Are there more centrist Democrats than Greens?

[soundfury]

Someone prove to me that there are more centrist Democrats than Greens.

Show me the numbers, with links please.

Someone tell me what are the deciding issues that make a Swing voter vote Democrat.

Someone prove to me that there are more Swing voters than Green voters.

Show me the numbers, with links please.

I think Democrats should be looking to get the Green voters.

HavenÕt we learned that the Green vote is enough to win or lose an election on?

HavenÕt we learned that a centrist Democrat can not win the presidency?

Breaking news, Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat who can unite the Green and Democrat vote!

[sangh0]

1. Green flame-bait

.

[Forkboy]

2. sure is

[jiacinto]

3. Easy

The Greens only get 2.74% of the vote.

[Frodo]

5. Yep.

And Clinton won the presidency twice, and Carter won once. And they didn't do it on the back of Greens and opposed to centrists.

[Richardo]

10. Gore: 51 million votes.....Nader 2.8 million votes.

Look up "poisson distribution" and report back if you don't understand.

[Loyal]

65. This has NOTHING to do

with the poisson distribution. You are throwing out a random probability distribution to avoid answering the hard questions. We're not all stupid here, even though you may think that.

[soundfury]

11. Show me the numbers with links please É

Prove that there are more centrist Democrats than Greens.

Prove that there are more Swing voters than Greens.

Then you COULD say that the Swing and centrist Democratic vote is MORE important
than the Green vote.

[jiacinto]

50. Okay

Easy. Again. The Greens only got 2.74% of the vote. Gore got 48.83% of the vote.

The Greens only received 2,882,895 votes. The Democrats received 51,003,238 votes.

Democrats received more than 48,000,000 votes than the Greens. It's obvious that there are more centrist Democrats than Greens.

Otherwise the Greens would have gotten many, many more votes.

[JVS]

68. I voted for Gore and I am NOT a centrist democrat. So your proof is shit

[jiacinto]

74. Shit?

Please--the Greens got only 2.74% of the vote. To say that they outnumber centrist Democtrats is clearly being delusional.

[LoZoccolo]

4. A centrist Democrat /did/ win the presidency...

...in 1992, 1996, and 2000.

The problem with courting Greens is you never know when they are going to sacrifice getting some of what they want to get more of what they want (and subsequently get almost none of what they want).

[Loyal]

6. Exactly

Whining like little babies.

[LoZoccolo]

21. I think a little bit of showing-off might be involved too...

I read this article about how the Green party decided they'd rather try to run a candidate than vote for a Democratic one. Basically they all voted on it. But instead of conducting a secret ballot election, they were all in this big room and they divided up into groups based on their vote...everyone could see who was "disloyal".

I wouldn't even want people that do that kind of stuff in power anyways.

(on edit: clarification of election process)

[sangh0]

7. And Greens /did/ lose

.

[Forkboy]

8. please people

this thread should be stillborn...we ALL know it's purpose.Let's have both sides not bite.

[Forkboy]

13. *sigh*

I tried....have at it :eyes:

[Richardo]

15. and a valiant effort it was, too, FB.

:toast: sometimes it's just too easy.

[Loyal]

17. Nice DINO avatar

;-)

[gully]

41. Here's my GINO avatar...

:P

[Forkboy]

42. Thats no ordinary DINO

Thats Godzilla!!!! :)

[bryant69]

9. Why don't you do some research and come up with

those numbers yourself? I mean if you are arguring that we must support Kucinich because there are more Greens than Centrists, well prove it. Why demand that we prove it for you?

Bryant
Check it out -- http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[soundfury]

18. Well, many people say that É

Kucinich can not win because he is too liberal and that we need to court the
Swing and centrist democratic vote more.

I want those people to show me proof that there are indeed MORE Swing and
centrist Democrat voters than Green voters.

I donÕt buy it. People always say it however without providing any evidence.

[Frodo]

12. Breaking News

Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat who can unite Democrats in his own district. There is little evidence he can win statewide and NO EVIDENCE he can win nationally.

