Anyone else understanding the Ralph Nader voters more now?

[KansasVoter]

I am sure to get ripped for this post but I don't really care.

I think the Ralph Nader voters were in the "We need REAL change, not another Corporate democrat again" and I am starting to understand that logic more.

I guess some people would rather vote for a real progressive candidate than another corporate democrat even if it meant throwing their vote away.

I am not there yet but I sure the hell see why people get fed up with dems who are not really liberal.

[LWolf]

1. I always understood them, and never blamed them. nt

[peace frog]

170. I understood, but questioned their decision to vote for Nader

We needed real change but Ralph Nader was not the candidate to deliver it imho. Weak though his campaign was, Gore was the better choice of the two. But again, where would the real change have been? Not from either man, so there it is.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

256. Likewise

I understood them then and, today, am 100% with them in their unwillingness to vote for the status quo, regardless of political party.

[stuntcat]

269. my first thought exactly

I do the math and vote practically though. I ALWAYS wish I had better choices.

[eleny]

283. Me too

[earth mom]

291. Same here. nt

[saltpoint]

2. I think Ralph Nader is a poopyhead. If he decides to

run again I think he'll get his butt kicked this time even more than all the other times, but then again, that's Ralph for ya.

Nader is in a cage of his own design and maintenance. He speaks for and to people who already agree with him, and persuades no one else.

He is, arithmetically and politically, a loser.

[KansasVoter]

3. I'll add you to the "fake dems are real dems" category.

[saltpoint]

6. And it's unlikely I'll EVER recover from a move like that.

[ToppleTheTeaParty]

131. Nader again? *__*

God, will that gadfly go somewhere already? He's just wanting to screw up the Dems enough that we can't see straight anymore. If he really wants to help America, forge an alliance with Perot & Bloomberg to start a 3rd party before 2012. We could always jettison SlowBama but keep the House/Senate Dems.

[saltpoint]

133. Hey there, Topple -- welcome to the DU.

'Gadfly' is about right. He has this truly sharp mind and yet quite the twisted intent.

I have respect for that level of intelligence but none at all for the shitwork he visits upon public discourse, braying as he does like a jackass at corporations in which he holds significant stock.

Again, welcome.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Not really.

I've known since 2000 that they're ineffectual shit-for-brains losers.

[KansasVoter]

5. Glad this two years are meeting your expectations.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. And I'm glad for the people who are upset by them.

Schadenfreude. Fuck yeah.

[bushisanidiot]

81. 1 year 7.5 months. NOT two years yet.

but nice try.

[EstimatedProphet]

174. Plus, the country is in this condition from 8 YEARS of active mismanagement

NOT 2 YEARS.

It always takes longer to rebuild than to destroy.

[bushisanidiot]

191. AGREED. The Bush recession brought this country to it's knees.

It could take another 4 years to get us back on track.

I give President Obama props for putting pieces in place to allow our economy to bounce back over the next couple of years.

[Raineyb]

282. Actually the country is in this condition from 30 years of bad economic policy.

That would include, I will note, 8 years of Clinton who didn't do a damn thing to reverse the damage Regan did.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

324. He and the Democrats had, what, two whole years to reverse the prior twelve?

He pushed through an economic plan that the entire Republican Party voted and ran against that started to reverse Reagonomics (sound somewhat familiar?), at least slightly. Then, the $%$%*$%&* Republicans controlled Congress for the rest of his eight years in office. What exactly did you expect him to have achieved in terms of reversing Reagonomics with a Republican Congress, a hostile one at that? :shrug:

[Raineyb]

327. He didn't have to further Reganomics did he? Which is exactly what he did with

NAFTA, Welfare "reform" and Graham Leach Bliley. He didn't HAVE to pass these things but he did so please spare me the spin about Clinton being a victim of circumstance when he was instrumental in passing things that were Republican wet dreams when he didn't have to. Democrats who pass things Republicans want when Republicans couldn't are still aiding and abetting Republican agendas.

You can't argue you didn't help it along when you pass things that do exactly that. If he had actually put up a fight and attempted to reverse it that would be a completely different story.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

341. He could/shoud have done more to prevent the furthering of Reaganomics, yes

but I don't think he could've necessarily reversed it much without having a Democratic Congress (with the exception of NAFTA, of course- during which time he DID have a Democratic Congress).

[Better Believe It]

47. And is that how you would describe the 250,000 registered Florida Democrats ....

who voted for Bush in 2000? Do you really think that had nothing to do with Bush gaining the presidency?

Shame on you for putting it all on Ralph Nader and leaving Joseph Leiberman, Dubya and the Supreme Court off the hook.

[JI7]

56. they aren't real Democrats , whores also and if they come on DU they should be banned

[Better Believe It]

87. Including those Florida voters who voted for Obama in 2008? I'm sure the Democratic

Party will be using you for voter outreach! By any chance do you work for the State Department Diplomatic Corp?

In the 1932 presidential election you probably would have told those who voted for Herbert Hoover in 1928 to "go fuck yourselves Republican whores". That would have gotten lots of votes for FDR. You sure know how to reachout and influence people.

:)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

67. The moral equivalent of a Nader voter.

"Shame on you for putting it all on Ralph Nader and leaving Joseph Leiberman, Dubya and the Supreme Court off the hook."

Oh, they're all equal scumbags.

[suzie]

106. You mean the same Dixiecrats who voted for Reagan, Bush, Dole?

Those "Democrats"? The ones who for some reason don't ever bother to re-register as Republicans?

The posters who talk about the "Democrats who voted for Bush" over and over seem unwilling to look at actual election results from Florida. Which would show a number of counties in North Florida where there is a larger percentage of registered Democrats than the percentage which votes for Democrats in election after election, year after year. These people simply aren't Democrats--they don't vote for Democrats.

It is all on Ralph Nader--he cost Gore Florida, and last I heard--that was where Election 2000 was lost.

Doesn't matter how much you try to divert, it was Nader.

[Art_from_Ark]

150. So the fact that bu$h's brother was governing the state

and his campaign co-chair was in charge of counting the votes and setting arbitrary deadlines, and the Miami-Dade vote counting was disrupted by Republican operatives, among other things, had nothing to do with the phony-baloney final vote tally in Florida?

[suzie]

226. Well, if you want to talk about the actual votes, then you have to take into account

the fact that 9 more votes in each county would have won the election for Gore.

In a very conservative county in the state where I live, I know at least 9 people who voted for Nader. Statewide, I believe that there were considerably more Nader voters who like to call themselves "progressives".

In fact, many of them remembered during 2000-2008 that they were Democrats and complained long and loud about those they'd helped put in power.

[Kalun D]

346. Horse Puckey

Even with the Nader votes the bush machine would have just upped the cheating until they "won". They knew what the numbers were before they came in and they cheated enough to win.

