the appropriate federal judges. And let’s not even begin on his policy on the African AIDS crisis, or on gay rights, and so forth. My wife calls him the “golemeleon,” a soulless man of clay who changes his skin- but only his skin- to meet the latest change in the political winds, when clearly all he really cares about are his own fortunes.
Frankly, whether I vote for a Democrat in the next election, if Nader runs again, depends on a great deal. If the Democrats nominate Joe “Gruntmaster” Lieberman, I’m not going to vote for him, even if Nader isn’t running. Not only do I find him to be a personally offensive religious bluenose, but I’m not going to waste my vote on someone who clearly can’t win. Come on- Cowboy Bush vs. someone who constantly sounds like he’s desperately trying to keep down his gorge? I’d rather vote for Nader even when he isn’t running, to teach the Democrats that some voters aren’t willing to play their games under any circumstances. OTOH, if they learned from the last election and realize that they can’t take people like me for granted, sure, I’ll vote for a viable candidate who really represents me.
You would vote against Lieberman because you don’t care for the sound of his voice?
I completely agree with Avalonian’s post. Moreover, I stand by everything I said in this thread.
How was it a vanity campaign? The issues it raised seem pretty darn substantive to me. And isn’t the logic in your first sentence here a bit circular? What specifically about the platform meant that it had zero percent chance of winning, except for, y’know, the fact that not enough people voted for it?
Gore “lost” Florida by approx. 550 votes.
Nader received around 96,000 votes in Florida.
OK, so 99% of those Nader voters voted for Nader because:
-no difference between Bush/Gore (yeah, right)
-things have to get worse, before they can get better (well, things are certainly getting worse)
-Gore ran a poor campaign (I thought Gore’s performance in the debates was excellent)
-they were making soup (one excuse is as good as another)
But, I would think at the very least, 1% of those Florida Nader voters have to be kicking themselves from here to Tallahassee for “wasting” their vote on Nader.
That 1%, 960 votes, “cost” Gore the election.
My vote for Gore would have done no good whatsoever–Kentucky was going to Bush no matter what. All my vote would have done was increase the margin by which Gore won the popular vote, and a fat lot of good that did him.
So by your logic, I should have voted for Bush.
Had I been in a closer state, it would have been tough. I was, and remain, thoroughly neutral on Gore, but I have, and had, a strong dislike for Bush. If I had seen Sept. 11 coming, I probably would have voted for Gore. However, if I had seen Enron and the other corporate scandals coming, I probably would have voted for Nader, as Gore would have done only slightly more about it than the nothing Bush has done.
I do not blame anyone who voted for Nader in a close state, though. No one has a right to someone’s vote–it has to be earned. Gore acted like they were his to lose, and he lost them.
Dr. J
A fair question, and a tough call. Possibly yes.
See, I’ve had a problem with voting for the “lesser of two evils” for a long time. I don’t like the idea that I can’t (or shouldn’t) vote ffor the candidate that I prefer because party politics makes it unlikely that he’ll win. I prefer voting my conscience. Voting along party lines, when it doesn’t really suit my beliefs or preference, seems dishonest.
Also, I didn’t like the veiled threats from the Gore campaign: “Vote for Gore because a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush!” If that’s the best reason that the Gore campaign could come up with to net votes, then honestly, they (or their candidate) didn’t deserve to win.
I guess I’m saying that there is a possibility I would have voted for Nader, even if I wasn’t sure I was in a Gore state. That depends on the situation. If it looked really up in the air, I probably would have taken advantage of the “vote trading” movement. But in general, I vote for principles, not for parties. I would still have wanted to vote for Nader, not because I saw no difference between Gore and Bush (I did see a difference), but because I saw dramatic difference between Gore and Nader.
One more thing…
You’re one of the few, then. Gore pulled almost every punch that he had in the debates, in the effort to look like a “nice guy.” Instead of challenging Bush on hard questions, and really establishing his platform firmly, Gore waffled and sidestepped many of the tough points. He should have nailed Bush into the floor, and there were several openings for him to do so. He failed to take them.
The thing is, I knew what his platform was, but the fact that he didn’t take the opportunities he was given in the debates to stand up for his side of things did not bode well for me in thinking of him as President. While watching the debates, I was reminded of a quote from the West Wing: “the lesser of ‘who cares?’” It was like watching two boxers circle a ring but never make a solid punch. When the bell rings after 15 rounds, who won? It took the Supreme Court to decide the outcome.
In short, as far as I’m concerned, Gore probably lost votes through his performance in the debates. It went at least part of the way in losing mine.
Or, what DoctorJ said here, much more succinctly than I.
Add a “me too” to DoctorJ’s column.
I live in Ohio, and I maintain that my vote for Nader counted more than a vote for Gore would have. There was no way in hell Gore was gonna win my state.
I’d like to posit this one for my Greenish comrades:
If your states’ electoral votes were divided proportionally, rather than winner-take-all, would it have changed your voting strategy?
It would have certainly made me stop an think.
Gore’s eye rolling, sighing and utter exasperation with Bush’s inchorent idiocy was priceless.
No, not at all. It’s that Lieberman so thoroughly lacks polish and charisma that I don’t think there’s any chance he can beat Bush. I mean, come on- why should I waste my vote on him? Why should I compromise my integrity by voting for the lesser of two evils, voting for a hyper-religious puritanical bluenose, when all it will accomplish is to tell the Democrats that yes, they really can take me for granted?
It’s arrogant of him to even run that kind of vanity campaign, because he’d just be taking votes away from a viable candidate like Nader.
As for the margin in Florida, I personally am glad that all those Florida voters voted for Nader. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had all voted for Gore? Bad as Bush may be, I feel that President Buchanan would have been even worse.