Would it have been better for me to write “one, perhaps two”?
The people who voted Nader are pretty much the only one of those groups that you can claim would’ve had a strong preference of Gore over Bush with at least 99% certainty. Non-voters are part of the problem to the extent that they are disproportionately democrat (which I’m not sure of), but Republicans can’t really be counted in that way.
There ya go! 
It’s difficult for me to comprehend the notion that not having a Republican be president is anything other than an AWESOME reason.
Gore cost Gore the election, not Nader. I was just a kid back in 2000, but even I can see it. People who voted for Nader were not choosing him over Gore, they were choosing Nader over not voting at all.
Thanks for your scintillating contribution to the discussion. :rolleyes:
Easier than Bush in '04?
There’s plenty of bad marksmanship to go around.
Roddy
Once again, too bad. If I, a fairly leftist Democrat, find that I cannot vote for the Democratic candidate because he is not left enough, and if there are enough of me to cost that candidate the election, well, as I said earlier, there’s a solution for that problem.
Gore didn’t realize it; Kerry didn’t realize it; Obama realized it but turned out to be a pussy.
If we leftists are seriously enough to cost a Democratic candidate election, why are we not being pandered to?
Because if you’re pandered to you lose the middle. Duh.
As most elections from 1980 to 2010 demonstrated. The Republicans pandered to their most conservative elements, and won.
I’m sick and tired of the Democrats being wimps.
There is indeed. Put a clothespin on your nose.
The problem, I think, is that you’re viewing your vote as given to a candidate. I don’t give anyone my vote. I place it where I think it’ll do the most good.
In 2000, I thought it did the most good going to Nader. (In NC, Gore had no chance–but then again, according to our local election board, votes for Nader wouldn’t even be tallied). I thought, as you suggested, that it would pressure Dems to move left.
I was wrong. Dems instead followed the 2000 election by moving further to the right.
Do you disagree that Dems responded to their loss by moving to the right? Do you disagree that they could count votes and see that if they’d received votes otherwise cast for Nader they would’ve won?
If you agree with both these points, why on earth would you put your vote in that same place again? Principled stands are all very fine and good, but tell that to the victims of Bush’s Iraq adventure.
Nobody receives your vote as a gift they’ve earned. Your vote simply pushes the country in one direction or another. Pay attention to where you want to push the country.
And FTR, as soon as Jello Biafra reads this thread he’s totally entering the Republican primary.
edit:
Not quite. Instead, the most conservative elements took over the Republican party from the inside, and the conservative elements won. You propose that the most liberal elements of the nation use the exact opposite strategy. Why?
I don’t disagree with either of those questions.
Why on earth should I vote for a party that, realizing that a lack of commitment to the left cost them the election, moved to the right? Why?
First, they didn’t realize that a lack of commitment to the left cost them the election: they realized that a lack of commitment FROM the left cost them the election.
Now:
Because in this choose your own adventure, you have three, and only three, choices:
DO YOU:
Nudge the country to the left of where it would otherwise be? TURN TO PAGE 17.
Nudge the country to the right of where it would otherwise be? TURN TO PAGE 113.
Decide not to influence the country’s direction at all? TURN TO PAGE 163.
Page 17: You must’ve voted for a Democrat.
Page 113: You decided to vote Republican.
Page 163: We got no idea what you did. Maybe you voted for Nader, or maybe you didn’t vote, or maybe you voted for Elmo.
:rolleyes: Far too involved with third-graders, I see.
Sometimes they see things clearer than the college radicals I used to hang out with.
Says the guy who somehow seems to think his vote is a reward bestowed grudgingly upon someone who meets a particular standard of ideological purity, and not the solemn act of a responsible citizen choosing which candidate would take the nation and the world on the better course for the future over the next few years.
You really need to learn more about what this citizenship and democracy stuff is really all about, friend.
Well at the very least it should show you how the Democratic party reacts to the liberal left breaking away and voting for the Naders and Kuciniches of the world. They tack right and try to make up for the loss of the liberal left by chasing right leaning independents.
Your right to exist? Who are you, smallpox?
You get better voter turnout from Rpeublicans but that has a lot to do with age demographics.
OK so let the cat out of the bag. What is the solution for that problem?
Move to a country with proportional representation or approval voting, where voters’ first choice preferences can be weighed within the electoral system. In a first past-the-post/winner-take-all scheme, those who vote for their first choice (Babe Ruth! Mother Theresa! Lady Gaga!) will invariably split the ballot. You get 2 choices. The rest are spoilers. Confusingly, our system wasn’t designed this way: we were suppose to choose wise electors and they would appoint the President. Not an awful idea really.
As an aside, I find it hilarious that some people didn’t find Nobel Laurette Al Gore pure enough for their tastes. Instead they plopped for a liar like Ralph Nader, who claimed that he wouldn’t campaign in swing states. If Nader told the truth, that would have swung Florida and New Hampshire to Al Gore, and we wouldn’t have pissed $2 trillion into the pointless Iraq War sinkhole. Oh, and you don’t think that Al Gore made a sufficiently strong case? Maybe you didn’t listen hard enough. It was damn clear to me that he would advance commonwealth: you could look at his publications, his seriousness and careful and constructive behavior in the Senate.
ETA: Weirdly and irrelevantly, I had thought Frank was a conservative of some stripe. Didn’t know he had supported Nader. I’m not sure how I had formed that impression.
Much easier that Bush '04. Bush delivered us the worst financial crisis and downturn since the Great Depression. But in 2004 the economy was doing fine. After adjusting for the economy, Kerry was a perfectly adequate candidate: he actually beat the point spread: Bush should have done much better. Cite.