Help for a political newbie...Spell out exactly what Nader's effect will be

[Cannikin]

I didn't become interested in politics, unfortunately, until it began to effect me in a very direct way...so I wasn't paying much attention last time Nader ran. I take it that its not necessarily a good thing...

[ThomWV]

1. Common Presumption

Most people think that Nader's run in 2000 siphoned votes from the Democratic side, thus contributing to Gore's defeat (sort of defeat). The thinking is that the votes that went to Nader would otherwise have gone to Gore and if they had there would have been too large a gap for the Republicans to steal the election, or that Gore would have taken other states that he did not. Who's to say if its true or not?

Thom

[mourningdove92]

2. Everyone appears to be convinced that what few votes Nader

does pull, will come from the Democratic pool. What about pulling from the Republican pool? Any possibility there?

[tuckdogg]

12. HIGHLY unlikely

2000 exit polls of Nader voters say no way. Of the people polled who voted Nader, something like 80-90% said they would have voted for Gore if Nader wasn't in the race. The rest were divided up into a small percentage who would have voted for Bush and everyone else would have stayed home. If he pulls any votes, it will be from Democrats.

[newyawker99]

24. Hi tuckdogg!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Not as much as many fear

Nader's Green Party got about 2% of the national vote in 2000, and in some states, like Florida, some claim that Nader kept Gore from winning. That's why so many are freaking out now. They are afraid of a repeat of the last election.

However, this time, there are different circumstances. Nader will be running as an independent, not a Green. Most Greens will be voting for their candidate, David Corn. Many people who voted Green last time will be voting Democrat this time because Bush is such a threat to our nation. In 2000, he didn't appear to be anything as bad as he turned out to be, and a lot of us were disgusted with Gore's lackluster performance and the tendancy for the Dems to cater to businesses instead of the people (yep, I voted Green in 2000, but won't do that this year.)

Hope this helps.

[rock]

4. Nader represents an alternative to the incumbency

His running is good for us, as it provides a outlet for the die-hard Repukes that don't want to (re-)elect bushsucks* and won't vote for a Dem. Good news.

[tuckdogg]

13. Not in this universe

"...it provides a outlet for the die-hard Repukes that don't want to (re-)elect bushsucks* and won't vote for a Dem. Good news."

Nader represents almost everything Bush is against. He's very pro-union and pro-working class. Bush is pro-ultra rich and pro-corporation. Nader is a big social liberal, Bush is about as socially conservative as they get. No die-hard Republican would EVER vote for Nader. If this was Pat Buchanan, who may be one of the two or three people in the country more conservative than Bush, you might have a point. But Nader? Not a chance.

[Timefortruth]

17. Correction: Nader is neither pro-union nor pro-working class.

Nader doesn't give a shit about anyone but Nader. If he says he doesn't realize the disaster that would follow if Chimp is actually "elected" then he is either a fool or an liar.

No if he wanted to help the constituencies that he claims to support he'd be ABB. The best way to gage someone's motivations is not what they say but what they do, and he is working for the election of a set of policies which are disastrous for the world.

I needed to vent. That said, I agree that not many angry Republicans will vote Nader, more likely they will stay home.

[tuckdogg]

19. True, true

It appears I did not fully articulate what I was trying to say. I'm not suggesting that Nader is *actually* pro-union, etc. I'm merely saying that's the platform he runs on, whether he actually practices it or not. You know, like how Bush claims to be Mr. Anti-Terrorism American Hero on his platform, but has suggested that he would completely cut off funding for all military operations in the War On Terrorism (TM) for a three month period near the election so that he doesn't have the political liability of having to shovel even more of the taxpayers' money in the the giant toilet that Iraq has become. Or how Bush claims to be Mr. Government Shrinker Guy who protects Americans against the Evil Democrats (TM) who want Evil Big Government (TM), while in reality Bush has presided over some of the largest domestic spending increases in US history.

Basically, Bush's line of BS is the opposite of Nader's line of BS. People who are buying what Bush pretends to sell are not going to think Nader's BS is an attractive alternative.

[SheilaT]

5. In 2000 Nader got many more votes in Florida

than Bush's supposed margin of victory. Basically, he siphoned off enough votes to make the election stealable. It didn't hurt at all (in the stealing of the election in Florida) that thousands of African American voters were illegal prevented from voting, and that in Dade County the "butterfly ballot" made it nearly impossible to correctly cast a vote for Gore.

Of course, this year we'll have black box voting in many places, and who knows what other dirty tricks to steal the election.

[sadiesworld]

6. There is also some thought that a nader run would make the dem

candidate appear more centrist, and thus more palatable to disgruntled repugs.(good thing). Nader can also be counted on to fire shots at the dem nominee.(bad thing).

