Do shifts of power come only through being elected to office, or can merely participation effect that change as well?
Let’s take the Green Party, for example. Had Nader won 5% of the vote nationwide, the Green Party would have been entitled to federal funding and been allowed to compete in the national political arena alongside the Democrats and the Republicans. Can you unconditionally assert that the Greens’ entry into the national political arena would have had no effect whatsoever? That the 51 million people who registered but didn’t vote in 2000 would still register and not vote in 2004? That the 50 million people who didn’t even register would still not register? I think it highly unlikely.
Your problem, erislover, is that you see what is and you claim that this is only what is possible. You are sadly mistaken.
Think what you want about non-voters, Olentzero. You get single transferable voting or approval voting out there, I’ll sign my name in blood to make it happen. Until then, I’ve got interests of mine that can be served in an election, and I’ll compromise the fuck out of my issues if that’s what it takes. You want religious conviction and no compromise, try a theorcracy somewhere.
I am not asking you to vote contrary to your conscience. Kerry is not contrary to your conscience, he’s just not good enough. I do understand that asking you to compromise doesn’t seem enlightened to someone who holds principle as dearly as you; do you understand that Bush is, or should be, far more repugnant to your conscience?
None of Nader’s checkmarks matter because he will never be in a position to act on them. None. Not one. Your conscience vote for Nader is a show of support for an agenda that will never be implemented 100% because the only guy who stands for it 100% will not get elected.
Faced with that choice, doesn’t it seem slightly more rational to vote for the guy who’ll try to implement 50% of it? If you can’t have a whole glass of water, you’ll have none, is that it?
And yet, by voting Nader, you’re voting for the nauseating candidate over the disappointing one. Do you understand why your opinion doesn’t seem enlightened to me, when you refuse to be cognizant of that fact? When the practical consequences of your act of conscience are directly contrary to your intent, that doesn’t enlightened to me, it seems self-righteous and smug.
There is a spectrum of representing your interests. It’s always going to be a more or less case, not a fits/doesn’t fit case. Erislover is not (NOT NOT NOT) saying “vote for who will win”; he’s saying “vote for the best candidate for you who can win”.
No, I did not mean “extremely principled”, I meant “excessively principled”, by which I meant “principled to the point of futility”. If there was nothing but Chilean grapes to eat, would you starve to death? If it wasn’t Bush running, but Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on a Moral Majority ticket, would you be so sanguine about your political virtue?
I’m starting to think that radical left enjoys its self-marginalization; that its outsider status has become so precious to it that it doesn’t actually want to have any real effect.
If the U.S. electoral system had anything like this; if Nader could get funding and power proportional to the popular vote he received, then there would be no reason not to vote for him if he’s your best candidate. But it doesn’t work that way; The Greens missed their shot with Nader in 2000 (probably why he wasn’t invited back). If you were going to vote Green in 2004, I wouldn’t be so disgusted, because the Greens are building towards being a real party.
But you’re not going to vote Green. You’re going to vote Nader, who can’t get elected, and who can’t advance anything. You’re going to stroke your conscience by pissing away your vote and feeling good about how principled you are while helping Bush to a second term.
The consequences of your principled act give the lie to whatever virtue it has.
First, you are using your vote as a protest if you’re voting for someone you don’t like just to oust Bush. Second, according to you, my vote for Nader DID shift power, to Bush. Third, as Olentzero pointed out, you don’t need to win an election to shift power.
You have taken my statement out of context. I said that elections weren’t a popularity contest, you said they were, and I pointed out that the more popular candidate actually lost in 2000. We weren’t even talking about the electoral college during this discussion, so don’t try to change the subject.
No, actually, it was quite hard to swallow. It stuck in my throat.
Why are you perseverating on this idea that only a vote for a winning candidate can shape the outcome of an election? Clearly votes for Nader shaped the outcome of the 2000 elections. Get off it already.
