Sure: I’ll blame Bush solely for shit he’s done, you blame Gore solely for shit he’s done. We’ll blame their dads for their own sins. Truce.
Daniel
Why does he hate America so much?
(standard right-wing line with a new meaning. doing anything to help Bush remain in office now constitutes America hating)
Your objections might make sense in a parliamentary system where the major parties have to make coalitions with fringe parties in order to take the most number of seats, but this isn’t Israel or the UK.
While your comments on the errors made by the Gore campaign are valid, the fact remains that every vote thrown away on a fringe party was effectively a vote cast for Bush.
Dean is not a left-of-center liberal, but a New Democrat like Clinton or Gore, albeit with the morals and common sense the other two lacked.
Your boy is Kucinich–he’s the leftiest of the Democrats running, and, what do you know, he’s so far removed from the concerns of the electorate that he has been marginalized.
Until the Greens realize that political realities trump ideological purity and that a grassroots political base is essential to form a national party structure, they will continue to be the Pubbies’ secret weapon to divide the Democrat vote.
TwistofFate, I didn’t know him, so I can’t say why he voted against it. What is your question?
Bullshit. Your implication that was the current system isn’t really democracy.
We can all read what you posted. Nowhere did your post address what you claim your point was.
Had anyone figured out what exactly the Green Party is doing with an old establishment has-been like Nader in the first place?
He was never a environmentalist of any note prior to hooking up with them, nor set forth any particularly “Green” policies or beliefs. It’s like they picked his name out of a hat, filled with the names of attentioned starved political wanna-be’s. I mean, when I think environmental protection and conservation I always think of washed up 70’s era auto safety crusaders.
Whose next for the Green Party after Nader?
Erik Estrada? Gary Coleman? One of the contestants from Survivor? Paris Hilton? All make as much sense as Nader did.
The real Green Parties in Europe must be shrugging their heads in disbelief.
gobear, Dean is left of Gore and left of Clinton – or at least he’s running that way. When I looked at his platform before he became famous, he looked so lefty to me that I thought he didn’t stand a chance.
And I take exception to the idea that every vote cast for a progressive candidate was a vote for Bush.
A vote for any non-Bush candidate in North Carolina was a non-vote: I knew as surely as the sun would rise on Wednesday that Bush was going to take my state. A vote for Gore was, therefore, no more than a symbolic gesture affirming that SOME North Carolinians supported him. A vote for Nader was no more than a symbolic gesture affirming that SOME North Carolinians supported Nader.
I want to be clear that I’ll almost certainly vote for whichever Democratic candidate runs this time, because the Democratic Party has learned an important lesson. They’ve learned that trying to look like a Republican isn’t going to win them any votes: Republicans will always be better at that game. They’ve learned that delineating in sharp terms the differences between themselves and Republicans is the way to go.
That means they’ll run a candidate close enough to my position that I can compromise and vote for that candidate instead of for someone I’d prefer, such as Kucinich.
Daniel
Well said.
I voted for Nader in the last election, and this election I will once again vote for the candidate that I think is best.
I like the Democrats better than I like the Republicans, but I’m not too fond of either party. One problem is that both parties know that they only have to fight the other party, they don’t necessarily have to address any concerns the other party isn’t. If someone comes along who raises issues the big two don’t want to consider, they can ignore them. There are enough people around with the attitude that you need to vote for one major party or the other, or that you can vote for someone else to make a “statement”, as long as it doesn’t affect anything, that these interlopers can be ignored. If a third party candidate actually affects something, then they were out of line, treading on ground they had no business being on.
During the last election, I noticed that a lot of Gore supporters suggested that people who might vote for Nader should instead vote for Gore, because otherwise Bush might get elected. I never heard a Gore supporter say something like “If you are thinking of voting for Nader, you might want to vote for Gore, because here are Gore’s thoughts on the issues that Nader brings up…” (I’m sure that somewhere, some Gore supporters said something like that, but the loud, clear message that was being sent was the former.) Issues weren’t important, only parties.
It was during a Democratic presidency that the DMCA was passed, it was during a Democratic presidency that the war on drugs, which has probably done more to curtail the civil rights of Americans than the war on terrorism, continued unabated.