[snippy]

7. Nader will have no impact on the election.

Nearly every election involving an incumbent is a referendum on the incumbent. This election will be no different. It definitely will be a referendum on Bush. The three main issues will be the economy, Iraq, and Bush's incessant and compulsive lying. These issues likely will determine 10 to 15 million votes. Those 10 to 15 million votes will preclude another close election. Nader's vote totals will be much lower than in 2000 and insignificant. The people who will vote for Nader are people who would not vote for the candidate of either major party.

Since 9/11 Bush has been in a steady down trend with the occasional bump. Bush's decline in the polls is nothing other than the American people looking at and listening to Bush and realizing that he is an incompetent liar. Day by day and voter by voter, Bush himself is convincing the American people that he should not be president. If the trend since 9/11 continues, Bush will lose badly. If the trend reverses soon enough, Bush will win easily. Nader will not be a factor in any voters' perceptions of Bush.

The economy and Iraq must improve between now and November for Bush to win. Between now and November Bush will continue to lie at every opportunity about every subject on which he speaks. Between now and November, Bush will continue to demonstrate his incompetence. Between now and November Bush will continue to demonstrate his Fecal Midas Touch. Bush can benefit only from what happens to the economy and Iraq between now and November. Those issues, not Nader, may or may not change the trend for Bush and will decide the election. If there is no positive change on those issues, Bush will lose.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Here's four basic points about Nader and the 2000 election...

Nader as the Green Party candidate stated quite clearly for all to hear that he was running to keep Gore from winning.

He also stated just prior to the 2000 election that if he had to vote, he would vote for Junior.

He also accepted money from GOP backers to allow him to run a series of ads in the Pacific Northwest critical of Gore.

Nader has also become independently wealthy...how he did that as a so-called "champion of the people" is beyond my ability to understand.

IMHO, the four points noted above pretty much cancel out whatever idealistic notion anyone has of Ralph Nader.

[buckeye1]

9. Nothing.

n/t

[Darranar]

10. It's still unknown...

the question is how many of the Nader voters would not vote at all without him, and how many would vote for Kerry/Edwards instead.

My guess is that Nader will draw heavily from the disgruntled leftists
who generally don't vote at all. The Democratic electorate seems highly pragmatic this year, probably out of anger towards Bush and fear of another four years.

[tuckdogg]

11. It's more than just conjecture

I'm not going to say that Nader is "the one" who cost Gore the election (lord knows, Al Gore himself is largely to blame seeing as how he ran a horrible campaign in 2000), but Nader was certainly a significant factor.

There were two "third-party" candidates in 2000: Nader and Pat Buchanan. Nader is a "far-left" candidate, Buchanan is a "far-right" candidate. In practical terms, this means that someone who would vote for Buchanan if he was in the election would most likely have voted for Bush were Buchanan not in the election. Likewise, Nader voters would vote for Gore (or whatever other Dem candidate). Buchanan and Nader never had a chance in hell of winning the election, just like Nader has no chance now. They simply existed to get some votes for their respective parties to gain credibility.

The problem is how close the election was. If you factored out the Nader and Buchanan votes and allotted them to Gore and Bush (which could fairly be done based on exit polls of N/B voters saying how they would have voted in the alternative), Gore would have handily won. He would have easily carried Florida, and I believe New Mexico as well. There may have been one or two other states he could have picked up because they were so close, I'm not really sure.

We're currently primed for another very close election in 2004. If anyone tells you differently, they're full of it. Barring some extraordinary circumstances (it's revealed that Kerry/Edwards is actually a secret agent of al Qaeda, Bush has a schizophrenic breakdown on national TV and/or publicly starts back on the cocaine), it's going to be a very close margin. A few votes either way will be enough to win.

Now that Nader has jumped in, he's guaranteed to siphon off votes that would otherwise be going to a Democrat. With the "liberal" votes being split, it suddenly becomes MUCH easier for Bush to win. Keep in mind that in most states you only need a plurality (i.e. larger percentage of the vote than anyone else) to win all of that state's electoral votes. Whoever we put up is going to have to work his ass off between now and November to bring in a ton of new voters to overcome the effect of Nader joining the race.

This is why people think he's an arrogant little prick: He has no chance of winning, and the only thing he could possibly do in this election is help Bush win. Tell me, if you were a Nader voter, what would you rather have: four more years of Bushcroftfeld, and administration that stands for EVERYTHING opposite of what you do; or Kerry/Edwards, who agree with Nader about 60-80% of the time? Somehow, the Democratic option just seems like the much more practical solution. It would be one thing if one party was way out in front and Nader likely wouldn't affect the outcome, or if Nader actually had a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

Unfortunately for Nader (and all the Democrats he's currently pissing on), we don't live in Fantasy Land.