[flamingdem]

112. Tell it brother (or sister) nt

[jaxx]

7. The Green Party has never gotten off the ground.

Is Nader liberal, or self serving?

[saltpoint]

53. Agree. The Greens in Europe have done far better than

Greens this side of the Atlantic.

Nader did not help them when he headed their ticket, and they totally bought the farm with McKinney last time.

There seems to be a serious insight & judgment problem with the U.S. Greens.

[AnArmyVeteran]

Nader is an honorable, intelligent man who would never sell out the people as we are being sold out.

[Radical Activist]

92. What has he done to help build up a green party infrastructure?

jack shit.

[AnArmyVeteran]

264. We've had one corrupt hack after another building parties and look at what we got.

I'd rather have someone who has worked FOR the people and the country than someone who has to sell out his ideals and morph into a party zombie. The reason why we get one inept or corrupt leader after another is because people give all their loyalty to a political party rather than people who can make a difference to improve the country. Face it, to be included and accepted by a major political party candidates have to sell their souls and their complete allegiances to that party if they want to seriously run for office. The two party system is a failure because both are owned by corporations and the rich. As long as the two major parties know they have peoples' votes in their pockets without having to represent them they will continue to ignore them.

If a competent, intelligent, honest person with visionary ideas wants to run for office in one of the major parties they have to sell out to the highest bidders. We don't have a government "of the people". Our government is controlled by corporations and the rich. The only way to purge the prostitutes from our government is to have strict campaign finance laws, like the ones championed by the Reform and Green parties. Until that happens we the people will continue to have a government ran by political prostitutes. Unfortunately, people keep voting the same way and expecting different results, which is a symptom of insanity. Neither major party wants campaign finance reform or changes in the way candidates are elected because they CONTROL the process.

We need a system where all elections are publicly financed with no political advertising. We need to have a system where the media is forced to air debates between all candidates during prime time and limit the lengths of campaigns. If we can't have public financing of elections we should prevent anyone from donating to a candidate unless they can VOTE for that candidate. I'm sick of having money spew into my district or state from other parts of the country to pollute and corrupt my local elections. Until 'we the people' take back control of our elections from the rich, the corporations and the two major political parties our voices will continue to be silenced more and more every day. No real change will come until the people take back control of our elections.

[Radical Activist]

267. Wishing doesn't make it so.

How will people "take back control of our elections?" It won't happen by writing letters to the editor about how the system is broken. It won't happen by running ego campaigns that have no chance at winning.
It will happen by organizing well enough to get people in office who will pass real campaign finance reform. That isn't going to happen in Green Party fantasy world because they can't organize their way out of a wet paper bag. Ralph Nader chose not to help make the Green Party become a serious political force that could get people elected into office to make the kind of changes you want.

A "competent, intelligent, honest person with visionary ideas" at least has at chance getting elected as a Democrat. Running as a Green guarantees they'll waste a lot of time and spend several years after they lose complaining about how the system is stacked against third parties. I'm not into wasting time and giving righteous excuses about why we lost again.

[AnArmyVeteran]

323. You totally missed my point. To be a major party leader means you have to sell out.

'Wishing' for Obama to do what he promised to do during the 2008 campaign has also turned into a fairy tale. He's sold out to the rich and powerful and threw his supporters with a few crumbs of legislation all of which were watered down so much they are almost useless. That's what the corrupting influence money has on our electoral process. Do you believe a major party is going to willingly change a system they own, along with their pimps? Without changing our electoral process this country will continue to deteriorate. But the major parties couldn't care less about the long term. All they care about is winning the next election, and unfortunately, they keep getting the same people to mindlessly vote R or D without even a thought.

[Better Believe It]

281. Top Green Party officials did everything they could to undermine the 2004 Nader/Camejo campaign

They ran a token presidential campaign in both 2004 and 2008 and were able to weaken, disrupt and eventually destroy the Green Party from within as a viable and independent political organization. That was their objective.

[saltpoint]

130. I'd distrust anyone who questioned his intelligence,

his associative intelligence, or his perceptive intelligence, but I'd also question anyone who thinks he's going to make a thimble's worth of difference in determining public policy in the United States.

[skepticscott]

9. No, I don't think their votes

make any more sense now than they did at the time ten years ago. Voting for Nader in 2000 advanced progressive goals not one iota, and gave eight years of aid and comfort to those who were violently opposed to a progressive agenda in any form.

Voting is about making the country as good as it can be for as many people as possible. It is not about making yourself feel warm and fuzzy about your choice. Nader voters still don't get that.

[KansasVoter]

10. Maybe holding your nose and voting is not really voting.

[skepticscott]

16. You can gripe all you want

about unappealing choices on election day, but the fact remains that either Gore or Bush was going to win in 2000, and all the wishing in the world wasn't going to change that. Your only choices at that point were to help Gore win or help Bush win. Voting for Nader meant choosing the latter.

[Historic NY]

40. hence they voted for Nader & we got Iraq & Afghanistan.

[wookie72]

184. Because Gore wouldn't have gone into Afghnistan?

Any president would have been strongarmed into attacking Aghanistan. Iraq was different, of course - although I don't recall a lot of Senate Democrats raising much fuss.

[Historic NY]

199. Remember the Presidential Daily Briefing...I'm sure Gore would have read it.

[wookie72]

233. And stopped 9/11?

Wishful thinking, IMHO.

[wookie72]

234. And stopped 9/11?

Wishful thinking, IMHO.

[EstimatedProphet]

249. Actually, a reasonable effort would likely have stopped 9/11

The fact that they pulled it off owes a lot to a series of complete blunders, any one of which would have stopped it. So, yes.

[wookie72]

253. And if the ball hadn't fallen between Bill Buckner's legs the Sox would have won in 1986

Speculation like this gets us nowhere.

If you really want Obama to win in 2012, give progressives a reason to vote for him. Leave triangulation and bullying to the Clintons.

[EstimatedProphet]

317. Do you know how many safeguards were put aside on 9/11?

Any one of them, had they been allowed to function as they do every other day of the year, would have stopped it from happening.

I'm no fan of triangulation and bullying. But I'm also no fan of wishful thinking. The cold equations are 1 vote +-1 vote = null decision; no vote +-1 vote=-1 total. People who just can't be bothered are letting the other side win.

[wookie72]

334. I would agree with you

If voter turnout were anywhere near 100%. In an election with high turnout, about half the adult population actually bothers to vote. So why single out the people who voted their conscience rather than those who never bothered to show up at all?

And the whole "Gore could have stopped 9/11" thing seems the height of wishful thinking.

[EstimatedProphet]

340. Actually, I'm not singling them out

I hold everyone responsible if they don't vote. That's the meaning of the phrase "If you don't vote, you don't get to complain."

Also, it's not that Gore could have stopped 9/11, it's that 9/11 shouldn't have happened the way it did. I personally think anyone else, anyone at all, would have responded to the August 6th briefing by saying "look into it", rather than "OK, you've covered your ass".