My philosophy of the vote is to vote for the candidate I WANT to win. Whether or not he CAN win does not enter into my considerations. It does for you, and we will have to agree to disagree on this. A vote for a non-winning candidate is not a wasted vote to me. Moving on…
To do this, I look at the candidates likely to win and select from them. **
Did you vote for Mondale when he ran against Reagan in 1984? For Dukakis when he ran against Bush in 1988? Because neither of them had an ice cube’s chance in hell of winning, but I’ll bet you voted for them anyway. Why is that?
Obviously I disagree, and I don’t think I’m alone in that, even amongst folks who vote for the Big Two candidates.
Oh, for the love of god, don’t you see that if I vote for Kerry, I would not be affecting the outcome in favor of my opinions? Kerry doesn’t represent my opinions very well. You are asking me to cast a protest vote against Bush. Period.
Ah, now we come to it. All of this bullshit about only voting for potential winners applies ONLY to folks who might vote for a third party. It doesn’t apply in situations where the Democrat has zero chance of winning, as in 1984 or 1988. If you would simply acknowledge that you are trying to persuade people not to vote third party, and stop trying to pretend that you are trying to help us make our votes more meaningful, you’d have a lot more credibility.
hansel, if leftists like myself thought that voting was the only way to involve oneself in politics, you might actually have a point. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - politics is much more than that. Activism on the ground around the issues that concern people can be just as effective, if not more so, than voting every other year. So if, to you, both voting my conscience and acting on it is principled to the point of futility, so be it. At least I’m trying to do more to change things than trying to blame anyone but the political party I support for losing the last election.
Oh, it would take a lot to be more repugnant than Bush. That’s why I’m not voting for him.
Allow me to reiterate that I never, at any point, said I was voting for Nader in this election. I am undecided. However, I may not vote for the Democrat either. I would also have to disagree that my agenda will never be implemented. But, if I listen to people like you, hold my nose and vote for Kerry, then you’re right, it never will be implemented.
I. Have. Not. Decided. I may decline the enter glass rather than drink contaminated water, yes, to flog a tired metaphor to death.
I don’t see it that way. Are you preaching this to any liberal who doesn’t vote Democrat, or just Nader supporters?
Smug? Self-righteous? For me to vote my conscience? Who is trying to browbeat whom here? Who is criticizing whom? Have I once tried to tell you not to vote for your candidate?
No, he’s saying, “Don’t vote third party.” Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?
What a crap analogy THAT is.
Let that happen and then I’ll tell you.
I’m not a fucking radical. I’m a traditional liberal. I bet our politics aren’t that far apart. The difference is that I vote for the best man, whoever that is, and you vote for the Democrat, whoever that is. End of story.
When have I ever suggested that the be all and end all of political involvement is voting well? When have I ever suggested that your protesting and other activities aren’t worthwhile?
What boggles me is that you would spend so much energy outside of voting only to injure that effort with your vote. Who do think would be more receptive to a protest march in favor of same-sex marriage, Bush or Gore?
I had posted this in another one of the ‘Nader’ threadfs, and thought that it might address some of the subjects raised here. For the record, I am very liberal, and plan to vote Democrat this election.
In my experience, Naderites (or other extreme leftists, or extreme rightists, or whatever) are looking for purity in their politics, unclouded by compramise,and the give and take that generally keeps the wheels spinning. They want a Great Leader with a simple plan for everyone rather than dealing with the complexities associated with governing 300 million people. Guess what? Not everyone agrees with your politics! And even though I am a lefty, I concede that my way not be the best way! In order to make a symbolic statement, they are gambling on an all-or-nothing approach to the political process.
The sad part is, as a left-leaning Democrat, I get to share in their nothing when the Right wins the election. I imagine that Repulblicans had the same frustration with their third-party spin-offs until someone wised up. Frankly, there’s a good part of me that thinks that Buchanan’s co-opting and dismantling of Perot’s old machine was a Republican effort to avoid a replay of 1992.