I will always vote for the candidate that I think is best, that addresses the issue that I think need to be addressed. Even if they can’t be elected. Why? Because it tells the people who can be elected what I care about. Because, who knows, if enough people vote for who they think is best rather than voting for who they think will be elected, maybe eventually some of the better candidates will win.
Maybe if the voters were more idealistic, we would get more idealistic representatives.
Neurotik, did we ever get off on the wrong foot or anything? In the threads where we have both contributed, I often perceive some hostility on your part targetted at me rather more than the other contributors. I cannot remember doing you any disservice, but please point out any wrongdoing on my part and I will labour to avoid such in future.
Yes, I am decrying what I believe is a lack of democracy in the current system but not, I think, for the reasons you may be projecting onto me. This thread appears to be a pile-on for ridiculing those who vote for their favoured candidate regardless of their apparent unpopularity, and even for calling on candidates not to stand because they might “harm” another candidate. I contend that this is undermines democracy.
I do not contend that just because the candidate I favour (note from my location that I can’t vote Nader, incidentally) will lose, that this somehow impugns democracy.
OK?
Yep. Wait till a candidate with whom you agree wholeheartedly runs. Hey, if there’s not SOMEONE who’s telling you exactly what you want to hear, there’s something wrong with the system!
Hey, conscience-voting motherfuckers! Ralph Nader claims there is no difference between the major parties. You know what that is? A fucking lie! If you follow the issues instead of your rebellious desires to “shake up the system” you’ll see that even with as wussy a candidate as Gore (who, incidentally, is nuthin’ like my little ol’ Howard Dean) there is a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE between the two parties.
Maybe you think they’re both beholden to special interests. Guess what? Politicians in every goddamn country in the world listen to society’s powerholders. It’s too bad, but it’s a fact of life, just like paying your taxes and having bad breath in the morning. But even so, there’s the guy who listens to special interest groups I support, and the guy who doesn’t.
Anyone who tells you the Democrats and the Republicans are the same is fucking LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH or they are an IDIOT who wouldn’t recognize a political ISSUE if it got in their face and starting waving its naughty parts in their eyes. There are real, substantive differences between the parties, and maybe neither one represents you perfectly, and God knows we need to break the two party system, but you know what? Voting Green ain’t EVER gonna do that. The system doesn’t give a fuck about radicals - there’s never gonna be enough of 'em to worry about. Besides, I’ve met one single solitary Nader voter who actually had a grasp of real life. Every other one just felt the need to “vote against the system! and bring down the man!”
Fuck that shit. If you “conscience”-voting types hadn’t voted Green last time, there wouldn’t have been a trumped-up invasion of Iraq. We wouldn’t be paying God knows how many billion dollars a month to give them a democracy of their very own. Hey, you voted with your conscience? How the fuck does it feel to have a war on your conscience? Don’t tell me the parties are all the same.
And this just in…
"Consumer advocate Ralph Nader said Thursday he is leaning toward another independent run for the presidency and will make his decision public in January.
“We’re testing the waters,” Nader said in an interview with CNN. “It’s a high probability but that is yet to be determined.” "
Go away, Ralph Mouth. Please. We’re begging you now, from a guy a Green as Johnny Appleseed. I’ll promise anything. I will never so much as annoy a whale, I’ll stick to Amish-approved technology, I’ll add pollution control devices to my bicycle…anything.
Just go away.
The Green Party put up Al Lewis for Governor of New York in 1998. Yes, that Al Lewis. If you don’t know who Al Lewis is, click on that link. You won’t be sorry.
This is definitely a party that isn’t above picking a candidate based on celebrity status and building a sideshow out of it. I wonder what the Greens had to say about Schwarzeneggar?
Nothing, as far as I know. You just haven’t noticed the threads where I’ve posted in agreement with your position. The only two I can think of where we’ve actually gone at it are this one and the Afghanistan one up in GD. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m singling you out because I don’t like you as a person or something, because that’s not the case. Just bad luck with the timing of threads.
You have just happened to have made two posts that look ridiculous to me. The one where you equate negligence to deliberance - which is just a disagreement in terms of morality and something we’ll just have to agree to disagree on. And this one where I perceive you as simply giving a knee jerk recitation of empty rhetoric which always drives me up a wall.
By the way, I don’t think my last response was particularly hostile. You were the one using the fancy italics, bolds and exclamation marks.