[wookie72]

345. Still wishful thinking and prognosticating.

From the standpoint of 2000, I had a choice between an ineffectual Republican and a "New Democrat" who seemed perfectly fine with continuing to leave the left base of the party at the back of the bus. I could not have predicted a) the country would be attacked, and b) the Democrats would roll over on pretty much everything Bush wanted. I chose neither, and that's my right. Don't patronize me or blame me; get out the vote the next time. However, it's been much easier to blame Nader.

Perot took many more votes from the Republicans than Nader did from the Democrats. That just fired up the Republicans to get out the vote. Democrats, it seems, just feel like smacking their base around or else ignoring them.

[Better Believe It]

44. Are the people who voted for socialists also responsible for the 2000 election theft?

[MineralMan]

185. If they were in Florida, yes.

Everyone who didn't vote for Gore in Florida in 2000 is responsible. It's that fucking simple.

[wookie72]

180. Bullsh*t

If I didn't have Nader, I would have not vote. No way in Hell would I have reward Gore for choosing Lieberman.

[wookie72]

181. Bullsh*t

If I didn't have Nader, I would have not vote. No way in Hell would I have reward Gore for choosing Lieberman.

[Historic NY]

202. But Liberman wasn't the asshole he became.

[wookie72]

214. Yeah, he was

Sucking up to the right-wing Cubans over Elian, chastizing Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal...

[Catherina]

247. Lieberman was always an asshole. He's one of the reasons many people

couldn't vote for the democratic ticket in 2000. Anyone paying attention knew exactly what Lieberman was. I suggest you read Nader's book "Crashing The Party". What Nader voters were seeing then is what many people can't miss now.

[JuniperLea]

265. Of course he was...

That level of assholery can't be hidden forever, but he did manage to hide it for a while.

I think we would have been very sorry had he become VP.

[Raineyb]

284. LIEberman was always an asshole!

And he deliberately scolded Clinton in order to show his "moral cred". He's been an opportunistic dick for years.

[suzie]

296. Which was the best thing he's ever done. Would that more Democrats had joined him in the

effort. It would have been a lot better for Democrats in general.

[EstimatedProphet]

17. Maybe it is

Maybe, if you know that there are only 2 choices for all practical purposes, and one of those 2 will win regardless, and one is uninspiring but the other one is a psychopathic monster, then maybe, just maybe, voting takes on more importance at that point.

[wookie72]

187. And we *knew* that Bush was a psychopathic monster then?

To me, he was just an ineffectual idiot at the time. And Gore did a lot to make himself rather unappealing.

It was a very different world in 2000. Fresh in my mind was stuff like both Gore and Lieberman toeing the same line as the Repubs on Elian Gonzalez, among many other sops to the right.

[EstimatedProphet]

203. Yeah, Gore ran a lousy campaign

But he had his history. Maybe it wasn't great, but it was so far superior to Bush's that there was simply no comparing the two. Gore didn't do great in the debates - he was stiff. But he wasn't a clear idiot. Still a big difference.

[wookie72]

220. yes, he had his history

Supporting the rabid anti-Cubans in Florida over the Elian fiasco, trying to get records censored, trying to make the death penalty seem "progressive" by promising it would be used to fight crimes like the murder of Matthew Shepherd... I'm sorry, I did not like the man's politics in 2000. Maybe he's changed. But I distrusted him in 2000. He lost my vote. Nader didn't "steal it."

[EstimatedProphet]

252. Fine, but here's the thing:

You did say downthread somewhere that, had you known what would have happened after 2000, you might have thought differently.

Well, this is your chance. Remember, the original point of this thread was that, given the way things are going now, voting for Nader in 2000 was understandable. This implies that it makes sense now, in our situation now.

I submit to you that if you believe that Harry Reid is the same as Sharron Angle, or Tarryl Clark is the same as Michelle Bachmann, and that voting really doesn't matter when the Repubs who have been turning patently evil and racist WILL WIN, and thereby be rewarded for being evil and racist, thus encouraging more of them to be more evil and racist...then you are no progressive. If they win the House back, and people who know in advance that those are the real world choices still make the choice to let the fundamentally evil people win and take over the country by not voting, I will hold them responsible.

As I said before in this thread, the proper place for making the progressive cause is in the primaries. If the progressive doesn't win in the primaries, so someone says they will sit out the election and intentionally let psychopaths win because "that'll learn em!" then there is no difference whatsoever between them and a supporter of the evil people. I am now personally stuck with Scott Brown because people made that choice. I have more respect for people who voted outright and backed outright Scott Brown than I do for people who threw a tantrum.

[wookie72]

254. That's a completely different thing

I will gladly vote against Steve King. But you don't get people to vote for your guys by calling them crybabies and jerks. (no, not you personally, the other people on this thread)

But I draw the line at holding people responsible for not voting. It's their right to vote or not. If they're not voting for the candidates you want, convince other people to vote. It's not like the US has 100% voter turnout..

[EstimatedProphet]

316. No, that's where we disagree

Because it is a duty to vote. Every person that stays home and says that they're just not interested because they don't see the difference between someone who is at worst uninspiring and someone who is pathologically insane, as we're seeing today, is a vote FOR Boehner to be Speaker and McConnell to be Majority Leader. So, these people who say that the DLC Dems aren't progressive enough think they're going to help the situation by making sure the most conservative people available take over? How exactly is that supposed to work?

People all over DU have been saying that someone has to earn their vote for them. If that's the case, why don't people earn their vote AGAINST them? It's the other side of the same coin. How am I supposed to respect someone who lets Sharron Angle win because they think that Harry Reid is boring? That's so irresponsible that I can't.

[wookie72]

335. Sorry, it doesn't work that way

Gore did not earn my vote. Neither did Bush. I don't owe the Democrat my vote every single time.
If it worked that way, we would get the same crappy right-tilting Democrats every time.
What Obama did right is getting out people who have never voted at all by targeting them and making sure they showed up at the polls. That's what got him elected, not sayng "BOOGA BOOGA! McCain will win if you do nothing."

A vote for a candidate is a vote for a candidate, and not voting for a candidate is not voting for a candidate.It's not automatically a vote for the other guy.

[EstimatedProphet]

339. In a system where either one or the other must win, then yes it is.

[wookie72]

347. Nonsense.

Roughly half of eligible voters vote. Instead of tapping that pool, you insist on browbeating the people who actually voted their conscience.

And again, all Gore had to do was win his home state - something every other president has done.

[pipi_k]

27. Not to mention...

the thousands of service men and women who died for nothing in a shit war on the wrong country after 9/11, not counting the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children who were also killed or maimed.


Yep...Nader voters got their message across loud and clear: "We care more about making a point than about trying to keep the people likely to do the most damage to this country away from the reins of power".

