Should You Vote for a Non-Viable Candidate That You Support, or a Viable Candidate?

Great Debates
21

The question, stuffinb, is whether the similarities are greater than the differences. I mean, Gore could be the same as Bush except for certain key issues. More likely, their ideologies are different, but their (Bush and Gore) methodologies are close. Third-party candidates want to shake up not only why things are done a certain way, but how they are done at all.

From the perspective of a Nader or Browne or Buchanan voter, Bush and Gore are similar enough in their practical methodologies to make any ideological differences inconsequential. After all, who cares what Gore thinks if what he does is the same as Bush would??

22

I couldn’t agree more Necros. You nailed my point exactly. If both Gore and Bush are going to continue business as usual then what point ot voting for either of them. Even the Supreme Court issues are temporary. I have enough faith in America and it’s citizens that we can outlast even the most chowderheaded decision-makers.

That said, I wouldn’t mind if we were able to vote amongst better people for office.

23

This is no different from from Dr. L’s arguement. It’s the same thing the Green Party has been espousing for months, and I again disagree. Saying that the two are the same or would act the same is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst. They’re not running on their platform they’re running on malaise. I’d venture to say that a majority of those supporter haven’t looked too deeply at the green parties platform.

I took a look at Vote Nader, his “platform” are excerpt from speeches and how based on said speeches Nader might feel regarding that issue. Again that’s not a campaign.

24

OK, stuffinb, I’m willing to run with you on this. Most third-party candidates, and the people who vote for them, believe that the Democratic and Republican parties are pretty similar. They even have a word – Republicrats – for them. You cry foul. Not true! Republicans and Democrats are pretty dang different, and anyone who says different is being, if nothing else, ingenuous. If I’ve got the two positions down, away we go!

OK, for my first magical endeavor, I will attempt to divide all of the issues into two major categories (no mean feat if I do say so myself). These categories are:

Practical Matters (PM)
These are issues that relate to the day-to-day running of the country, and are the ones that most directly affect people’s lives. Examples: Social Security, defense, welfare, foreign policy, and taxes.

Esoteric Matters (EM)
These are issues that are more ephemeral. They appeal to the ideological portion of America’s national identity and, while they may result in the institution of PMs, they are coming instead from a “higher plane” of being. Examples: Gun control, free speech, church/state separation, and the general types of ideologies that lead to Supreme Court nominations.

To keep the major parties apart, we’ll refer to them as R (Republicans) and D (Democrats).Feel free to read the platforms, listen to the candidates, parse the doublespeak, and disagree with any of my points.

The Issues (abridged):
Taxes (PM): The country is facing record (projected) surpluses in the coming years, due to overcollection of taxes. The positions of both parties can be summed up thus: Return some money of the surplus to the people. Use the rest for certain programs (see below) that benefit strong voting blocs of Americans.
Social Security/Medicare (PM): Use much of the surplus to save thse two ailing programs. Privitize them or not, but save them both.
Defense (PM): C’mon. There may have been a lot of rancor back in the '80s about this, but no one these days really wants to reduce military spending. No one wants to send it through the roof. Rs think Ds have used the military in bad ways, but otherwise, not much change, or a little elevation in military budgets are basically agreed upon.
Welfare (PM): The whole welfare-to-work initiative has been pushed by leading Ds just as much as the Rs. Passed by R Congress, signed by D president. Everyone agrees that we should lend the down-and-out a helping hand, and everyone else should pull their own weight. The line dividing “down-and-out” and “everyone else” is in dispute, though.
Foreign policy (PM): Trade with China? Good. China’s human rights? Bad. Both sides queasy about this issue, for the same reason. Foreign aid? Good. Ds think it’s because other people need our help. Rs see it as a way to make other countries do what we need them do, and keep us secure. Same end, different rationales.
Drugs (PM): Major parties in agreement here. Drugs are bad, and should be fought.
Gun control (EM): Both sides agree: Neither wants to ban all guns. Neither wants to give guns free reign. The core issue: Law-abiding people should have guns in reasonably restricted manners. Both sides agree.
Church/state separation (EM): As far as the role of religion goes, none of these candidates is an atheist, and all wear their religion on their sleeves. GWB favors more leniency toward religion in state issues, AG favors about the same. Neither favors measure such as posting the Ten Commandments, requiring Bible study in public school, etc.
Abortion: Major sticking point here, reflecting the division in the country. Members within the parties disagree, too. Just goes to show you that this is more of a personal issue than a political one. Sadly, it has to affect SC nominees. This is probably the most divisive issue out there, and one many voters will be basing their decisions on.

