Does anyone really think that if one votes for Ralph Nader, it will make a Bush presidency assured?
I hope not, but I cannot vote for 2 people I don’t even want to be president.
Why not vote my conscience?
(note: I do believe this belongs in GQ).
Math doesn’t recognize ideology. Voting for Nader doesn’t help Bush any more than it helps Gore. Switching from Gore to Nader would help Bush, I suppose, but according to Nader rhetoric Gore is no better than Bush anyway - would all the Nader voters really vote for Gore if Ralph wasn’t in the race? I doubt it. I think they would be supporting the Socialist Labor Party or staying at home or something.
I think that there is a good number of Ralph Nader supporters that might vote for Al Gore if the Green Party did not have a candidate. Though I personally would follow the path suggested by Boris B and vote for the socialist candidate instead.
From the estimates I’ve seen, I don’t think that enough Green Party supporters would switch to Al Gore to make a difference in the presidential election.
I’ve gotta go with Boris B on this one. The argument that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush rests on the assumption that every eligible American voter is actually participating in the election regardless of whether Nader ran or not; therefore any vote for Nader is a switch vote from Gore (resting on the assumption that anybody voting for Bush is too narrow-minded and opinionated to ever rethink their position). Given the circa 50% turnouts of the last two elections, we’re obviously running into some woolly thinking here.
I myself have never voted in a Presidential election, though I’ve been eligible to do so since Dukakis threw his hat in the ring. But Nader’s different enough from the two ‘mainstream’ candidates that I’m getting out to vote for him in November. I’ve talked to any number of people who feel the same way. So glad to know I’m not alone 
From the numbers I’ve seen, 2/3 of the people who plan on voting for Nader would have voted for Gore had the Green party not fielded a candidate. Pat Buchanon is in a simalar but opposite position; 2/3 of his supporters are people who would otherwise vote for GWB. I wish both Nader and Buchanon the best of luck: Our 2-party system needs a good shakeup.
The previous posts all made excellent points. I think the similarity of the two mainstream candidates, and the scumminess of their campaigns, has caused a lot of people to not bother voting. So many of Nader’s votes may come from people who wouldn’t otherwise vote.
But, even if every vote Nader gets would have gone to Al Gore, who cares? If the liberal vote were important to the Democrats, perhaps they should actually start finding vaguely liberal candidates, and not just slightly more moderate Republicans.
Voting for a candidate you don’t like at all, instead of someone who actually represents you but won’t win, is really wasting your vote, IMO.
One thing I don’t understand is why so many Nader supporters seem to consider his candidacy a new thing.
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/summ.htm
He won 0.71% of the vote in 1996. Is he expected to do better this year? I mean, perhaps we made it onto fewer state ballots in 1996 than this year.
The same goes for the Libertarians. In some ways, their best electoral performance was 1972, when they won a single electoral vote (from Roger McBride, a California Republican elector and the 1976 Libertarian nominee). Since then, their popular totals have increased somewhat.
My big disappointment is the disintegration of the Reform Party. I was never a whole-hearted supporter, just as interested observer. Their biggest opportunity was not Ross Perot - it never was. Sure, he founded the party and put up the money, but he couldn’t be bothered to run in a race he could actually win. Their biggest opportunity was Jesse Ventura, someone - someone actually elected to a position of government from a minor party. Sure, there have been independent governors from time to time, but I was particularly interested in Ventura because he actually carried the Reform banner across the finish line. If the success had been repeated, a third party could have built a track record in government, which would be a real sea-change. Instead, according to Ventura, the national party snubbed him (we’re not talking about a Presidential bid here, just communication), when in my opinion they should have rolled out the red carpet.
The problem is, too many minor parties set their sights too high. If you’d make such a great President, why don’t you prove it by serving a few terms in Congress? Nader lost his race for the Presidency in 1996, why doesn’t he use his name recognition and concentrate Green party assets on a Senate bid? (It’s no real mystery why someone like Perot ran for President; the campaign was about him and not his party.)
If you’re a good enough organizer and motivator to be President, why can’t you keep a relatively small political party together (this question is direct particularly at the mass of tiny socialist parties in this country - why should I choose the Socialist Workers’ Party over the Socialist Labor Party or the Workers’ World?)?
These aren’t intended as put-downs. I just think they are important questions that never seem to get answered. I would be very reluctant to vote for a Presidential candidate with zero prior governmental experience, yet this is precisely what the third parties are asking me to do. How much flak do major-party nominees get when their resumes are considered inadequate? (Remember criticism directed at a certain Vice Presidential nominee who had served gasp only three terms in the U.S. House?) And the reply that winning Congressional and state-level positions is too difficult really doesn’t help; it’s proven to be possible by Bernard Sanders and Jesse Ventura, and the Presidency is harder in any case.
Personally, think of it this way-by voting for someone, you are also NOT voting for someone else-thus, trying to NOT make them president.
I’m voting for Gore because I think he’s the better of the two main candidates…and I do NOT want Bush as my president.
Here’s the trouble with all these third party candidates. None of them has held elective office before! Perot, Nader, Buchanan, Jackson, Hagelin, Browne, [insert socialist, communist, whatever party here], none have actually been elected or been acountable to voters before.