[wookie72]

189. Lots of psychics on this thread

and a lot of people willing to forgive congressional Democrats, you know, the ones whose votes on Iraq were actually counted.

[EstimatedProphet]

204. You mean the ones who were lied to? Those congressional democrats?

[wookie72]

225. And if Gore had been elected

the PNAC would have disbanded, not put any pressure on the president to go into Iraq?
You cannot predict the future. 9/11 happened a year after the election, and while it *might* have been stopped if Gore was president, you can't know that for sure.
I did the "right thing" in 2004, and I proudly voted for Obama in 2008. It seems just obnoxious to harp on the people who voted for Nader when the election was stolen without them (and, as many people pointed out, many registered Democrats actually *did* vote for Bush(

[GreenArrow]

319. Gore was a huge war hawk

as a Senator, and as Clinton's VP. He was a huge cheerleader for the equally egregious and unnecessary "Gulf War I", using virtually the same rhetoric in support of it that supporters of GW II (same war, really) used in favor of that.

[pipi_k]

232. Let's just say...

that whatever Democrats voted for the war wouldn't even had had the chance to vote on that war without Bush starting that war in the first place.

We can't ever know what Gore might have done...perhaps 9/11 might not have happened. We don't know that, either.

But out of the two of them...Bush and Gore, I would bet MORE money on BushCo starting any war than I would on a Gore administration. With BushCo, it was pretty much a given.

[Raineyb]

285. What did Democrats do to stop that war? Oh that's right not a damn thing.

But you're blaming Nader voters? What an idiotic line of crap pretending to be logic

[Iggo]

11. Oh, stop it.

I'm going to vote.

I'm going to vote for whoever can beat the republican candidate.

You can't stop me.

[KansasVoter]

24. I am not trying to stop you.

[mmonk]

12. More and more everyday I'm sad to say.

[stevedeshazer]

13. I was one of them.

However, I'm not anymore.

I support Obama. He's not perfect, but he's way better than anything the Republicans have to offer. At least we're starting to move in the right direction.

Nader was and still is right about the two party system. Until there is a way to block unlimited campaign cash, we'll suffer.

Don't give up on Obama just yet. I'm as cynical as anyone, but I still think we're better off with him as Pres as any Republican.

[TreasonousBastard]

14. I thought I always understood them...

naive, childish, self-absorbed rebels without a clue. Their "protests" had precisely the opposite results they intended, when they had any effect at all.

I was raised to think that the normal state of things was that you got fucked. You could maybe rise to be one of the fuckers, or maybe you could deal with it all and make some sense out of it, but life was basically one big fucking. You just deal with it as best you can.

I was also raised to understand the concept of Hobson's choice. Even better yet-- Morton's Fork.

And the very simple concept that as bad as things may be now, they can always get worse-- as they surely would with Speaker Boehner.

[wookie72]

190. actually, it was very simple for me

Gore didn't "own" my vote. It was mine to give freely to whomever I wanted.

If Nader wasn't on the ballot, I would have not voted.

(My Mom was on my case about it, but she wrote in Eugene McCarthy in 1968...)

[Selatius]

15. If you understand Ralph Nader voters, you're probably only voting for liberal Democrats.

If the Democrat representing your district is a member of the DLC or the Blue Dog Coalition, chances are you voted for the opponent in the primary if there was one, or you are going to sit out this election because neither the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate earned your vote.

[hayu_lol]

20. As a liberal...

I have always understood Nader voters...they liked and admired GW Bush.

[Selatius]

33. I dunno about those liberals. I'm a socialist. nt

[redwitch]

66. bullshit.

they loathe him as much as you do.

[Frances]

18. So, some Dems are bad news

and that's a reason to hand the government to the Republicans.

Think of all the people killed in Iraq just because some people thought Gore was too corporate.

[JI7]

30. From my understand of the Nader voter, that isn't that important to them

[wookie72]

188. Hindsight is 20/20 nt

[supernova]

19. I've been thinking about them a lot lately

and the Greens in general.

Note to Mods: No, I'm not going to advocate for the GP here on DU.

I understand what they meant years ago now. But I also wish Ralph would just stick to consumer advocacy and not dunk around with the Greens. He really did split the left vote in some ways. And while I'm not a Green I don't want to see him mucking around with them and possibly bringing GOP backing $$$ to them. That would be a perversion of their use in a democracy.

Back in the 80s I had the pleasure to meet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra_Kelly">Petra Kelly and talk to her. My then hubby and I went to an alumni dinner for his college and she, also being an alumna, was the guest speaker that night. I loved her and wished there would have been other times to speak with her, but there was only that dinner. She was fierce, whip smart, funny, engaging, human, and knew policy like the back of her hand.

It makes me horribly sad that she came to such an awful end. She was one of the early signposts on my political journey, letting me know that I was on the right path.

[ibegurpard]

21. yes

who knows what point we'll have to get to before some people finally open their eyes.

[EstimatedProphet]

22. The point is - the appropriate time for the argument is in the primaries

In a primary, work like hell to get your guy elected. Absolutely. Go for it.

After that, in a world with a tea party in it, it really does become us against them. And if you get mad because your guy didn't win the primary, so you're not going to vote at all, then how are you different from the teabaggers that scream that they have no representation just because their rep doesn't do what they want over the wants of the majority that elected him?

[DinahMoeHum]

63. I concur, EP. Vote progressive in the primaries. . .

vote Democratic in the general election.

AFAIC, too many Nader supporters act like "purity queens" and spoiled children in this regard.

(and, speaking of your namesake song, Bob Weir was absolutely spot-on in his assessment of Nader years ago:

Rolling Stone magazine, issue 959, page 70. (2004)

"Ralph Nader is the most arrogant and narcissistic guy I've ever met. I had a meeting with him in the early nineties. I was jazzed going into the meeting, and I was disgusted leaving. I don't think I've ever met a bigger asshole. If he hadn't run in the last election, we wouldn't be in Iraq and thousands of people wouldn't have died needlessly. And still he's well pleased to go in and be the spoiler again!


:evilfrown:

[SidDithers]

169. Well said...nt

Sid

[JI7]

23. yeah,i have always understood them, they don't really care about getting any change

they are satisfied thinking they are better than others. the fact that Gore would not have went into Iraq does not matter to them. as their personal feelings about themselves matter more .

[KansasVoter]

26. You have NO IDEA what gore would have done.

[saltpoint]

39. We do know what Nader would have done -- he would

have done nothing, because he was not ever, nor will he ever be, anywhere near to power.

He talks to groups of people who are intelligent and insightful and so politically marginal that they have next to zero influence everywhere they appear or cluster.

Nader has no clue how to mobilize ideas into meaningful reform. He knows how to talk to people who are equally clueless and equally without influence, despite their brains.

That's what Nader would have done. Nothing.

[EstimatedProphet]

51. I know what Gore would not have done.

He would not have started a lie campaign that went on for over a year to force public opinion into believing that Iraq attacked us on 9/11.