His policies and beliefs may be exactly what you want. But his resume' and qualifications are sadly lacking. He can not win (in 2004). Serve a term as Senator and a couple as Gov. and see us again in 2016 or 2020.

[no name no slogan]

33. Better check his career first

Dennis was mayor of Cleveland, which has a population that's bigger than many states (especially small New England states, with only three electoral votes).

And it's not only Democrats he's uniting, IT'S EVERYONE. He's repeatedly won re-election in a "Reagan Democrat" district that is a fairly accurate cross-section of middle America with a large percentage of the vote. In his last bid, he won with 75% of the overall vote, AND 50% of the REPUBLICAN vote!

So please let's give up the "electability" and "unqualified" meme, shall we? We both know it's not true and is an insult to the intelligence of everyone.

[Hep]

34. I like your spunk

He's a worthy and qualified candidate. I don't think he will win, but I respect anyone who is fighting for him. What I don't like is that most K supporters that I've spoken to won't vote D if Kucinich doesn't get the nomination. But he has no money, he has low numbers, and without one or the other, he can't get his message out very well. I wish him the best of luck, but I won't hold my breath.

[soundfury]

44. I will vote D

As I said in another post, I voted D but wanted to vote G.

Here's a Dem that many Dems agree with but donÕt have the courage of their convictions.

What a shame, to thy own self be true.

[Hep]

62. It's a struggle

I see your point about being true to onesself. But I have to take a broader approach to the situation. That's just me.

[Nederland]

36. If EVERYONE likes him

...why is he in single digits?

[Frodo]

48. Follow politics a little longer and you will learn...

... that people don't buy the spin. They check into the facts.

1) Dennis was mayor of Cleveland (and wasn't able to be re-elected to THAT job, let alone President - but that's another argument) twenty-five years ago. This is not the executive experience resume' of a President of the United States. Can you name the last President with "one-term mayor of sixth biggest city" as his senior executive position?

2) A "Reagan Democrat" district??? A "Fairly accurate cross-section of middle America" Please! Do you think nobody will look it up? Here's some quick observations from ten minutes or research:

a) I take a look at the map of Ohio's districts and the first thing I notice about the 10th is it's size. A district that small means a HEAVY inner-city population probably with a high minority population. Noticing that the 11th is right next door and shares the same county (Cuyahoga) I note that it elected Stephanie Jones Tubbs with 85% of the vote. I speculate that Cuyahoga has a very high African-American population. Great for winning races for us, but hardly a cross-section of middle-america.

b) I further point out that with SJT winning 85% of the vote and DK winning 75% of the vote you could pretend that it means he's popular with all of the voters... or you could more logically assume that the Republicans ran stuffed suit token candidates in both districts because they are slam-dunk Democratic districts, not "Regan Democrat" districts.

c) But I don't need to make assumptions based entirely on district lines. I can check the Ohio Secretary of State website and see that Gore & Nader combined for almost exactly twice as many votes as Bush in those districts, that they voted 67% for an environmental conservation ammendment that the rest of the state voted in the low 50's for, AND in a state that re-elected a Republican Senator (DeWine) by about 25% over the Democrat challenger their districts were able to eke out a tie. Conclusion? This is a solid Democratic district, NOT a representation of the voters he would face statewide - let alone nationally - just as my post pointed out. Hell, If he ran for President he wouldn't win Ohio, let alone the country.

3) Give up the "unqualified" issue? It's the ONLY issue here. I missed that he was in his mid 50's (he looks a LOT younger- evidence of clean living I guess), so I guess 2020 will probably be too late for him. That makes it unlikely he will EVER have the experience necessary to be President. You see, what you're missing is that I'm not discussing ANY of his policy issues. Can't you image a 20yr old kid with exactly your political beliefs and all of the fire and charisma that you see in DK? You would probably be happy to see him as President... but is he qualified? No.

We elect Governors, we elect senior politicians with decades of legislative experience(though rarely, a fact that will hurt a big percentage of our candidates) and exclusively Senators. We occasionally elect foreign policy guru's with extensive executive credentials (senior military officers).

