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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2008 : 15:45:16 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: | The consequences of Nader being in the 2000 race is 8 years of G.W. as president. |
Bush became President in 2000 for numerous reasons. When we look at Nader, he got the tiny but significant percentage of the vote that he did because of shifts toward moderation of the Democratic Party. These shifts have been very deliberate on the part of the DNC and politicians such as Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and they are part of the reason Hillary Clinton is despised by many Democrats and liberals. Many of those votes were not so much support for Nader as they were protest of the direction the Democratic party has taken in recent decades. It does not all rest on the shoulders of Ralph Nader.
Hindsight is 20/20. None of those liberals who voted for Nader in 2000 could have predicted that 9-11 would happen, that it would be used to push an agenda to go to war with and occupy Iraq and put the USA into a huge deficit just when we're about to confront an economic slump and health care crisis.
But more than that, there were other factors, such as the Republican party's ability to seduce and cater to the religious right and poor, rural folks in general. Another factor was election fraud. Another factors was a general and longstanding anti-intellectual mentality in mainstream America that favors a candidate who seems like a nice guy to have a beer with over a candidate who is better educated and well spoken, but somewhat dull.
Saying that Bush becoming president in 2000 is the consequence of Nader's run is like all those media pundits attributing Bush's 2000 win to the anti-gay-marriage bills on the ballets in 13 states which got all the fundies voting. Things like that help, certainly. But just because we notice one factor doesn't mean all the other factors don't matter. It is just as valid to say that the Democratic party has been using inferior campaigning strategies. It is just as valid to say Bush won in 2000 because gun advocates believed Gore would take their guns away. Every factor matters.
People like to say and believe this is a free country. So if Nader wants to run, he should run. If people want to vote for Nader instead of a Democrat, despite that increasing the chances of a Republican, they should go with their conscience. Not everyone is going to have the same values or predictions. Each individual can only go with their own best ideas about politics. That's what freedom, democracy, and the right to vote is all about. And if people want to blame Nader and his supporters when they impact elections, I suggest they take a better look at themselves and consider doing more for or to change the view or tactics of the party they support. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 02/24/2008 15:47:46 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2008 : 16:41:37 [Permalink]
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Marf:
People like to say and believe this is a free country. So if Nader wants to run, he should run. If people want to vote for Nader instead of a Democrat, despite that increasing the chances of a Republican, they should go with their conscience. |
I'm with you Marf. And I too would defend their right to vote for who ever they want to vote for, even if it means that the actual winner is much further from their values then what the other possible outcome would have brought them, because rather than seeing the big picture, they voted independently as free Americans. Hooray for America! A country in which a dickhead is really free to be a dickhead, unless laws are broken… And I support that kind of freedom. Really… I do...
Edited slightly. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2008 : 19:43:58 [Permalink]
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Well Nader's got at least one solid vote, it appears.
Funny thing is, realistically, McCain is a whole lot more vulnerable to "spoiling" by just about any Fascist or semi-Fascist who might put together an impromptu third party ticket.
I suspect such a run might get as much as 1/3 of the GOP vote, spelling even more certain disaster for an already-faltering McCain. And, given the profound and bitter sense of betrayal the Theonazi's are feeling due to the McCain victory (that they themselves engineered by splitting themselves between Romney and Huckabee), it seems very plausible that there will be a last-minute third party of the Right.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/24/2008 19:47:50 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 02/24/2008 : 23:37:37 [Permalink]
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marf said:
| Saying that Bush becoming president in 2000 is the consequence of Nader's run is like all those media pundits attributing Bush's 2000 win to the anti-gay-marriage bills on the ballets in 13 states which got all the fundies voting. Things like that help, certainly. But just because we notice one factor doesn't mean all the other factors don't matter. It is just as valid to say that the Democratic party has been using inferior campaigning strategies. It is just as valid to say Bush won in 2000 because gun advocates believed Gore would take their guns away. Every factor matters. |
You are incorrect.
When examining the behavior of a system you isolate variables and manipulate them.