That's what Gore would not have done.

I know this because Cheney would not have been vice president had Gore been in office.

[ozone_man]

76. Kinder and gentler for sure.

But, the military industrial complex goes on,whether there is a Democrat or Republican in office. It's Why We fight.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436971/

I do think that Gore was more liberal, a better environmentalist than Obama, and not cut of the same corporate cloth. I guess we'll never know. I think he learned a lot from Dean, how to speak with passion, and backed Dean in 2003. And Nader backed Dean in 2003, until Dean was foiled by the dirty politics of Kerry and Gephardt. There are real differences within the same broad tent party, from Kucinich to Lieberman.

[hfojvt]

148. well THAT is pure speculation

http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/gore092302sp.html

[EstimatedProphet]

171. That link contains this nugget:

This is because President Bush is presenting us with a proposition that contains within itself one of the most fateful decisions in our history: a decision to abandon what we have thought was America’s mission in the world – a world in which nations are guided by a common ethic codified in the form of international law -- if we want to survive.

which I think describes the situation quite well.

[wookie72]

192. You're right, Cheney would not have been vice president..

Lieberman would have been. So we would have been spending seven years in Iran instead.

[EstimatedProphet]

207. No, we wouldn't have.

[wookie72]

218. so you're psychic?

Lieberman was just as anti-Iran then as he is now.

[EstimatedProphet]

222. We wouldn't have, because we didn't have the constant drumbeat against Iran

We may have it now, but we didn't then. That "Iraq is our mortal enemy" idea came directly out of Gulf War I. So it doesn't take being a psychic, it just takes paying attention.

[wookie72]

229. And Clinton, Gore and Lieberman fought against the sanctions? nt

[EstimatedProphet]

242. No, no one fought against the sanctions against Iran. There weren't any at the time.

Which is why I said we wouldn't have gone to war in Iran.

[wookie72]

230. And Clinton, Gore and Lieberman fought against the sanctions? nt

In any case, I'm getting a mixed message here... they were supposed to be good Democrats and vote for Gore, so you insult and blame them and expect them to vote for Democrats again?

I'm willing to admit that Gore would have been better... now. But to put 10 years of experience on 2000 Gore is just bizarre, especially when we're supposed to ignore 10 years of Lieberman.

[Renew Deal]

25. And Nader voters got the real change they voted for.

[KansasVoter]

28. No Nader voter wanted the war, or the Patriot act renewed!

[Renew Deal]

31. Bullshit

"There's no difference between Bush and Gore." Remember that? Naderites are as reponsible for Bush as any Bush voter.

[BzaDem]

32. Then they probably should have voted for Gore. Actions have real, in-your-face consequences.

Sometimes, you may not like the consequences. You might even hate the consequences. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. Nader voters were told at the time the consequences of what they were doing, and they get EXACTLY what they aided and abetted. While it is hard to find any silver lining to the horror of the Bush years, if one exists, it is probably that most of the Nader voters learned their lesson by 2004, by which point 90% of them abandoned him.

[saltpoint]

35. Would it be your contention that Gore voters did want

an invasion of Iraq?

This Gore voter did not.

[Codeine]

91. Sure they did, or they would have grown up

and voted appropriately.

[mmonk]

41. I believe the DLC and their think tank the PPI were for that war,

not Nader voters.

[Panaconda]

43. Your conflation

is illogical and mildly obscene.

Kinda spooky in fact.

[BzaDem]

45. Truth hurts. Actions have consequences. n/t

[wookie72]

195. and VP Lieberman would have been any less in favour of the war? nt

[Raineyb]

315. Apparently only for those who lean left. As you seem to have no compunction whatsoever of holding

the party's feet to the fire.

I guess consequences and blame are for the small people.

With that attitude, I certainly hope you're not on the phones getting people to vote you'd be a miserable failure.

[AnArmyVeteran]

64. Nader didn't cause Gore's defeat, Gore did with pathetic debating.

Read my other post in this thread. But you can continue to blame Nader but he was the last great REAL progressive candidate this country has had. The Rs and Ds are both owned by the same corporate masters.

[avaistheone1]

143. Duh! Gore won Florida, don't blame Nader.

Media Consortium Statewide Count of "Undervotes" and "Overvotes" Proves Gore Won Under ANY Standard
The Media Consortium hired the National Opinion Research Center to examine 175,010 ballots that were never counted in Florida. The investigation took 8 months and cost $900,000. No matter what standard for judging ballots is applied, Gore wins.

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=181

[suzie]

259. And if Nader had not collaborated in installing Bush in office, Gore would have been

president without Supreme Court decisions and after the fact investigations.

Bush's brother and crew had disqualified as many votes as they could without it becoming really suspicious. Without Nader campaigning in Florida and proclaiming that Gore = Bush, there is no recount, no Florida SC decisions, no Bush v. Gore.

Gore simply wins.

[AnArmyVeteran]

331. But if Gore had actually debated Bush then Gore would have won easily.

Gore failed to even debate Bush or expose any of his inept and corrupt records while governor of Texas. In fact, Gore didn't even mention Bush's horrendous record in Texas where he sold out to 830 of the worst Texas polluting businesses by giving them exemptions to environmental laws. And in exchange for selling out every Texan, Bush received millions in campaign money in which to run for president. Because of Bush's collusion with corrupt oil and chemical companies Texas became number one in the nation in air, water and soil pollution. Asthma rates skyrocketed because of the toxins in the air under Bush. Many people who were vulnerable died because of the levels of pollution. But Gore never said a word.

Ralph Nader was prevented from debating in the 2000 debates because both major parties conspired to exclude him (so much for a fair election). The Commission on Presidential Debates, a corrupt front group ran by the republican and democratic parties deliberately excluded Nader because they were TERRIFIED of Ralph Nader's progressive message and how he would expose the status quo of corruption. Ralph Nader would have literally destroyed Bush in a debate because Nader wouldn't have agreed with everything Bush said, as Gore did. And the beneficiary of Bush's destruction would have been Gore. Since Gore had no intention of exposing the corrupt and inept past of Bush that gave Bush a total pass. Even a high school debater could have done a better job than Gore did. In fact, I watched all of those debates with groups of people and we sat there stunned because Gore actually looked like he was deliberately throwing the election by not even confronting Bush. It was an embarrassment of the highest order.

Ralph Nader called Bush "A corporation masquerading as a human being". Nader called Bush 'the bungling governor of Texas'. Ralph Nader KNEW Bush's horrible Texas record and would have exposed Bush to the nation. But Gore did absolutely NOTHING to expose the true story of Bush, from the destruction of the environment to the destruction of public education in Texas.