And yes, most Greens that I know (as well as Libertarians) seem to be from upper class white families, have completed college, and are overwhelmingly straight males. This generally doesn’t impress me, as they are the group that usually has the least to lose in the event of a loss to their opposition. That’s a heck of a luxury to have.
Which president would have been more receptive to marches for abortion rights in 1973? Nixon or McGovern? And yet Roe v. Wade was passed during the fifth year of the most right-wing Republican administration in memory. It doesn’t matter who’s in the White House if the groundswell of popular activism is strong enough.
As for Gore’s record on same-sex marriage, this article from the National Review in 2000 (yes, I know it’s a right-wing magazine, but the article is actually dead on) should spell things out plainly.
So is Ralph Nader to blame that Gore isn’t president? Nope. Al Gore, and the people who VOTED for anyone other than Al Gore are to blame. If you want a liberal to win the presidency, you should vote for the democrat who has the best chance of winning. And that is the guy endorsed by one of the two major political parties in the United States. Period.
If you want to make a “statement” then send money to Ralph Nader’s PAC. But know that a vote for him, or any third party candidate, in a presidential election is essentially taking AWAY a vote from the leading democratic or republican candidate.
This indignation people have against Ralph Nader is just so amusing. Ralph Nader has his own agenda, has had it for over thirty years. To think he owes something to people too dim-witted to figure out how our election process works, is ridiculous.
All of this pro-Nader rubbish does is show how very little Nader supporters know about the basic, elementary facts on how the US Government functions.
[ol]
[li]The President does not create laws.[/li][li]Congress Does![/li][li]Hi Opal![/li][li]In order to get a bill passed through Congress, you need at least a few Congressmen & Senators who are willing to work with you.[/li][li]In the Congress of today–this means you need a party![/li][li]Without a majority of votes in Congress, you achieve nothing.[/li][li]Nader has no supporting body of Congressmen & Senators.[/li][li]Even if he was elected, he’d be politically impotent![/li][li]Nader is therefore a waste of time.[/li][/ol]
I expect some frickin’ Boy Scout/Goody-Two-Shoes/Disco Duck type of clown to start babbling about “moral mandates” or “but the Congress ought to be that way…”
To Hell with that. Congress has never been like that, not even during Washington’s terms. If you want a Bill passed, you gotta have party supporters in the Capitol. Period.
If Nader became President tomorrow, he’d end his term with a record worse than Jimmy Carter’s.
Carter was, at least, a modest, decent & dignified man. Nader cannot lay claim to those things.
Agreed. Nadir is a highly effective Republican patsy.
Still, the man is nothing if not ambitious. Apparently he and his entourage waltzed into Dean’s Burlington HQ 3 months ago and pitched a bold new plan: appoint Nadir as VP!
Never mind that in July 2003 he had criticized Dean’s record as “mediocre” in Vermont. In fact, Nadir apparently takes seriously the claim that Dean is the originator of <<gasp>> triangulation! http://www.thomasleavitt.org/personal/blog/index.php?p=405
What a egomaniac. If he really wanted change, he’d run in the primaries for a serious party - like the Republican one. Hey, that’s where his monetary support will come from this year.
Last I heard, that decision was made in the judicial branch, the one least susceptible to public pressure. Ground swell my posterior: it was a backroom deal!
Still, some of the posters in this thread seem to think that I’m against them expressing their innermost feelings in the ballot box. Not true. I think every citizen in the US has the right to support the Republicans: some just prefer to do so indirectly.
Hansel
You don’t get it. The whole raison d’etre of the Nadir-left is express their anti-corporate feelings, even if they have to elect an agent of Exxon to do so.
I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t vote third party ever. For instance, I think it’d be nice if people who supported third parties geographically concentrated themselves to maybe get some seats in Congress. Of course, that would actually require they do something rather than “claim” some moral high road by suggesting that their vote for a third party was doing their part.