A consequence of nader's run for president in 2000 was that he siphoned some votes away from Gore. Enough, in FL, to have significantly altered the election results.
| But just because we notice one factor doesn't mean all the other factors don't matter. |
I don't disagree, but the point you fail to grasp is really quite simple. All those factors played a role, including the Nader candidacy.
If you alter that single variable, the end result is drastically changed.
(As voters) who we cast our vote for is the only one of those variables that we can alter. THAT is what makes it more significant than the rest.
Anyone who paid attention to the 2000 campaigns KNEW it was going to be a close election. Yet Nader decided to stay in, and people decided to vote for him. As a consequence Bush was elected (sort of).
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 03:31:21 [Permalink]
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/ralphing_b_88185.html
Sums the problem up.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 04:09:00 [Permalink]
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Kil wrote: | I'm with you Marf. And I too would defend their right to vote for who ever they want to vote for, even if it means that the actual winner is much further from their values then what the other possible outcome would have brought them, because rather than seeing the big picture, they voted independently as free Americans. Hooray for America! A country in which a dickhead is really free to be a dickhead, unless laws are broken… And I support that kind of freedom. Really… I do... |
Maybe I'm just really sick of people getting more worked up by the 3% that voted for Nader than the nearly 48% who voted for Bush.
Dude wrote: | Anyone who paid attention to the 2000 campaigns KNEW it was going to be a close election. Yet Nader decided to stay in, and people decided to vote for him. As a consequence Bush was elected (sort of). |
These assumptions made about Nader voters is really annoying to me on a personal level and here's why: I voted for Nader in 2000. I made a very calculated decision. I lived in Ohio at the time, and as the election neared, it became evident that Ohio would go to Bush regardless. Deciding that I was no longer in a swing state, I figured I was safe to vote for Nader. I was right. Even if all of the Nader voters in Ohio had voted for Gore, Ohio would have still been overall proportionately for Bush. There were plenty of reasons to vote for Nader in 2000 if you were weren't in a swing state, primarily that if Nader got his 5%, that would have increasing funding for the Greens. But because of the insane aftermath of such a close election where Gore really won but was screwed out of his victory by the Supreme Court, I hear nothing but grief if I mention that I voted for Nader in 2000. It doesn't matter if hindsight is 20/20. It doesn't matter that I actually made a smart and correct calculation with regard to my home state. Assholes who are blinded by their frustrations with the Bush presidency hoist much of their anger and frustration on what is really a tiny percentage of people. Much more tiny than even the 3% since many people made the calculation I made, and many more Nader voters were fringe liberals who wouldn't have voted for Gore anyway.
| A consequence of nader's run for president in 2000 was that he siphoned some votes away from Gore. Enough, in FL, to have significantly altered the election results. |
I don't deny this Dude. My beef is with the fervor with which liberals and liberal-leaning moderates demonize 2000 Nader voters as if we're all a bunch of drooling morons. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 04:12:42 [Permalink]
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Marf noted: | My beef is with the fervor with which liberals and liberal-leaning moderates demonize 2000 Nader voters as if we're all a bunch of drooling morons. |
I wouldn't say "drooling."
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 04:17:55 [Permalink]
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It is also worth noting how different the politics of today are. IN 200 Bush looked like he wasn't going to do that much harm compared with Gore. It was Clinton who signed pretty much ever sick bill that Congress handed over to him, resulting in spending more money on the useless drug war than Bush and Reagan combined, resulting in immigration laws which denied immigrants a day in court and instead gave automatic and permanent deportation for certain minor offenses, with no consideration for circumstances. It was Clinton who bombed the shit out of Iraq. People act like Clinton is so great, but he didn't look so great in 2000 to any liberal who actually followed his presidency. If you actually watched the debates between Bush and Gore in 2000, you could get drunk within 10 minutes if you took a shot every time they agreed. The differences between them seemed to be purely a difference of degree, not policy. Sure, Clinton and Gore look awesome now given what Bush has done, but again, no average voter could have predicted the insidious intentions of the Bush administration and how 9-11 would give them the ability to go forward with some of the most destructive foreign policy possible.