It was obvious Gore had no clue what Bush's record was and if he did he never brought it up. Nader didn't lose the election for Gore, Gore did. And had Nader been allowed in the debates the election wouldn't have been close enough for Bush to even steal. Hell, Gore couldn't even win his home state of Tennessee which would have given him the presidency. And Gore made another huge blunder when he called for the recount of just a few counties in Florida instead of a state wide recount, which would have given him the state and the presidency. The case would never have reached the Supreme Court had Gore asked for a state wide recount and that would have prevented the Supreme Court from stealing the election

Face it, Gore ran a horrible campaign. Anyone who couldn't beat Bush would have to have a blunder filled campaign, and Gore certainly did.

Again, Nader didn't give Bush the election, Gore did. The Green Party members were told to vote heavily for Green Party members in red states that wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome of the presidential race. How many other parties would direct their supporters to be so generous?

If you and others want to blame someone, blame Gore for completely blowing the debates and by cowardly colluding with the republicans to prevent Nader from participating in the debates. Nader would have certainly done what Gore could not and would not do in the debates, expose the inept and corrupt Bush for what he was.

Lastly, when Nader said Gore and Bush were virtually the same he was absolutely right in one major area. They were both funded by the same corrupt rich and corporations. That's what Nader meant when he said that. It was true then and it's becoming more and more true by the day because elections are constantly being stolen from the people by those who have the money to pollute and corrupt almost every election in the United States.

Nader was the ONLY candidate pushing for strict campaign finance laws which would have prevented the stealing of elections by the corrupt wealthy, but people choose to vote for one of the two major parties which will never change the corrupt system they own. As long as people keep voting in the same way and expecting different results they will continue to get the same corporate prostitutes in office. What's sad is that while they ensuring that only one of the major parties can win they are harming their country and they are taking rest of us down in their sinking ship.

[EstimatedProphet]

176. Gore ran a lousy campaign, true.

BUT

The fact is, anyone who honestly said there is no difference between Gore and Bush in 2000 wasn't being honest. Anyone who said that at the time was delusional, stupid, or lying.

[bushisanidiot]

82. +1

Ralph Nader shares the blood on AWOL Bush's hands.

[hulka38]

84. Warped

[Lucian]

138. Nader voters didn't cause that shit, and you know it.

Everyone knows damn well the Supreme Court handed the victory to GWB, NOT Nader voters.

At least everyone who has the capacity to think.

[dmallind]

153. ...and if you can think more than one step

You'd realize Nader and his dumbass voters made the Supreme Court relevant to an election that would have been clearly Gore's without them.

[BzaDem]

29. If you believe Obama is not far left enough, why would you aide, abet, and enable a further right

candidate?

Just because you want something doesn't meant that thing is going to happen. There is a difference between wanting and getting that most people learn by age 5. When a five year old gets angry that they aren't getting what they want, they might start jumping up and down or trashing the room. But in the end, they still don't get what they want (in addition to a trashed room they have to clean up).

Nader voters really exhibit the same behavior. They are angry they are not getting what they want, so they trash the country by aiding and abetting a right wing candidate. Yet in the end, they just end up FURTHER AWAY from what they want, with the right wing candidate they enabled in power.

[hayu_lol]

38. Nader funded his campaign with Repugnant money...

and one of his close friends is Grover Norquist.

[EFerrari]

65. And the Koch brothers fund the Thugs AND the DLC.

So what? Until we get public financing, our elections will continue to be cr@p.

[saltpoint]

80. I don't believe a convincing case could be made that

Ralph Nader did not know that a very significant percentage of his monies were GOP monies and that in spending them he was doing more to damage the Democratic Party than advance his own hopeless quest.

He knew what he was doing. He knew the money's source.

[EFerrari]

86. I can't get excited over that. Obama took CANF money.

They all take money from someone. That's what I mean about public financing.

[saltpoint]

88. We agree on public financing but it doesn't appear

likely to change much just because you and I oppose it.

Nader's investments in the corporations he claims to assail are smarmy.

He's self-promotional and marginal.

[EFerrari]

122. Nader holds tech stock. And he lives a spartan lifestyle.

Nader Donates More Than 80% Of His Substantial Income
by Mike Allen
Published on Sunday, June 18, 2000 in the Washington Post

After 35 years of bashing big business, rumpled Ralph Nader is worth at least $3.8 million and is heavily invested in technology stocks.

For decades, Nader refused to reveal even the name of his stockbroker, let alone any personal financial information, leading to criticism from conservatives that he was building a secret financial empire (sometimes derided as "Nader Inc.") even as he called for greater disclosure by government officials and business executives.

But Nader, who is to be nominated next weekend as the Green Party presidential candidate, offered a detailed picture of his wealth in several interviews, including two with The Washington Post last week, and in a 21-page filing with the Federal Election Commission that was more extensive than required.

"Ask anything you want," Nader said, seemingly intent on demonstrating that his presidential campaign is serious this time and that he is willing to undergo the requisite scrutiny.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/061800-01.htm

As far as being self-promoting and marginal, that really isn't a critique as much as simply an insult. He's a brilliant man who has had a long, distinguished career as an activist. And that's how he will be remembered.

[saltpoint]

132. A more comprehensive and more recent list appears here:

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/28/stocks/print.html


http://www.bushwatch.net/nader2000.htm


-- and does not suggest a man entirely pure of the warped benefits of owning stock in corporations he assails.

Is it Allen's notion, a decade ago now, that corporations are not affiliated with technology? That's total bullshit.

There is the lone voice crying in the wilderness. In this case an intelligent voice, but again, he's deep in the woods. Lo, but the villagers cannot hear his call.

I know you don't think he's going to be president. You don't believe he is going to significantly influence public policy. I bet you don't even think he is electable on any statewide ballot.

If Ralph Nader were to gather signatures to run for public office where actual, real-life public policy is hashed out, negotiated, and voted upon, he would at some point slam hard against the realities that other politicians encounter. He would have to raise funds. He would have to win endorsements. He would have to pay for advertising and phone banks and paid staff to run the campaign. All of it. He would have to quit to preserve his purist profile or get his damned hands dirty like everybody else.

Instead he exchews the public arena where policy is made and squawks from the sidelines.

He's THAT marginal. He's not a player.

[wookie72]

197. Nonsense

I would have left the space for president blank. If Gore had won, it would have been without my vote.

[EstimatedProphet]

210. Which means Bush would have won - without your vote. Exactly as it happened.

[wookie72]

215. Actually, there were plenty of Dems who actually voted *for* Bush

in Florida, where it counted.

In my state, Gore won without my vote. Whoopee.

[lunamagica]

34. Understand what? Your vote only damaged the liberal agenda

Had Gore been president the country would be so much better shape now than it is. A Gore presidency would have made it easier to get more progressive candidates later on

Nader voters only helped to move the country so much to the right that the center became the new left.

I never understood what you REALLY hoped to accomplish by hurting Gore.

Did you really believe that Gore=Bush? Really?

To answer your question, no. In fact, the more time it passes, and the more I see of Dubya's legacy and the spawns it created, the less I understand them.