What we do NOT do is elect three term congressmen (that's ONE Senate term if he COULD have been elected to the Senate) who have lost re-election in a solid Democratic city and lost election to the House once. We do NOT elect Presidents with such poor credentials.

I could argue that his politics put him way too far left to win a national election, but it's irrelevant. If he brainwashed every voter in the country to believing he agreed with them all 100% he still couldn't be elected because he in too inexperienced.

It's like the kid with a HS diploma applying for the job that lists "MBA & 10yrs experience required" on the job description. He may be a genius, he may interview well, he might even be smart enough to do the job - but it's going to the candidate with the MBA. "President of High-school debating society and active member of the key club and SADD chapter" won't swing the decision. He is unqualified - end of story - come see us in fifteen years kid.

[Bushknew]

57. Legislative experience

<<If he brainwashed every voter in the country to believing he agreed with them all 100% he still couldn't be elected because he in too inexperienced.>.

What legislative experience does Clark, Ventura, Arnold have and Bush canÕt do anything without a tele-promoter in front of him.

The American people vote who they believe in, experience or no experience.

[Frodo]

59. Interesting dodge.

We elect people with significant legislative experience in liew of executive experience. Ventura and Arnold do not have such experience and guess what? They would have been unqualified to be President. In their cases, even being Gov won't hack it of couse (especially for Arnold since he's Constitutionally unqualified), but prior to being elected Gov? They would have zero chance (remarkably similar to DK's chances).

Clark is not lacking in executive experience or foreign policy qualifications. Bush of course was Gov of one of the biggest states in the union, Carter, Clinton, and Reagan were also Governors.

[Hep]

14. Can't give you what you want.

But considering Gore got more than 40% of the vote and Nader got 3%, I think it's pretty clear. But let's get to your main point:

I think Democrats should be looking to get the Green voters.


No. You're wrong. Well, you're NOT wrong because you're sharing your opinion and that's valid. But I disagree. If you want dems to move to the left, get involved. If you want dems to win elections, become a dem. But we shouldn't be looking to convert people from other parties. We have enough people in ours, we just have to get them to vote.


Haven't we learned that the Green vote is enough to win or lose an election?

No. If you're green, try to get greens elected. It sucks that you want to be green AND you want dems to win. We had enough votes in 2000 to win as it was.

Haven't we learned that a centrist Democrat can not win the presidency? i]

Uh, Bill Clinton?

Breaking news, Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat who can unite the Green and Democrat vote!

Kucinich is polling like Nader did. He's not uniting anything. In fact, on an individual level, I've not seen more angry, vitriolic people than my local kucinich supporters, who are so interested in uniting dems and greens that they refuse to vote D if kucinich loses.

[soundfury]

20. News Flash

<<If you want dems to move to the left, get involved. If you want dems to win elections, become a dem. But we shouldn't be looking to convert people from other parties. We have enough people in ours, we just have to get them to vote.>>

Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat!


<<Haven't we learned that a centrist Democrat can not win the presidency?
Uh, Bill Clinton?>>

Centrist Democrats are dead, triangulation is dead.

Becoming more like Republicans is not the future of the Democratic party.

Need proof?

Look at Joe Lieberman's numbers.

[Sandstorm]

23. You're just making rash generalizations

To support your position. You show me the numbers that say there are more greens than centrist Dems. I don't think you can. Oh, and with links please.

[Hep]

30. new flash? WTF?

Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat!

You were talking about greens. You didn't bring up Kucinich until the end. Do I need to read your post to you?

Centrist Democrats are dead, triangulation is dead.

Centrist democrats are leading the polls, WTF are you talking about?

And without triangulation, we'll never catch crooks who commit their crookery via cell phone.

Becoming more like Republicans is not the future of the Democratic party.

Need proof?

Look at Joe Lieberman's numbers.


If you can't think in more complex terms than this, we have a problem. No one is becoming more like republicans. OK, good, that's out of the way.

Let's talk lieberman. He gets great marks from reproductive rights groups, from environmental groups, from educators, etc and bad marks from the NRA, from big business, right to life groups, etc. If I have to, I'll vote for him.

You know who I won't vote for. Anyone Green.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

24. why exactly are the Greens "left" - aren't they centrist?

I don't necessarily believe that the Greens are the "far left" party while the Buchananites are "far right". It seems that their opposition to corporate trade is "centrist" - in that it appeals to both Democrats and Republicans, while the DLC Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans are the wingnuts on this issue.

[Hep]

31. Explain what "corporate trade" is, please

I don't know what being anti-corporate trade is. Is that like Microsoft giving up a vice president for one of Intel's legal aids and a future draft pick?

Greens are far left. No, really. People on the right want as little regulation as possible, people on the left want as much as possible. Centrists don't know or don't care or want SOME regulation.

The right wants to legislate morality, the left wants moral freedom, the center wants SOME moral legislation.

You know greens are far left. Come on!

[no name no slogan]

35. Greens are not "far left"

In fact, they are much more conservative than the Democrats regarding federal vs. local government.

The Greens favor more power to local governments (as opposed to the federal or state government) for basic decision-making purposes, as the local government is (in theory) closer to the people than the others. You could even argue that they are rather "conservative" on many issues (preserving family farms, a small-scale economy, protecting the environment, etc.)

It's quite sad, really, that so many "Democrats" are so afraid of the Greens, especially when you look at the platform of the Green Party. It's nearly identical to the one the Dems used to have before the corporate moneymen and DLC centrists took over.

[Hep]

38. I have no problem with the greens

But if you think that being conservative is as simple as wanting to save family farms or liking local gummint, then yeah, greens are as conservative as they come.

But explain to me one thing. If greens are all about local government, then why was everything about Nader in 2000 when there wasn't a single green on my statewide or local ballot? If you're about local government, then why not run local candidates instead of a national candidate who has no chance?

Even this year, not a single green on my local ballot. Not one. The greens rallied behind a democrat for city council. So if you're all about local gummint, where are the candidates?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

45. corporate trade agreements, i.e., NAFTA

"People on the right want as little regulation as possible, people on the left want as much as possible. Centrists don't know or don't care or want SOME regulation."

I don't think so. Plenty of "right-wing" Buchananites want regulation on corporations, so how can that be a "far-left" opinion?

"The right wants to legislate morality, the left wants moral freedom, the center wants SOME moral legislation. "

Yet it's the "far left" that wants to make hate speech laws and regulate morality, in the sense of racism and homophobia?

Perhaps it's not a straight line from left to right, perhaps it's more like a pyramid - the more pro-wealthy you are, the more "center" and the more pro-working class you are, the more left or right wing?

[soundfury]

46. I think you nailed it.

the more pro-wealthy you are, the more "center" and the more pro-working class you are, the more left or right wing?

[Kahuna]

16. Duh? You prove there are more greens than centrists..

instead of the other way around.

[GreenArrow]

19. People will vote out of their fears

they also want to win, so they will vote for the centrist candidate even when their own beliefs and interests are better served by a more left-leaning candidate. Nader would have gotten more than 2.7 percent if people weren't afraid of Bush winning. I've talked to numerous people who liked Nader, but voted Gore out of Bush fear. Interestingly, polls here on DU have suggested that if people could select a president of their choice, it would be DK. But DK doesn't get the media face time, he doesn't have the money connections, and he's funny looking, so most will vote for a candidate that they see as a "winner." IMO there are more people, especially on the left, but on the right as well, who do see the Green platform as the better way, but so long as they have a charade of choice between the two traditional parties, they will vote for a major party candidate.

Unfortunately, politics is full of good-looking, well-connected, sociopaths, liars and crooks and they tend to win more often than not.

[soundfury]

22. False positive votes

I was one. I voted AGAINST Bush and not FOR Gore.

I wanted to vote for Nader but didnÕt.

But, if Dems keep going right, more people will vote Green without hesitation.

I know I will.

[jonnyblitz]

25. LMFAO u are gonna piss the right wing of DU off with this post!!

I love it!! :hi:

[soundfury]

26. Well so far no one has been able to prove thatÉ

Swing and centrist Democrat voters are more important than Green voters.