If you want to be president, you have to first be a senator, a governor, or a victorious commanding general. Maybe you could get away with being a house member. But I can’t recall a single president in the last hundred years who didn’t first do one of those jobs. That’s why Jesse Ventura was greeted with such hopes. He’d actually won an election! He had a track record!
But of course, Nader doesn’t really WANT to be president, that’s not the purpose of his campaign. He wants visibility for his issues and to prove to the Democrats that they need to court the left wing. If he really wanted to be president, he’d first run for one of the starter jobs.
PS to Boris B. Nader was on the ballot in 96, but he didn’t campaign! He’ll probably do better than 1%, since this year he is actually soliciting votes.
Wait, I forgot Vice President in my list. But VP picks are almost always from the first list anyway.
I think this is what the founding fathers had in mind. People with jobs and lives running the govenment instead of professional politicians.
Personally, I try to avoid incumbent or perennial candidates because even the best intentioned politician loses touch with his or her constituency once they stay in office too long. Politics, like the toilet, is a great invention but you have to remember to flush it once in a while.
As for the Nader question, I’ve always been puzzled by the people who get hung up on the electibility of a candidate or those who watch the polls to decide who to vote for. It’s not a freakin’ horse race and you’re not supposed to try to pick the winner. A wasted vote is one that doesn’t reflect your feelings about a candidate or an issue. As the saying goes, “it’s better to vote for someone you believe in and not have them be elected than to vote for someone you don’t believe in and have them be elected.”
Sorry for preaching but at least I feel better for having said it…
Phil
I have wrestled with the same question, and have an answer. Since each state is winner-take-all-electoral-votes, the question comes down to this: Is your state going to be a close Gore vs. Bush race? If the answer is yes, vote Gore – your vote and those of others like you might make a difference. If the answer is no, vote Nader. If nothing else, having third party candidates get a respectable sliver of the vote may one day enable them to have a voice in shaping the issues the GOP and Dems have to address.
“Here’s the trouble with all these third party candidates. None of them has held elective office before! Perot, Nader, Buchanan, Jackson, Hagelin, Browne, [insert socialist, communist, whatever party here], none have actually been elected or been acountable to voters before.” That’s one trouble, the other is that a lot of them are, to put it politely, “quirky.”
Speaking of quirky, how come everyone, including posters on this board, continues to ignore Alan Keyes? “Quirkiness” aside, he’s probably smarter than ANY of the people mentioned above. (I don’t need to compare his intellect with that of either of the major candidates.)
And what’s all this about these guys wanting or not wanting to be president. Being president is not the goal. What they ALL want is POWER.
I find it hard to believe that James Madison would agree with you, having served as President after serving as Secretary of State, as a member of Congress, and as a Virginia state legislator.
How far down in the government would one go with the notion that professionals in government are a bad thing? Should we have amateurs running the U.S. Geological Survey? Or should we just have amateurs overseeing the professionals who run the U.S. Geological Survey? How about any other executive agency? Who would make a good FBI Director? Does being an FBI agent count as a job? How high can you go in government and have your job still count as a job?
I guess none of us knew he was running as an independent. Or was he nominated by a minor party? Which one?
Hey, what a coincidence. They want power, the Presidency has power, they run for President. No, sorry I don’t understand your point. And I don’t buy that you can read the minds of these people, certainly not 100% of them.
“I guess none of us knew he was running as an independent. Or was he nominated by a minor party? Which one?” So Perot and Jackson ARE running for president as independents. Or were they nominated by minor parties? Which ones? Boris B, I suggest you read twice, post once.
“They want power, the Presidency has power, they run for President. No, sorry I don’t understand your point.” OK, I’ll make it simple. Although the President of the United States has a great deal of power, it is possible to exercise power without being President of the United States. (Follow me so far?) In my opinion, some if not most presidential candidates are power-hungry bastards who do anything to get an maintain power. Some of them will do this by striving to get elected. Others, having no chance of being elected, will be happy feeding their ego by acting as a spoiler.
Yeah wrote,
I could read your post 30 or 40 times and I don’t think I would ever get its relevance. I think you know why Perot is relevant to this discussion. If Keyes ran as an independent or third party candidate in the past like Perot, please illuminate me.
I don’t know why Lemur866 mentioned Jackson. I’m assuming he meant Jesse, and I don’t know why that would be relevant. My main question is why you thought anybody was “ignoring” Keyes - he was amply discussed on this board during the primaries.
Well, that certainly wasn’t clear the way you expressed it the first time. I am wondering exactly who some of these folks are trying to spoil. Browne and Hagelin seem pretty much equidistant from the major party nominees.
BTW, does the popular vote even fucking count?
What with the electoral college and all?
Well, the popular vote total doesn’t count. But popular the popular vote in a state determines which electors go to the college, and those electors very rarely deviate from their pledged ticket.
I’m voting for Nader because he cannot win.
My state, Texas, will almost certainly cast its electoral votes for Bush…my vote for Nader will be a protest vote against Bush, in his home state.
Since I cannot stomach Gore, either, I can’t cast my vote his way…so Nader it is.
All told, I guess that I want my one, puny, insignificant vote to be for “None Of The Above.”
-David