[dionysus]

36. nope. not as embarrassing as the larouchies, but fools just the same.

[KittyWampus]

37. Understanding clueless fools with no understanding of how politics works?

Not much to understand.

[metapunditedgy]

46. Were they fools because they voted for change, or because they voted for someone who wouldn't

move rightward after he was elected?

[BzaDem]

48. They were fools because their vote aided and abetted a right-wing candidate who became President. nt

[metapunditedgy]

50. And people who vote for change, only to see their candidate move rightward

and betray their hopes for change, you would say those folks are "savvy voters"?

[BzaDem]

61. In the general? Sure, as long as the only other viable candidate would have been more rightward.

Voting is a choice between the viable candidates. It is not anything other than that. In particular, it is not a way to soothe your conscious, prove yourself, make yourself feel better, sending a message, etc. It is simply a choice between viable candidates for who you want to govern. One of them will win (by definition of viable), and you have to decide which one. It is always savvy to vote for the less right-wing (or more progressive) candidate if you don't want right-wing policies. As a general matter.

This says nothing about the primary election. In the primary, there might well be viable candidates other than the current one, and there is nothing wrong with voting for those in the primary. But the general is always and everywhere (in this country) a choice between parties, and when one party is more progressive than the other, you vote for the candidate of that party.

[metapunditedgy]

72. So I have no choice but to support a system that is failing to accomplish my progressive goals?

If I've been taught through hard experience that my votes for progressive candidates don't result in progressive policies, is my only option to keep going through that over and over?

You might be right that the "lesser of two evils" is the best choice in some elections, but you can't blame people for trying to change a system that fails them, craps on them, and then laughingly tells them to get back in line.

I'm an Obama voter, but I do feel like a dupe.

[BzaDem]

74. In the general election, that is EXACTLY right. You have to pick between two parties whether or not

you like either of them.

You could always vote for a different candidate in the primary. But if you can't convince enough of your fellow Democrats to agree with you, you will not get another candidate. Once the general comes around, you have a choice between two parties whether or not you like either of the parties.

The idea that you have to make a choice you don't like shouldn't be new or surprising. People have to make choices they aren't thrilled about all the time in life.

[metapunditedgy]

94. You're saying that people who think the system is busted are still FORCED (by what, WTF unicorns?)

to stay in that system? Our free will extends to the primaries, but nothing conceivably good could happen if we step outside the bounds of a system that seems to take us for granted, at best? Does that not sound like abusive language to you?

I may choose to vote pragmatically (for the "lesser evil") some times, but by God, I do not HAVE to do anything.

(None of this is support or opposition to Nader, by the way. I'm responding to the OP question of whether we can understand the Nader impulse better now.)

[BzaDem]

118. No one says you have to do anything -- if you like right-wing candidates and policies.

But if you want more progressive policies you do have to do exactly what you describe as "abusive," whether you like it or not.

If you want to change the system, vote for different primary candidates or get a movement going to change the winner take all system. Enabling right-wing candidates doesn't help.

[wookie72]

198. Really? Wow, I thought this was a free country nt

[EstimatedProphet]

212. So, do you live in Canada?

[wookie72]

217. absentee ballot nt

[EstimatedProphet]

223. You vote in US elections, then?

[wookie72]

227. yes, as is my right as an American citizen nt

[saltpoint]

75. I must have been out of town when Ralph Nader

offered an alternative "system" to "accomplish" progressive goals.

You'd think that a lot of progressive who voted in significant numbers for the 8 Democratic nominees in the 2008 primaries would have just FLOCKED to Ralph, given that his system would accomplish the ideology they most closely aligned with.

Turns out, though, almost none of them did.

This is the difficulty with the Left in the United States: it hardly exists. You can grocery-list a few key names, and many of them are bright, insightful, impressive folks, and the sum of them are absolutely nowhere near influence and power.

Let alone Ralph Nader.

[Codeine]

93. They didn't vote for change. They voted for Bush. nt

[metapunditedgy]

102. You think they were Republicans who just didn't know how to spell?

Sounds pretty silly to me. If they wanted Bush, it would have been more effective just to vote for Bush directly.

So I'll assume you're not serious.

[Codeine]

105. Every vote not for Gore was for Bush.

Such is the reality of a two-party system. Tilting at electoral windmills is for chumps.

[metapunditedgy]

107. Ok, so you're NOT serious. Just checking. n/t

[wookie72]

201. /Actually, it's my right.

My vote was for neither of the two. Gore didn't own my vote, and he didn't earn it.

[Raineyb]

287. No it's not and they had every right to vote for whomever they saw fit. The Democratic party

is NOT entitled to votes they are supposed to earn them.

[roseland]

42. Some people prefer to vote for the person who best represents their interests...

and not simply choosing between the Democratic or Republican candidate. I am not one of those people who will vote for the "lesser of two evils." I vote for the candidate that most closely represents my viewpoint. If that means voting for a third party candidate, that's is who I vote for. And I don't consider it throwing away my vote. Because my vote is not about picking a winner. It's about picking a candidate that I believe will best represent my interests and when I do that, I'm not losing or throwing away my vote. I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Voting for the candidate I want, for the reasons I want.

[Iggo]

54. Voting 3rd party got us a million dead Iraqis last time.

Can't wait to see what we'll get this time.

[LostinVA]

177. What a ridiculous strawman

Third Party voters caused the Iraq war. :wtf:

[Iggo]

205. That's not a strawman. That's what happened.

[Codeine]

95. There is no third party.

You have only two choices, like it or not. Pretending otherwise is the electoral equivalent of believing in unicorns.

[prolesunited]

126. As long as I can feel good about ME

who cares what happens to the rest of the country?

I support progressive ideas and actions whenever and however I can. I wish the Congress was filled with Bernie Sanders clones.

HOWEVER, I would never take any actions that would put me further away from my goals.

No matter what pretty language you dress it up in, not voting for Democrats gives the country back to the GOP. Not sure if you noticed lately, but they are pretty fucking crazy and getting crazier by the day.

And cut the bullshit that there is no difference. For example, I think the Dems failed in not giving enough stimulus to directly creating jobs and too much to corporations. However, without them in charge, we would have never gotten the unemployment benefit extensions. Millions of Americans, including myself, are still hanging on because of this action.

Demand more, but don't actually put yourself further behind in the race.

And sorry, there is no glorious revolution coming to create a socialist nirvana in the U.S. -- even if things get really bad. Just look at what's going on now. As people get more desperate, are they coming together to break free from corporatism. No, the are attacking each other -- Muslims, immigrants, gays, African Americans. If you study history, fascists and dictators are MORE likely to fill the vacuum during an economic crisis.

[applegrove]

49. "throwing your vote away" is putting it mildly. We got Bush the last

few times Nader ran. The war in Iraq, economic collapse and a huge deficit (because of tax cuts to the rich) is what voting for Nader garnered.