[TruthIsAll]

16. Gore won NM, but lost NH and FL due to Nader..

Nader will NOT draw votes from Dems or Independents who want ABB.

IOW, he is NADA this time. Zilch. Zero. An egomaniac who has destroyed his place in history.

[boobooday]

14. Nader won't impact the election this time

We know what is at stake. I voted for third party candidates when Clinton ran, but I didn't consider it last time, and I definitely wouldn't consider it this time.

Besides, there is a democratic candidate who represents the true progressive agenda, so there is no need to seek a third party. That candidate is Dennis Kucinich.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[cosmicdot]

15. the big picture is what jeb-katherine harris-the GOP-Supreme Court

did prior to ... on election day and after ... gosh knows what in other states (e.g., Tennessee, and states too close to call on election night ...

the votes Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan received as a 3rd Party candidate in Palm Beach County, FL, alone ... which Buchanan himself said was wrong ... were, likely, enough (along with the voter purges, etc.), to cheat the election

I'm not defending Nader. I paid attention to him, and appreciated the anti-corporate rhetoric ... it is imo 'the big issue' which affects just about everything else, and the Democrats should incorporate it much like they did the Farm Alliance ~ Progressive Party issues which led to the New Deal. It was Al Gore's acceptance (populist) speech which I thought was brilliant and was clear as far as the direction he would lead us. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/conventions/democratic/transcripts/gore.html

In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, many observers viewed the potentially confusing butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County as one of the factors that took away more than enough votes from Al Gore to swing Florida and the national election to George W. Bush. While the court cases have been settled, the effect of a flawed ballot design in a single county is still open to debate. In this paper, we present maps that graphically illustrate the impact of ballot form on the number of votes counted for Reform candidate Pat Buchanan. In another paper, 2 our collaborators show that the 3,407 votes for Patrick Buchanan in Palm Beach County was extraordinarily high and unexpected, that it was the result of ballot form, and that it was greatest in precincts with high Democratic registration and substantial support for Al Gore. That paper shows that 2000 to 2400 of the Buchanan votes were almost surely Gore supporters who mistakenly punched their ballot for Buchanan. The anomalously high numbers of mostly unintended votes Buchanan received in Palm Beach County become even more obvious in this paper when we map the results by precinct.

http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/new_web/VOTE2000/MapBuchanan.PDF

I've posted before about the Log Cabin Republicans claim of 25% of the Gay vote for Bush-Cheney. That's significant as much as it is unbelievable considering the knowledge we had of those 2 when seeking office; and, of course, what they're doing now. In states where there are large Gay populations, which I believe Florida would qualify, especially southern Florida, 25% +/- can siphon off quite a few votes. http://www.logcabincolumbus.org/VOTE%20ANALYSIS.htm

I think it was Ralph's rhetoric of there not being a dime's worth of difference which began to be revalued as a result of the stolen election and forward through all the atrocities of the last 3 years, that draws ire. Running as a Green in 2000, the GOP supporters pay big bucks to lawyers to fight Green Peace around the globe ... so, the likelihood of a Green voting Republican vs. Democrat are slim imo as compared to taking votes from the Democrats makes more sense.

[Skittles]

18. many factors allowed the republicans to steal the last election

there is simply no denying the fact that Nader was one of the factors - a big one. This is one disgusting piece of shit, trying to do the same thing this election. It is reprehensible.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

20. Nader will be perfect cover for BBV stealing of the election

wake up!!!....Nader is perfect cover and the RNC will somehow fund his run!....:grr:

[Lis]

21. Think... apocalypse

Now think of something worse. That's the Nader effect.

[newyawker99]

25. Hi Lis!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[chookie]

22. Another day in the Age of Irony

Its a real ha-ha that the anti-corporation crusader, by splitting the Democrat vote, has done more to advance the most virulent kind of corporate piracy than anyone except His Chimperial Majesty himself.

Sorry Ralphie -- you aren't doing the cause any good any more -- you're hurting it.

The guy is a gasbag. I am so sick of his precious "purity" -- which is total bullshit given the realities of modern America. Common sense and strategic thinking are also very important measures of leadership -- and Ralphie is pathologically deficient in these categories.

[kiahzero]

23. What is commonly referred to as "the spoiler effect"

Is more accurately termed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvergers_Law">"Duverger's Law." Nader running will siphon the votes of Democrats who can be convinced to vote against their best interest, and the best interest of the country. Hopefully, it will not be enough to throw the election to Bush.

[Scairp]

26. This time, NONE

I believe he will be all but ignored this time around.