When we KNOW how important the Green votes were.

If we had a more leftist Democratic candidate running in 2000, we would have
had more Green votes and would have won election fraud and all.

[Nederland]

29. Bullshit

You just have your head in the sand. You want a link?

Here it is: http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/frametextj.html

Consider the last two presidential elections:


2000
George W. Bush--> 50,459,624
Albert Gore Jr.-> 51,003,238
Ralph Nader------> 2,882,985

1996
William Clinton-> 47,402,357
Robert Dole-----> 39,198,755
H. Ross Perot0---> 8,085,402
Ralph Nader--------> 685,128



Do you notice how the centrist candidates Gore and Clinton got 25 times more votes than the Green candidates? Is that clear enough for you, or are you still a little fuzzy on the subject? Perhaps you like to look at party registration numbers? Polling data that describes people political persuasions? What exactly would it take to convince you that you are completely and utterly wrong?

Never mind. We're wasting our time here...

[soundfury]

43. How I read the numbers É

In 1996, Ralph Nader got 685,128.

In 2000, Ralph Nader got 2,882,985

Why did Nader do SO much better in 2000, with all the good things Clinton did?

I propose to you that while Clinton did good things, he moved the party too much
to the right and lost many Democrats in the process.

Green voters are/were Democrats, itÕs they job of the party to get them back.

If not, Ralph NaderÕs numbers will only INCREASE.

[Nederland]

47. Not the Question

You are now changing the question, which is fine, but I feel compelled to point it out. Your original question was whether Centrists outnumber Greens. After indisputable proving that Centrists vastly out number Greens you now seem to be saying that the Green trend is up. To that I would say yes, the Green trend is up. However, that does not mitigate the fact that if you move to the left to pick up Greens you are probably going to lose at least 10 centrists for every Green you pick up. That is a dumb move politically.

[Frodo]

51. You don't think Perot being there in 2000 makes a difference?

Just maybe some of those eight Million voters who didn't want to associate with either the Democrat or Republican considered another third party?

[jiacinto]

52. Nader actually campaigned in 2000

He didn't campaign that much in 1996.

[Frodo]

53. Another good point.

eom.

[jiacinto]

54. Thanks

nt

[arcos]

61. Look at the Californial Recall exit poll:

On most political matters, do you consider yourself...?
Very liberal 11%
Somewhat liberal 20%
Moderate 36%
Somewhat conservative 19%
Very conservative 14%

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/replacementballotexitpoll.html

Now, I was not able to find a national poll, but if we consider that California is more liberal than the rest of the nation, you can get an idea.

[Terwilliger]

49. for somebody so wrong, you're awfully sure of yourself

how many of those "centrist Democrats" voted for Bush, Dole, Bush or Reagan?

The question was asking you to quantify the number of centrists. Don't get huffy because your assertions don't match the question.

[Hep]

32. So you're saying

that greens cost gore the vote? You might want to talk to some other greens about that here. They seem to think something different.

BTW, we had enough votes in 2000. They weren't counted. Although I do give your boy Nader some of the credit.

But you're looking at it all wrong. You're supposed to be asking why the dems stole all of Naders votes.

[soundfury]

27. Centrist Democrats are dead. Proof? Joe LiebermanÕs numbers.

Centrist Democrats are dead. Proof? Joe LiebermanÕs numbers.

[Blue_Chill]

56. LIEberman is a conservative not a centrist.

Listen to his censorship garbage or his moralizing.

Clark is a centrist. look at his numbers.

[dolstein]

64. He's a moderate Democrat

Anyone who calls Lieberman a conservative obviously doesn't know much about Lieberman and probably knows even less about conservatives.

Just check out the ratings Lieberman gets from conservative groups. You'd think these groups would be able to recognize their own kind. Yet they all give Lieberman very low conservative scores.

The truth is, Lieberman's a moderate Democrat. He's about as far to the right of Ted Kennedy as he is to the left of John Breaux (a real centrist Democrat). Aside from Zell Miller in the Senate and a handful of Democrats in the House, there simply aren't any conservative Democrats in Congress -- they've all become Republicans.

