I have been reading alot lately about how liberals are all upset about how Nader might cost Gore the election and are trying to convince him to drop out. Are these people really that naive that they do not know why Nader is running for president? Nader must be smart enough to know he will never be president and that the green party will never be viable outside the west coast. The reason he is running is because it will help his post-election prospects. He makes a living going around giving speeches and you can make more money on the speaking circuit as an ex-candidate than as a guy who used to be famous twenty years ago. He is getting all this free publicity and why would anyone in their right mind give that up?
lemartel: The reason he is running is because it will help his post-election prospects. He makes a living going around giving speeches and you can make more money on the speaking circuit as an ex-candidate than as a guy who used to be famous twenty years ago.
Whereas the two major-party candidates, on the other hand, are running out of sheer altruistic devotion to public service? :rolleyes: Gimme a break.
The OP is a good illustration of the typical attitude that somehow third-party candidates don’t have a right to be out there “distracting” us from the “serious” business of choosing between a pro-business conservative centrist and a pro-business, slightly less conservative centrist. If we weren’t gulled like this into thinking that only the two people in the horse race with lots of institutional backing deserve to be considered “legitmate” candidates, we might actually get motivated to create some better electoral options for ourselves.
I tend to think that Nader is running and will continue to run because he has no belief in the current two party system or either candidate. Hence, it seems really unlikely he will drop out just to help one of them.
The monetary future of the Green Party is at stake as well. If they reach 5% nationwide, they qualify for greater federal funding which will help showcase them as stepping up to the next level party-wise.
Of course, I am far from a Nader supporter so what do I know? That is just what it seems like to me. I have no problems being corrected on this.
Yeah, ghod forbid anyone should care about issues. :rolleyes:
Hey there, pally, you wanna show me some of those liberals trying to get Nader to withdraw? No, I’m serious. Show me.
I did not mean liberals on this message board(even though there is a thread devoted to that topic. I meant national liberal figures and organizations. This article mentions several http://www.washingtonpost.com.wp-dyn/articles/a14571-2000Oct25.html
The reason Bush and Gore are running is they can be elected president.
Federal matching funds can not help a party that does not have a broad base, the Reform Party is a perfect example of that. Nader is polling well as he is because he is a celebrity to a certain amount of the population. If his running mate were the nominee how many votes would she get? The Green Party will sink back into oblivion when it no longer has a celebrity as its candidate.
By that logic, the Democrats shouldn’t have bothered to put up a nominee in '84 or '72, and the Republicans shouldn’t have bothered in '64.
Nader can be elected President. He is on enough ballots to garner a majority of the electoral college. The fact that he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually getting enough votes to win said college is an entirely different- and irrelevant- matter.
It is possible for a candidate to overcome a large lead such as 10 to 20 point such as Truman in '48, Bush in '88, or Clinton in '92 but to come from 3% to the presidency is a practical impossibility. Nader knows this as well as I do.
Nader doesn’t have to win. Nader doesn’t even have to get his federal matched funds.
If he does get votes, and he certainly will, he will be sending a clear message to our two-party candidates that there are an awful lot of dissatisfied people out there. Sure, their voting bloc may be small enough to ignore in the short run, but unless the major parties begin to incorporate the third party issues, they will probably suffer in the long term.
MR
Well, here I have to disagree with you Maeglin. I have seen nothing to convince me that anything short of complete reworking of the electoral college will have any real effect on the major parties with regards to presidential bids unless third party candidates start gaining ground to double digit percentage points. At the most, I can see some passing nods in campaign speeches to issues supported by the third party candidates. But insofar as major change goes, I think that the electoral college is a very effective insulator. The number of elections in which the fringe candidates play a pivotal role is very small, and by the time the effects are known, it’s too late. Had Gore known that this election would be as tightly contested as it is, perhaps he would have courted Nader’s supporters more, but he didn’t and it’s far too late now.
lemartel: The reason Bush and Gore are running is they can be elected president.
Says who? I could assert that Bush is running because he has an Oedipus complex that makes him obsessed with surpassing his daddy and that Gore is running because he dreams of nailing a buxom intern in the Oval Office. I have exactly as much objective evidence for those assertions as you have produced for your assertion that Nader is running because he wants to pump up his future speaking fees.
If you can’t show any actual facts to back up your original allegation, I’ll stand by my opinion that your post is just another example of the party-politics brainwashing that encourages us to discount and despise every political action that isn’t “serious,” i.e., supported by influential institutions for the sake of their own interests.
Are you talking about the electoral college or winner-take-all? Winner-take-all got Lincoln, a third party candidate, elected, though he didn’t get a single vote in some southern states.
The college in and of itself doesn’t skew things very much.
Are you trying to say that Nader can win?
As for evidence that Bush and Gore can win I would point to every election for the past 140 years.
Nader is a celebrity running a vanity campaign. I am suprised that some people seem unwilling to accept that Nader is not running to become president but to increase his name recognition.
If he were serious about it he would do what other celebrities with serious intentions do, first win a smaller post and show that you can do that job and then try for higher office. This worked for Reagan, Bono, Ventura. This is what Hillary is doing.
Perhaps a bit more than that. It seems Nader and his supporters are saying that that’s just not good enough.
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees!
First off, your argument is circular: If Nader didn’t have any recognition, of course he wouldn’t poll well, no-one would know who he is to support him! By the same token, Bush and Gore poll well “because [they are] celebrities to a certain amount of the population”! (Bush via governorship of Texas, Gore via vice-presidency). And their “celebrity” status is aided by the full financial backing of their respective parties!
Now, we might get beyond this and ask ourselves: How has Nader become such a “celebrity”? Answer: By fighting for causes he believes in! So, in fact, anyone who is familiar with Naders “celebrity” status is likely to be aware of WHAT HE BELIEVES IN! Do you think that people would support him in polls if they didn’t agree with at least some of the things he believes in? Do you think it’s possible that people might support Nader not because he’s a “celebrity” but because they AGREE WITH HIM?
If Ralph Nader came off as a total crackpot, saying that his platform consisted of making the world safe for alien invasion, do you think he’d be polling so well, regardless of being a “celebrity”?
What, now it’s “used to be famous”? Where did all that celebrity status go?
And by the way, have you actually heard Nader speak? If not, how would you have any idea why the guy is running? Or do you just think he’s lying? Or do you prefer to get your theories from other people or (God forbid) make them up on the spot?
Sigh…
lemartel: *I am suprised that some people seem unwilling to accept that Nader is not running to become president but to increase his name recognition. *
Nobody has suggested that Nader is seriously expecting to be elected president this year, and nobody has denied that he has other reasons for running, such as galvanizing the progressive left, increasing the visibility of third parties, and drawing attention to the scarcity of truly diverse opinions in our current party-dominated system.
What you said, though, is that Nader is running “because it will help his post-election prospects. He makes a living going around giving speeches and you can make more money on the speaking circuit as an ex-candidate than as a guy who used to be famous twenty years ago.” In other words, you completely discounted any possible motives that Nader might have for his candidacy other than greed for personal gain. I challenge you to back that up with evidence.
Um. No.
Lincoln was not a third party candidate, unless you consider the Democratic Party two parties in and of itself. The Republican Party was established in 1855 as the combination of the Whig Party and the Free Soil Party (the former a major party that was falling apart, the latter a third-party with some success). In 1856, the Republican presidential candidate John C. Fremont finished second to Democrat James Buchanan. The only other party to receive any substance in votes was the American Party (or “Know-Nothings”) which received a paltry 8 compared to Fremont’s 114 and Buchanan’s 174. (And note how close Fremont and Buchanan’s electoral votes were. Do you still consider the Republican Party of 1856 a “third party”? If so, who were the other two? And if the Republicans weren’t a “third party” in 1856, why did they suddenly become one four years later in 1860?).
Pthalis said:
Well, I agree with Pthalis- third parties don’t truly start influencing the major parties until they get double-digit support (and, usually, electoral votes); even then, as with the Reform Party, they may not make a change.
Still, I doubt that abolishing the Electoral College will suddenly convince the Democrats that they need to run leftwards to pick up the 5% that the Green Party gets. And even with the Electoral College, if the Green Party can consistently get 5-10% in each election, the Democrats will start pulling left.
lemartel- I don’t believe Nader is serious that he can win. I believe that he is serious in beleiving that both parties are corrupt and soulless, and that if enough people rally behind him to protest the moderation of the Democratic party, then the Democratic party will start to wander back to the left. Whether this is correct, necessary, or good for the party is certainly debatable. But Nader certainly has plenty of reasons to run other than to reward his own vanity.
You know what? Nader ain’t goin’ anywhere after this election. He’s going to keep on dogging the system, and I’m pretty damn sure he’ll run in 2004–he’s pretty much said he will.
As far as the suggestion that he “win a smaller post and show that [he] can do that job and then try for higher office,” well, he’s been working on behalf of the people of this country for decades. As mentioned earlier, THAT’S WHY HE’S A CELEBRITY. He’s gotten more laws passed than the other candidates and their running mates combined. He’s made this country safer for all of us than anyone I can think of. No one that I have ever heard of has questioned his ability to do the job. Nice try, though.
I am not trying to argue that Nader should not run or should drop out or that people should not vote for him, merely that he knows that he is not a serious candidate.
I am also not saying that he is in it to be greedy as I have heard that he donates most of his millions to various causes. He is trying to get a platform for his views and extra money for expressing them. What he does with this money is not my concern.
Nader is a celebrity because he wrote a popular book and has appeared many times on television. If people were voting for him because of his views on the issues some other person with the same views would get the same support. What did the green party do in the last elections?
Elected official such as Bush and Gore get laws passed not activists, people such as Nader have their place but it is not in the system it is outside of it. If Nader wanted to be a serious candidate he could be. If he ran for Congress and got elected now his chances for the presidency would be much better in '04.
All the third parties fade when the chips are down.
They only get votes if it’s a landslide.
annalamerino- Huh?
In fact, third party candidates are more likely to do well when the country is not. IIRC, the best results for the Communist and Socialist parties came in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. The Populists’ best showings came during the Depression of '96. The Dixiecrats ran high in the turmoil of '48 and '68, but weren’t around for the strong years of the '50’s and the early '60’s.