Above are nine issues. Both parties are pretty much in agreement about the overarching ways to handle them on eight of them. One is a personal issue. To take a third-party at random, Libertarians disagree in a major way with the position of the major parties on probably six of those issues.

So, do you see why third-party supporters feel that the major parties are so similar? To a centrist, they may seem going in different directions. To a leftist or rightist (and I don’t mean those in the negative way they have gotten connoted over the years), they are both right or both left, and therefore more similar.

And please forgive typos and such. gnotepad doesn’t seem to have a spell checker. :slight_smile:

25

I am going to vote who I want to using the criteria that I feel is best.

If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself.***

I’m not telling you that the criteria YOU use is wrong somehow… And either way, both of our votes count for the exact same thing:

One.
[sub]*** I do not point this towards anyone inparticular - that would be for The Pit. I simply direct this general attitude to the generic group of people who somehow think they should dictate to me or others how I should vote.[/sub]

Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions

*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Five months, three days, 19 hours, 32 minutes and 38 seconds.
6272 cigarettes not smoked, saving $784.07.
Extra life with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 18 hours, 40 minutes.

*“I’m a big Genesis fan.”-David B. (Amen, brother!) **

26

OK, for my first magical endeavor, I will attempt to divide all of the issues into two major categories (no mean feat if I do say so myself). These categories are:

Practical Matters (PM)
These are issues that relate to the day-to-day running of the country, and are the ones that most directly affect people’s lives. Examples: Social Security, defense, welfare, foreign policy, and taxes.

Esoteric Matters (EM)
These are issues that are more ephemeral. They appeal to the ideological portion of America’s national identity and, while they may result in the institution of PMs, they are coming instead from a “higher plane” of being. Examples: Gun control, free speech, church/state separation, and the general types of ideologies that lead to Supreme Court nominations.
[/quote]

Ok to keep it short I’ll give you this one. For the same reason, Im not going to mention the green and reforms agendas, for obvious and not so obvious reasons.

My pleasure. The below is what happens when you reduce issues to sound bite levels, and why most voters tend to be malinformed. But Im getting ahead of my self.

While I have an issue with you “major voting bloc” statement, there’s clearly a division here. While the dems have proposed some social programs, they’ve also committed more of it to debt reduction. An ealrier post covered that well, so I won’t digress. Also, I it’s been established that the rebubs plan has an inverse effect dependent on your economic station.

Privatization is a siginficant difference in itself. That one is proposing it, and the other isn’t is a major difference.

I’ll agree on this point.

Sorry, I don’t remember it that way. As I recall it, the WtW initiative picked up significant support after the repubs take over of congress(remember the contrat with America). That made the gains in support more self preservation, than right or wrong. (BTW, that’s my opinion, you may present evidence to the contrary) That didn’t make the dems right for usurping the issue, but that’s another issue.

The second thing wromg with your analysis is the way each party would provide that “helping hand” with the dems supporting social programs and the repubs favoring letting charities take over this chore. A significant difference again for obvious reasons.

I’ll give you this point as well. Mainly because I think they’re both right to some degree.

Actually there is support from both parties on reevaluating this, with surprisingly the highest ranking pols to say so being republicans.

So do I

The republicans seem to disagree with you. From the republican 2000 platform

Keep in mind, that any place could easily be definsible as a work place.

Agreed.
And please forgive typos and such. gnotepad doesn’t seem to have a spell checker. :slight_smile: **
[/QUOTE]

No problem, I tend to be a lousy speller at times too! :smiley:

27

My apologies Satan if it was I who caused offense. I just get tired of that “they’re the same party crap” I keep hearing. Please vote for whomever you wish, it is not my intention to change anyones mind about how they choose to vote.

28

stuffinb, thanks for correcting me on a couple of issues. But the point remains. You drew definite differences between the two parties. The problem is that the differences that you drew are minor compared to what third parties want to accomplish. To use the Libertarians again (examples from their party platform):

Taxes: “Before 1913, federal income taxes were rare and short-lived…That is how the founders of America thought it should be. And it worked. It can again!”
Basically an argument to abolish income taxes.