The blame is primarily with the hoards of actual drooling morons who saw in Bush a buddy instead of what he was: a silver-spoon fed dullard and failed businessman who only was on the ballet because his daddy was a rich ex-president. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 04:25:55 [Permalink]
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It really does. Someone else who agrees with Ralph, but won't vote for him because he won't win. And Ralph's the asshole for it.
No, there's no reason to think Gore wouldn't have been worse than Bush after 9/11. The Democrats would have applauded him for it, just like they did Clinton, and Clinton didn't even have a 9/11. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 04:53:59 [Permalink]
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A Supreme Court decision on a case that should have never even been heard put the cretin Bush in office in '02, not Nader, and the fact that he did manage to siphon off enough FL votes to make it close is pertinent only as a contributing factor. And I remind; there was enough voter fraud in that state that one would think Soapy Smith was the governor. There is also the fact that Gore ran a lack-luster campaign, even though he beat Shithead by 500K in the national, popular vote count, bringing the Electoral College system into deserved disrepute. In '04, his candidacy was irreverent. In '08, it will be a joke; in '12 it will be ignored. Let the fool run. Again.
I'm starting to think of Nader as a cicada with a four year cycle.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 05:11:18 [Permalink]
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| In '04, his candidacy was irreverent. |
I think you mean irrelevant, but you don't say why.
The Democrats and Republicans have shown who they work for, and it isn't you and me. You call Nader a fool and loathe him for what you haven't said. His policies are what the American people want. Well, those who don't think Bush is going to carry them off into Rapture. The fact that he keeps running shows he is persistent, and has integrity. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 02/25/2008 05:17:50 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 05:35:11 [Permalink]
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You're allowing Democrats to make excuses for their failures and you're helping them to destroy the name of a good man. This is why criminals and con men like Bush and Clinton get elected, because good people are do easily duped.
Every third party candidate got more than the 537 votes that gave Florida to Bush. Blame David McReynolds. Blame Buchanan. Blame Harry Browne.
Why did the ten million more Democrats vote for Bush than Nader?
Why did Gore lose his own state and Clinton's state?
Why didn't they fight harder when Gore obviously won?
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I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 02/25/2008 05:41:17 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 05:43:28 [Permalink]
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Do you think that .3% of the vote is relevant? To what?
I never claimed that Nader lacked integrity and perhaps 'loathe' is too strong a word for what has become a mere distraction. However, and I repeat, I think he's running for the same reasons that some movie celebrities can't stay away from cameras. He got a taste of it in the '90s and got hooked.
If he wants what we all want, he should do what he does best and that is not running futile and even laughable campaigns for high office. Rather he should be trying to influence and perhaps advise the candidate that most closely fits progressive viewpoints. He is not doing that by indulging in cyclic, political masturbation.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 06:27:38 [Permalink]
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If he wants what we all want, he should do what he does best and that is not running futile and even laughable campaigns for high office. Rather he should be trying to influence and perhaps advise the candidate that most closely fits progressive viewpoints. He is not doing that by indulging in cyclic, political masturbation.
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Well, he went to Obama, and Obama laughed at him, because Obama knows he doesn't work for us, he works for the wealthy.
The only reason that Nader is irrelevant, is because people who agree with him don't vote for him. They'd rather vote for people who do nothing for them at all, and in fact, only make their lives worse because they don't want to be seen as unsophisicated. They want to listen to what wealthy pundits like Alterman tell them about what's happening, rather than look at what's happening. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 06:46:56 [Permalink]
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So, millions of us who supported Nader in 2000 bought into the nonsense that it was a better idea to support Democrats. I supported a Democrat who was running against Rep. Oxley when I lived in Ohio. He lost, but that was okay. What wasn't okay, was that he was not willing to call Bush a criminal. Did not know that pharmaceutical companies get a lot of their research paid for by the government. Did not have anything at all to say about the millions of our citizens that have been put in prison mainly because they're poor, and primarily black and latino.
What wasn't okay was that vote didn't mean anything. What wasn't okay is that the Democrats haven't impeached Bush. They have called Iraq a "mistake." They would have done it better.
Like I said, I don't know that I'm supporting Nader this time, either, but I don't see Obama or Clinton as being anything close to relevant. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Ralph Nader...