This isn’t directly related to not liking an incumbent. But I won’t deny that it might factor into the analysis.
Only if you use [drumroll] the popular vote as that measure of popularity. All voting systems are a popularity contest, it is just a matter of how we choose to measure that popularity.
Why do you keep thinking that’s what I’m saying? Obviously voting otherwise can affect the election. It’s kind of the point of my posts.
I wasn’t old enough to vote then. But yes, given the relative popularity of democrats versus any other candidate I would prefer, that’s who I’d have voted for. You are correct.
It seems clear to everyone but you. Because they were the most popular candidate that I approved of. If the election was going to be between anyone, it would have been between a democrat and a republican, and from those I would select who I would vote for.
Rank candidates. Exclude any not likely to win. Cast vote.
Suppose you vote for Bush, then. What’s the difference? Your vote is anonymous. Surely you can’t feel that Nader would actually win the election, so it isn’t that. And you know in your heart of hearts that Nader is the best (hypothetically). So vote for Bush. Because you prefer Bush to Kerry (or whoever), right? If not, why wouldn’t you do what you can to hasten his defeat?
Nonsense. I am suggesting that you should select the candidate most likely to win that you approve of most. This is not a protest vote. I don’t think votes are really that much of a protest since they absolutely cannot distinguish between “I like Kerry better than Bush” and “I hate Bush” and “I am so in love with Kerry I hope we can overturn the two term limitation.” Because they can’t distinguish such cases, I don’t see how they can possibly be said to represent any kind of protest. In fact, I’d be interested to hear you present why in your heart of hearts you know your vote represents a protest. Unless, of course, you’re just telling yourself it is a protest and then you’re agreeing, which wouldn’t be very interesting.
Of course it only applies to people who’d vote third party; the rest are already voting for potential winners!
Of course, in my struggle to make my point there as simple as possible I sacrificed accuracy. I should make it clear that I would rank all candidates I prefer to any other candidate. At a minimum, the process of exclusion cannot reach a single candidate or else preference is meaningless.
Yes, actually, it seems pretty clear that you are, at least in elections in any scale beyond the local.
My god, with a straight face you’re suggesting that people move to different areas of the country to vote as a block to elect third party candidates, create a “radical left ghetto,” as it were. Then, you go on to insult all the folks who wouldn’t uproot their lives in this manner by saying that those people who don’t aren’t actually doing anything to further their cause. What a bunch of festering bullshit THAT is.
That said, I already live in a place where there hasn’t been a Republican candidate on the ballot for mayor in the decade and a half I’ve lived here; the mayor was actually a Socialist when I moved here. So, fuck you very much for your facetious, idiotic suggestion, but I feel I’m doing my part.
What, you’d rather use electoral votes to measure popularity? :rolleyes:
Regarding the fact that you’d have voted for Mondale or Dukakis:
In 1984, you’d have had a list of one name: Ronald Reagan. According to your process as stated above, that’s a fact. Yet you still would have thrown your vote away on Walter Mondale, who really had no chance of winning that election. In spite of this, you still fail to see the glaringly obvious glitch in your process.
Clearly you are against third parties wholeheartedly. It has become impossible for you to disguise this fact. Just admit it and move on, because we really have nothing more to discuss here.
Left ghetto? What is that? What brought it to mind was this suggestion by a group of libertarians who at one time had a webpage dedicated to trying to further this goal. It was, in my eyes, admiral and though it was a long shot they were thinking somewhat practically about it, pick a low population state, etc.
Why o why do you think the issue has anything to do with what I feel is a good measure of popularity–something I’ve already weighed in on at least twice in this thread, which actually encourages third parties? That is how our system measures popularity. That is how it determines winners. Anything to the contrary is moot.
Because there is no glitch. If you think my method leaves one candidate before my personal preferences act, you have spectacularly failed to understand a really simple summary.
Clearly you are for Bush wholeheartedly. :rolleyes: