Who will win, who's to blame, and what will happen?

Great Debates
1

  1. Will Gore or Bush take Florida?

  2. If Bush wins, is it Nader’s fault for taking votes away from Gore, Gore for not being up to the task, or Bush voters? If Gore wins, did Nader take any of Bush’s votes, was Bush not up to the task, or is it Gore’s voter’s fault?

2a. Did third parties make a splash? Since Nader didn’t get his 5%, what will happen in 2004? What is the future of the Green, Reform and Independence Parties?

  1. With what seems 99% likely to be a Republican-controlled House and Senate (but just barely on both counts), will a Gore presidency continue with the status quo a la Clinton, will there be gridlock, or will more things get done now that there are slightly more Democrats than before? Will a Bush presidency mean more being done? Perhaps too much too soon? Will things be better or worse for the country?

My POV: I’m hoping against hope that Gore wins, and if he doesn’t, I place much of the blame at Nader’s feet (I think both Gore and Bush ran good campaigns); I wish we had more viable parties, and I think Buchanan has done a huge disservice to the American political process by usurping the Reform Party’s platform; If Gore wins I think we will see a continuation of the overall positive progress of the country.

Thoughts? I know there are a million threads out there on all this, but I was hoping this could be an “overall view” kind of thing, rather than any one specific issue.

Esprix

2

Why ‘Blame’ Nader? Nader got the votes of people who didn’t want to vote for Al Gore. Isn’t that the way democracy is supposed to work? If Gore lost the Nader votes, it’s because he didn’t represent their wishes. Why should he get their vote?

The same thing happened in 1992, when Bush lost because of the Perot factor. That wasn’t Perot’s fault - Quite obviously there were a number of former Republicans who decided that Bush no longer met their needs. They SHOULD vote for someone else.

Everyone keeps complaining about the two-party system, and about how difficult it is for third parties to be recognized. But then when the third party starts to make a difference, the same people come out of the woodwork screaming “Spoiler!” It’s hypocritical.

3

Bush will take Florida. The review board can strike ‘questionable’ votes out, but it can’t do anything about the supposed 3000 votes that were cast for Buchanan accidentally. It certainly can’t switch them over to Gore. That, combined with the international absentee ballots (which ran 75% in Dole’s favor in '96, and I don’t think there’s a single group Dole did better than W with) will give the state to Bush.

It was Gore’s fault all along. He decided to run as a liberal populist in an era that’s decidedly moderate. He ran away from Clinton, which only made sure that he had all of Clinton’s taint but wasn’t claiming any of Clinton’s successes. He blew too hot in the first debate, too cold in the second, and only hit form in the third, by which time no one was really watching.

Third parties did not only not make a splash, you’ll be hard pressed to find a ripple.

The Reform Party is dead- it won’t see matching funding in '04, and between its lack of coherent platform and its inability to get any candidates elected (except Ventura, who has been running away from the party at full tilt) will lead to Perot running again in '04 with no one paying attention.

The Green Party will (sorry, Arnold and Green Bean) mostly self-destruct over the next four years. Now that it’s actually getting popular notice, it’ll pull itself apart over which causes should be pre-eminent, as well as whether to keep focusing mostly on national campaigns or to push hard for local representation (in places other than California). Nader will be seen as increasingly polarizing within the Party- some people will always flock to him because he’s been the standard-bearer, but others will resent him for this and for his inability to get the Party up to 5%- and the next Green Party Convention will be racous and divisive.

A Gore presidency could go either way. Gore might see the squeaky close results as admonishment not to push too hard or too fast, and so his moderation- combined with an admonished Republican leadership- continues to at least '02. Or Gore might decide that he needs to reward those that voted for him right away, and gets his ass handed to him over campaign finance reform. Gridlock and demagougery return as Gore figures he can run against a “do-nothing” Congress and Congress thinks that Gore’s populism will play very badly in Peoria. Either way, an extreme, and I lean more towards Gore trying to push the populist agenda.

A Bush presidency is almost guaranteed to be moderate-to-do-nothing. Bush and the Republicans will realize that their power is tenuous at best, and any ‘extremist’ legislation will be shot down by Bush and Lott ASAP. Bush spent most of the last six months running away from Gingrich and the Religious Right; I doubt he’s going to stop running after such a close win. Come '02, should the Republicans take strong majorities in Congress, things will shift to the right.

Actually, I’m tickled pink over Buchanan and the Reform Party’s implosion. First off, did the Reform Party ever really have a platform other than “Throw the bums out, and put our kind of nutty guy in!”? Second, this ends Buchanan’s political career. Period. The Republicans won’t take him back- not after he bolted the party and not after he did so damned poorly in the elections. Buchanan and his message of social warfare and protectionism is dead. Hopefully, this will help take some wind out of the Religious Right’s sails.

4

Funny…some people are saying Gore is too liberal, and some are saying he’s not liberal enough…
Will anyone ever be satisfied?

5

Sam, I agree with your post 100%. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.

Oh, and John? Gore most certainly did not run as a “liberal populist.” If he had, Nader wouldn’t have drawn what little support he did.

6

Bull. He ran as a liberal populist, promising to fight against “special interests” like the rich, big pharmaceuticals, big oil, big tobacco, big money; promising to bring campaign finance reform; promising to bend over backwards to help the environment.

Nader’s support was based on the fact that while Gore was running as a liberal populist, he didn’t have a very good record as a liberal populist. So the Greens believed that Nader was the real liberal populist and voted for him. But Gore was still running as a liberal populist.

7

1.) Don’t know. It is in the hands of the Floridian election officials. However, it appears that who gets Florida gets the whole shebang. The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching …

2.) Gore has only himself to blame for his defeat. I think John’s analysis is pretty much on target. I also think Gore was hurt by the government’s decision to extort money from the tobacco industry – I suspected that would cost him Kentucky and North Carolina, and I was justified. Gore’s decision to affiliate himself with the gun control crowd hurt him in the South. I was watching the election results last night and thought: “Whoever would have thought the whole damn South would vote Republican?”

3.)I agree with John again. Some of the so-called Religious Right will scream for blood, but I think the GOP’s cooler heads are going to move slowly for at leat a while.

I agree with John again; I’m glad Buchanan was annihilated in the election. I think Nader had little impact except in Florida. With the exception of Oregon (as I write this), Gore won every other state where Nader was supposed to hurt his prospects.

P.S. Don’t blame me. I voted for Harry Browne.

P.S.S. Those cynical assholes who think there’s no point in voting were proven wrong. This election showed why it is important for citizens to vote. I have little doubt that had an additional 10,000-30,000 Democratic voters turned out in the right districts the Dems might have control of the Presidency and Congress. Every vote and very state counted in this election.

P.S.S.S. Don’t know about the rest of the SDMB, but I feel exhilirated and proud to have participated in such an historical election. This was a once-in=a-lifetime event, I think.

8

John: Upon further consideration, I think we’re both right. He did make populist overtures, especially in his convention speech, but they weren’t particularly well-defined or comprehensive. No talk of the plight of the poor–as opposed to the “working families,” a label he dropped pretty quickly anyway in favor of “middle-class”–or of growing inequities in wealth, health care, or affordable housing; no concern expressed about corporate concentration of power, or undue influence on the system of democratic governance; no real emphasis placed on the human rights issues surrounding globalization, specifically with regard to the deregulation of capital flow under the auspices of economic liberalization. Had Gore stressed any of these things in his campaign, I would have voted for him. These are fundamental progressive issues, given short-shrift by the nominally liberal mainstream candidate.

On the plus side, though, Gore supports the war on drugs, views the reduction of welfare rolls as an end rather than a means, is backed by nearly as many corporate interests as Bush, is in favor of the death penalty, and is prepared to initiate the revival of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

While campaigning, Gore consistently stayed away from most any issue that had the slightest whiff of bottom-up class warfare–especially after the press excoriated him for turning left at the convention. Gore’s nothing if not sensitive to the shifting sands of public opinion. Hell, Clinton ran as more of a liberal in '92 than Gore did this year.

Jim Hightower, Paul Wellstone, Peter DeFazio, Henry Wallace. Those are liberal populists. Gore’s not even close–nor did he run as if he were.

9

In an effort to throw this race to the Republicans,

I hereby predict that Gore will win the recount in Florida

:slight_smile:

10

Gore lost NH by 7000 votes; Nader got 22,000 votes in NH. NH and OR would give Gore the win, regardless of what happened in FL.

Unless FL is ultimately adjudicated for Gore, Nader will have made the difference.

11

You’re right RTFirefly; I didn’t see the New Hampshire results last night and didn’t realize it had such a strong Nader contigent.

I don’t disagree with you that Nader may have cost Gore the election. After all, I suppose that Gore might still pull out the Sunshine State.

12
  1. I think the “Nader as spoiler” characterization misses another important point, too. Yes, third-party candidates are not morally obliged to refrain from attracting voters away from the major candidates (what are they supposed to do, put up banners saying “I Promise My Campaign Will Have No Effect at All”?). Yes, it’s shortsighted to think that all those 2.7 million votes that Nader got, or even the 97 thousand he got in Florida, would really have gone to Gore if Nader hadn’t run (although Gore would probably have picked up the few thousand he now needs in Florida).

But there’s also the possibility that the Green campaign actually somewhat increased turnout for Gore by attracting more attention to Nader supporters and getting complacent Democrats worried enough about the tight race to show up at the polls. We certainly got a higher total turnout than originally expected: previous predictions I saw were estimating expected turnout at well under 50% of eligible voters, and the counts now seem to be at 53% or 54%. How much of this might be due to this “scared-Democrat effect” I don’t know, but it is certainly inaccurate to look at the situation as though the X number of votes that Nader ended up with somehow really belonged to Gore when Nader took them away from him.

Oh, and if we have to talk about whom to “blame” if Gore loses Florida…golly, I do feel some sympathy for the voters in Palm Beach County who got confused about the punch card ballots and voted for Buchanan when they meant to vote for Gore, but hello folks, you’re supposed to read the friggin instructions before you fill out the ballot! What irony if the election turns out to hinge on a ballot form that was laid out somewhat confusingly and a few thousand voters who didn’t look at it carefully enough. At least the Nader votes were cast on the basis of principle and not just general cluelessness! (We hope.)

13

Kim, good points about the turnout. As far as Palm Beach goes–and I said this on another thread–you also have to consider that people were given sample ballots to peruse while waiting in line, so that they’d spend less time in the polling booths, and that not only were these ballots not in the same order as the actual ballots, but that Gore and Buchanan may have been directly transposed on the sample ballots. I understand the need for people to read ballots carefully, but come on. We’re talking overwhelmingly about elderly citizens here–no disrespect to the elderly–and it doesn’t seem as if many of them could reasonably have been expected to make quick sense of the ballots.

An update, by the way: Several Palm Beach County residents are filing suit to seek a revote. Check out the link; it’s a good article.

14

I just realized something…the Mayor of Palm Beach is a Romanov! His father was Grand Duke Dmitry!
Cool!

15

Hmmm, Gad, now that I’ve looked at the ballot layout carefully I see your point. Award for best line of the election goes to the County Commissioner: “I don’t think we have 3000 Nazis in Palm Beach County.” (Although I also liked Clinton’s comment: “The American people have spoken. It’s too bad that it’s going to take us a little while to find out what it was they said.”) :slight_smile:

16

Last night, just after the networks took back their projection of Gore winning Florida, I posted a message which said, “This election could easily come down to who wins Florida, and if that vote is very close, we could have the first election decided by the media.”

Apparently, at least two networks projected Florida the winner while the polls on the panhandle were still open. That could easily have caused some people to stay home, and depending on how those votes break out, that could have swung the election.

Plus, how many people in Gore’s ‘battleground’ states stayed home because they thought it was all sewn up after Gore ‘won’ Florida?

The media has an awful lot to answer for in this election. They were horribly irresponsible. The most hilarious projection I saw was right after the polls closed at nine. A state was called as going to Gore with 0% of the precincts reporting, and 0% of the votes counted. They might as well have said, “Hey guys, everyone knows Gore will take that state, so why bother counting votes? Let’s just call him the winner and save everyone some time.”

That’s not the way you are supposed to report an election, but the networks have become hyper-competitive and were looking for any ‘news’ they could scoop the competition on.

I also predict the U.S. will pass some laws preventing this in the future. Here in Canada, vote results can’t be released until ALL polls are closed across the country. That’s the way it should be.

17

Sam: Stop, dammit! It feels so dirty to agree with you all the time. :slight_smile:

18

Sam, I agree with you. IMO, the United States should adopt a law similar to Canada’s or least forbid the use of exit polling by the media.

If even one person failed to vote because of the media’s nonsense, that is a serious transgression.

19

Esprix -

  1. As of right now (approx. 2:30 pm Hawaii time), I don’t know. It looks like Bush has a slight lead, but that’s the same thing I heard yesterday. The Florida officials are still sorting out the erroneous ballots (how the hell do seven thousand voters pick Buchanan by mistake??), and I don’t see the end anywhere in sight. Don’t be surprised if this goes all the way to Thursday.

  2. Yeah, that’s it, Democrats…when your candidate completely blows it, the right thing to do is point fingers. Sheesh.

Gore’s second term as Vice President was full of peace, economic stability, and overall contentment among Americans (there are certainly exceptions, such as all the needy welfare recipients who found the floor suddenly cut out from under them, but that’s another issue), and he was up against somone who many Americans consider to be an absolute moron. By rights, Gore should have had the most massive landslide since Ronald Reagan’s 49-state cleanup in '84. So why didn’t it happen? Well, there was NAFTA. And GATT. And continued support for the War on Drugs (which is turning out like the Vietnam War, only a lot more expensive). And “managed care”. Not to mention all the things on his record before '96, such as support for Star Wars, joining the sanctimonious crackdown on “immoral” artwork and entertainment…oh, and let’s not forget those fundraising issues.

And to top it all off, in the waning moments of his campaign, when it finally dawned on him that he was in trouble, his reaction was to tell voters not to go to Nader because it might get Bush elected! Again: The best reason he could come up with for voting for him was to keep Bush out of office.

Gore’s abysmal record, coupled with his incredible arrogance in dismissing the voters loyal to Nader, are what killed him in this election. It was not Nader’s fault. If they didn’t vote for Nader, they probably would have voted for Harry Browne, Pat Buchanan, or maybe even whoever was running for the Constitution Party. I can say with complete confidence that if Gore loses to “Dumb-ya”, he only has himself to blame.

  1. There was an unprecedented, enormous, and IMHO utterly vile smear campaign against Nader this year (again, based solely on the idea that a Bush presidencey would cause Armageddon). He received no matching federal funds and refused soft money. He was stonewalled out of the debates. Fools (you heard me) of all stripes dismissed him as a “wasted vote”. He was actively loathed for his spoiler role. And he still got votes.

This, to me, shows just how influential third parties have become, and you’d better believe that they aren’t going to go away, no matter how much the Democratic faithful whine and beg. (I won’t bother tackling with John Corrado’s speculation; I prefer to deal with events as they actually happen.) Certainly, as the system exists right now, they have no chance of winning, but winning…no matter how much ANYONE whines and begs…isn’t everything. A spoiler candidate, even if he doesn’t win, can influence who does, so dismiss him at your own peril.

Want to kill the third parties? Simple: NOMINATE SOMEONE BETTER!! Democrats, instead of making some token attempt to disassociate Gore from the Clinton administration, go with someone with no connections to that administration. Republicans, pick someone who knows what the hell he’s talking about and can actually answer questions. Give us someone that we won’t have to hold our noses to vote for. Sheesh, you’d think they’d have figured this out by now…

  1. Gore has served in the Clinton administration for eight years, and practically the only positive thing that’s come out of it is the Family Leave Act. I have no reason to believe that a Gore presidency would be any different. Hey, after practically demanding that the voters choose him, you think he’s going to be motivated to do a really good job?

Sam Stone - It never fails to strike me as utterly pathetic how some people can’t even pull themselves away from the TV long enough to vote.

You’re right about the coverage. The projections and predictions have gone out of hand, and there’s waaay too much emphasis on polls. (From my statistics courses, I know that the only practical use for polls is filling the endless dead air between the snippets of actual news.) We’ve had a retracted concession of defeat for the first time in history. I think we can look forward to some changes in the next election.

20

John said:

Well, at least there’s some good news! :wink:

The next 2-4 years should be interesting. Bush can’t do much of what he said he’d do, because the swing of one or two moderate Repubs in the Senate stops him cold. If things get bad, in 2 years the GOP will lose at least the Senate, if not the House as well.

And in 4 years, Bush may face Gore in a rematch – and Gore will be able to point out that in 2000, the voters chose him over Bush.

The Peyote Coyote said:

Great idea – except we’ve got this little problem of a thing called “the First Amendment” to contend with. Ah, who needs free speech anyway?