Social Security/Medicare: “Libertarians believe you should be able to opt out of Social Security”
Pretty self explanatory

Defense: “[Our ideas] would enable the United States to dramatically reduce its defense spending.”
This doesn’t sound like the major parties.

Welfare: “It is time to recognize that welfare cannot be reformed: it should be ended.”
There are some GOPers who would go for this, but few moderate ones. My guess is that the Dems would have kittens.

Foreign policy: “Foreign aid is little more than welfare for nations – with the same disastrous effects as domestic welfare programs.”
This is an argument for eliminating foreign aid, something neither party would ever suggest.

Drugs: “It’s time to consider the re-legalization of drugs.” 'Nuff said

Gun control: “Libertarians agree with the majority of Americans who believe they have the right to decide how best to protect themselves, their families and their property.”
Not really at odds with most of the proposals forwarded by the major parties.

Church/state separation and Abortion
No idea how the Libs feel about these. I can guess, but if someone has some enlightenment, hand it this way. You can probably intuit how they feel based on this page: http://www.lp.org/issues/platform/protpriv.html
I understand that you feel there are major differences between the parties. But to someone who follows the Libertarian party, the differences between them are very small.

Gore and Bush both want to “save” SS. Libs don’t. They want it gone. Gore and Bush both want to keep most serious drugs (cocaine, heroin) illegal. Libs don’t. Gore and Bush both want to continue foreign aid. Libs don’t. Gore and Bush both want to maintain defense spending. Libs don’t

See where I’m going with this? There are differences, and then there are differences. Third party supporters want the latter.

29

Ok fair enough Necros, you’re right there are fundamental differences in the Libs vs the Repubs or Dems but then I can accept that.

/hijack Now I think i’ll start a new discussion, probably concerning third parties and the actual shift they’d like to make to american politics. According to your post and what I know of the greens, they’d like to fundmentally change the way the country is run (i don’t know about the reform party, as I can’t get past their messenger to give it a serious look)and how I think a forum other than the presidentail election would better serve them. I need to give it some thought though. /end hijack

30

From the link that Lib posted, it seems that both Gore and Bush would use the military to intervene in Colombia to reduce the drug trade. If only for that reason, I cannot in good conscience vote for either of them. It doesn’t matter how small a chance the person who gets my vote has of winning, I refuse to be a party to the loss of American lives in a disastrous and misguided War on Drugs.

31

I think you’re thinking of almost any country in Europe other than Britain. Britain’s House of Commons is elected by exactly the same system that the U.S. House of Representatives is - first-past-the-post (single-member constituencies, simple pluralities).

Minor parties in Britain do better than those in the United States because:
(a) British voters are better educated than American voters
(b) Any British party with 50 (IIRC) candidates on the ballot gets free publicity
© The third-largest party (Liberals) is older than one of the major parties (Labor). (This is pure speculation on my part, but I firmly believe the Whigs/Liberals/SLDs/LibDems get some lasting cachet from being associated with names like Peel, Gladstone, and Lloyd George, c.f. Perot and Nader.)

Minor parties in Britain do worse than those in most continental republics because:
(a) The British use single-member districts (aka winner-take-all or first-past-the-post) while most European countries use multi-member districts with list or alternative voting (aka about a kazillion things).

32

In my penultimate paragraph, there is also a point (d) which is that a lot of the reasonably successful minor parties in the UK are regionally-based. The first-past-the-post system tends to crush small national parties and encourage small regional parties; Britain’s Welsh and Scottish parties owe a large part of their success to favor bestowed on them blindly by the electoral system. Which naturally gives the lie to the idea that first-past-the-post prevents partisan fragmentation.

33

And there goes Al Gore railing on the video game industry for selling violence to kids, by buying ad time for the violent video games in ‘children’ shows such as The Simpsons and WWF Smackdown!. Note that he didn’t mention those wholesome kid shows Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Dragonball Z, and Beast Wars, and those other 30-minute commercials called cartoons. He even threatened legislative action if they dont ‘clean up their act’. Al Gore is sounding a lot like Jesse Helms did when he attacked art. There is also a contest on who gets the halo: Joe Lieberman, or George W. Bush. Differences between the parties? Only on how to screw the people.