Anyway, to paraphrase the Religious Right - I don’t hate you, I hate your last few posts. To prove it, the next time I’m in the area I’ll buy you a pint or two. You may have to wait a while though. 
I was scarred on my last visit to Wales.
Possibly, but that’s how it goes. Look, you can still vote for whoever you want to, just recognize that your vote might be better served elsewhere. Not only that, but it’s the people who are asking Nader not to run. Isn’t that democracy?
Pardon me, then. Actually, rereading the post it looks like you were using a more ironic tone than I thought before. My first impression was that you were claiming that because Nader had no shot, it’s the fault of the system and it needed to be changed.
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Dear Ralph: fuck off and die. In an environmentally sound manner, of course.
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ISTM that Gore ran a surprisingly lefty campaign in 2000. Every time I turned around, it seemed he was talking about special interests this, and the richest 1% that. He did so much of that, I was afraid he’d scare off the genuine centrists.
Daniel, I agree that in NC, it really didn’t matter who you voted for. And I kinda liked the idea of “Nader traders” in 2000, where Nader supporters in close states voted for Gore, while Gore supporters in states like yours voted for Nader.
And I agree that Gore could have run a far, far better campaign than he did, and (given that the election came down to 537 votes in one state) one can name any number of reasons why the Dems lost. Anything that could have given Gore a net gain of 538 votes in FL, that wasn’t done, constituted a reason why Gore lost.
But Nader’s campaign, accompanied by the absolutely absurd argument (even then) that there was no difference between the Dems and the GOP, was one of those reasons. (In terms of Floridian votes, it’s by far the biggest, overwhelming the butterfly ballot and the Duval County two-page ballot, which in turn overwhelm the hanging chads, the morning-after military vote, and whatnot. Not to mention, the Naderites also tossed NH into the Bush column. With NH, Gore wouldn’t have needed FL.)
Today, after three years of “compassionate conservatism” that appears barely distinguishable from that of Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, nobody in America can miss the full enormity of the chasm between the two parties. But Ralph Nader isn’t Joe Blow. He’s been around. And he had to have been aware of the size of that gulf, even before the 2000 vote.
I believe that when you know - or damn well should know - the downstream effects of your actions, you at least share in the responsibility for those effects, even if other actors have primary responsibility.
Nader knew that he might cost the Dems the election. For weeks before the final vote, it was clear that the Dems weren’t going to win big, if they won at all. He went ahead and did what he did. He’s earned his share of the blame, fair and square.
And if he repeats the same nonsense next year, the company of the fleas of a thousand camels will be too kind a fate for him, IMHO.
Well said Jay.
I can agree with you as far as this goes. I just think his share of the blame is pretty small – especially compared to the amount of vitriol thrown his way.
In elections, I’d hope vitriol would be reserved for people who are deceitful, who pander to the wealthy (essentially taking bribes), not for those who don’t play the game strategically.
However, he, like Al Gore, didn’t play the game strategically.
I’m reminded, now that I think about it, of a principle of multiplayer games that a mathematician friend of mind taught me: in a multiplayer game, you can generally guarantee that someone else will lose, as long as you’re willing to lose the game yourself. I think Gore and Nader, by fighting with one another and neither of them looking to compromise with the other, guaranteed that each other would lose.
I’ll blame them both for that.
Daniel
If you use the replace command, substituting:
Ross for Ralph,
Perot for Nader,
1996 for 2004, and
Clinton for Bush
You Get Something Hauntingly Familiar:
Ross Perot is doing his best to reelect Clinton
Looks like Rossie boy hasn't learned his lesson, and CNN says that he is considering running again in 1996.
Egotistical fuckwad, does he not realize that the division in this country is so close that a third-party run will only serve to give Clinton a second term. If Perot really wants to help this country, he needs to get behind the Democrats who actually have a chance to win! Quixotic boutique candidacies are adorable, but not when the stakes aare so damned high.
Can't we send him to the Island of Misfit Toys?
Like Yogi said, “Deja Vu all over again”.
Pretending to be Republicans won the popular election last time around.
Brutus: And it lost the electoral college, because of all the people who wanted to voted for a real Democrat voted for Nader instead.
271 to 267. If the Dems were smart, and I have no fear that they are, they would run Gore V.2, and finagle a whopping three electoral votes from somewhere. Going with some apeshit angry lefty isn’t going to get them those extra EC votes.