[Classical_Liberal]

28. I think 1/4 of Dems would be greens if they weren't practical

I also think Greens are more valuable and enthusiastic campaigners than the mushy middle.

[wyldwolf]

37. Aren't two centrists leading the democratic nomination pack?

Dean and Clark.

Followed by... more centrists?

[felonious thunk]

39. Apparently...

that, and every general and primary presidential election of the last 50 years isn't proof enough.

[morgan2]

40. most people are nothing

They will listen to both sides of an argument and admit both sides have some valid points. Whatever side they agree with more, or trust more will get their support.

[quaker bill]

55. Wrong

Not even good flame bait.

Perhaps you are just too young to have voted for more liberal democrats. I have consistently voted for the most liberal democrat running in the primaries over and over (since McGovern). They have nearly never gotten the nomination.

I have voted for nominated liberal democrats and they have never won the Presidency. Carter was a moderate in his day. Clinton was no liberal either.

A centrist will win this contest. Will you be convinced then?

[Iverson]

58. no take ze bait

I kind of don't care which group has more. I know what I think, and I will treat people decently, especially if they do the same.

[arcos]

60. It's "democratic vote", not "democrat vote". n/t

[dolstein]

63. Yes -- here are some numbers

According to the CNN exit poll in the 2000 election, 39% of the voters identified themselves as Democrats, but only 20% of the voters identified themselves as liberals. So even if one were to assume that EVERY SINGLE self-identified liberal was a Democrat (a highly unrealistic assumption, since 13% of self-identified liberals voted for Bush), that would still mean that slightly less than half of the Democrats (representing 19% of the electorate) considered themselves either moderates or conservatives. That's several times larger than the size of the group that supported Nader.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/epolls/US/P000.html

[John_H]

66. Kick to highlight green/rethug desperation

on edit: note the fauxesque use of "democrat" instead of "democratic"

[Frodo]

67. Here's your answer - with stats and a link.

I spent some time looking for it on another thread. Figured I should give it to you as well.
http://www.pop.psu.edu/data-archive/codebooks/gss/gss1x8.PDF

Scroll down to question 65A on page 61

"65 A. We hear a lot of talk these days about liberals and conservatives. I'm going to show you a seven-point scale on
which the political views that people might hold are arranged from extremely liberal--point 1--to extremely
conservative-- point 7. Where would you place yourself on this scale?"


This represents samples for the last three decades totaling over 40,000 people polled. The numbers fluctuate from year to year but there are consistently between 10 and 25 times as many "Moderate" respondants as extremely liberal.

You may feel free to disagree whether Greens fall into the "very liberal" category. Regardless, it is clear that by far the larges single block is "moderate - middle of the road". That group, in fact is half again as large as every person who cansidered themselves even a little left of center combined. Thus proving that we MUST attract the center to win and CANNOT be seen as courting the far left (greens) at the expense of the middle.

For 2000 (in case the file is too big) the numbers were:

Extremely liberal 107
Liberal 308
Slightly liberal 285
Moderate, middle of the road 1,054
Slightly conservative 390
Conservative 411
Extremely conservative 89

[ShaneGR]

70. Great study.... good find

I'll be using that.

[Booberdawg]

71. Saved for future reference

Mind if I quote you? :D

[Frodo]

73. I'd be tickled "picko" :-)

But all I did was find the link. The poll is the work of NORC's General Social Survey that they've been running since the early 70's.

As with all polls, take it with a bit of salt (though many consider it the gold standard for changing social views).

[ShaneGR]

69. Nader 2.7%

I think that about sums it up. I could probably find more centrist dems in Georgia than Nader people in the whole country.

[Booberdawg]

72. This flame bait has been proven wrong time and again

See post # 67. And you might consider doing your own research instead of insisting others do it for you to DISprove YOUR position.

I happen to like Dennis Kucinich. If he gets the DEMOCRATIC nomination I will gladly support him and vote for him. However, I am not interested in saving a few Green votes at the expense of losing far more centrist votes in order to do that. That just isn't a winning strategy, and I want to win.