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[saltpoint]

144. Untrue. MOst of us would be very hard-pressed to

imagine Al Gore as President nominating a right-wing asshat like John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

[bowens43]

52. No

Ralph Nader and his voters are directly responsible for the the mess that we are in right now.

[depakid]

55. What happened in the 1990's created Nader's constituency in the first place

something that his detractors and knee jerk haters to this day have difficulty grasping (or are in denial about).

Alienate key groups of supporters- create a political vacuum and someone or some party will fill it.

[saltpoint]

57. You're mistaken. Again.

That "constituency" has been around a long time before any of Nader's pointless presidential campaigns.

Barry Commoner tapped that constituency in 1980. His arithmetic was no better than Nader's, although he did a lot better job of communicating with audiences, small numbers of people dedicated to progressive ideas.

You can check all that out under "Citizens Party" on a search engine and you'll find the same constituencies under that manifestation as those under Nader's.

And Commoner was not the first, so far as that goes.

The constituency has been fairly constant in U.S. socio-political life and while the headline figures change, the percentage remains marginal.

[depakid]

79. LOL- there wasn't a mass exodus from the Democratic party to Barry Commoner!

Democrats and especially the Clinton administration's repeated pandering to the right and backstabbing of everyone from labor to environmentalists to progressive interest groups opposed to the corporate right deregulatory agenda caused disillusionment and resentment.

People in these groups not only didn't volunteer and turn out in 1994- they looked for somewhere else and someone else that represented and advocated their interests.

Remember the Battle of Seattle? No? Remember 2000, where the Dems center right agenda blurred the differences between the parties turned Oregon (of all places) into a battleground state where the Greens took almost 6% of the vote?

Same dynamic then as now.

Unfortunately, the same sort of people not only failed to learn the lesson (poly sci 101 really) -but were bound and determined to repeat the same political and public policy mistakes and though their arrogance make the situation magnitudes worse.

[saltpoint]

83. You might be surprised who abandoned Carter for

Commoner and Harris.

Your percentages are graveyard whistlin' tunes. I haven't seen any arithmetic that upends my claim that this "constituency" is marginal.

It was marginal then and it's marginal now.

Were you to scoot back stateside and dedicate all your power and strength to build the U.S. Green Party, you would get no farther than anybody else has so far, including the Citizens Party refugees from the Carter-Kennedy primary spat and Nader's ridiculous self-promotional historionics of more recent years.

Plus, what the hell, you'd whip your frequent flyer miles into shape in the bargain.

LOL!

[depakid]

97. You're about to get your ass royally kicked out of the majority- like 1994 and you're arguing

this constituency (actually this rather broad set of constituencies) is marginal?

:rofl:

Fact of the matter is that time and time again, progressives and :gasp: Nader have been proven correct on public policy beyond a shadow of a doubt. Only to be thwarted by the corporate right in both parties.

IMO if a majority Americans actually believed that they had choice (and a halfway honest and ethical press) they'd toss BOTH of these dysfunctional parties (or large elements of them) out on their asses.

And the nation would be much the better for it.

[saltpoint]

129. It is more than marginal -- it's ineffectual.

Nader has not been proven 'right' at all, not ever, in public policy, because he has never made any public policy.

He was notable, though hardly unique, as a consumer advocate, and the work bore some impact on the market and individuals' reaction to that market, much parallel to Madison's notion of an informed citizenry which would inform the survivability of a Constitutional republic. The parallel construction was likely lost on Nader however, and in any case, he doesn't do that line of work any more.

Even less does he do policy. Yes, marginal. Extremely marginal.

You speak nonense, depakid. There is no configuration of events or strategies to make your third paragraph real or true or possible. You would personally delight to see it happen, certainly, but you forget that the majority of people involved in public life are not like you.

And that's a good thing, because their investment is owed more courtesy than your disdain for their investment.

Meanwhile, you would do yourself a favor to read some of Barry Commoner's work. He's an impressive man.

[depakid]

246. That's as illogical as anything you've written to date

and it's not like you.

I imagine that the upcoming bloodbath has made some folks "pull out their hair" so to speak. I can understand that, having been through (and still going through) our last election. Who can put together the coalition of interests to form government here- and toss old habits (and powerbrokers) in the rubbish bin? We shall see.

btw: I've read Barry Commoner's stuff- though it was a long time ago and didn't have any appreciable effect on the dynamics of center right pandering that have characterized both the Democratic party during the Clinton era and into 2004 -during the current administration (which in some respects is both better and worse in that regard) and with the ALP (the Australian Labor Party).

[saltpoint]

300. You're far away on both sides of your own argument.

You wrongly asserted that Nader's essential constituency rose from disenchantment in the 1990s, which is categorically false, then you insist that no one left any Democratic rank to vote for Commoner, who not coincidentally shares a significant overlay of Nader's current demographic support.

Carter had lost the election a long time before national polling indicated he was in grievous straits. There were people in Commoner's circle calling the November election as a Reagan landslide in January of 1980, months before the presidential debates.

I praise Commoner because he was so effective with audiences and far more demonstrably pro-Labor than Ralph Nader. Nader sweet talks Labor but has no real idea what the pro-Labor voter's life is like. He has the textbook polish but not the visceral connection that Commoner had. I watched Commoner walk into a room of men and women who had a 5-star built-in shit detector. They'd been on the union front lines for a couple generations and they loved Commoner. His own terrific education didn't give him the Ivory Tower tone Nader often takes and there was enormous common purpose, particularly in the area of training of workers as Pullman car operators, an issue Commoner owned.

The other end of your argument drops off the boat quickly if you believe that Ralph Nader or another Green candidate is going to put a dint in Democratic voter totals. Greens in California, for example, are much more likely, not less, to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot, and they do so, every cycle. There's no compelling argument for a Green voter to refuse support to Barbara Boxer, on environmental issues alone, or on a woman's right to choose. There are Greens aplenty in Wisconsin, and you just watch them lining up to support Russ Feingold.

There's no arithmetic to back your claims that Nader, or McKinney, or anyone else representing the demographic they represent is going to wound Obama's re-election effort should he decide to make one.

If the Greens in the U.S. were to miraculously peruade all its constituent groups to coalesce around a Green ticket, I'll be the first to post a formal concession and apology, depakid. But I'm not going to waste much time on it now, because I think the odds are remote at best.

[AnArmyVeteran]

58. You have it now! Nader is a TRUE progressive.

And that is why the corporate-owned democratic and republican parties were so terrified of having him included in the 2000 debates. The people didn't have an election in 2000, the corporations did. Nader would have DESTROYED Bush in the debates. Gore couldn't attack Bush because they were both owned by the same corporate masters, or rather pimps. Did you notice in the Gore-Bush debates how much Gore just agreed with almost everything Bush said? Hell, I could have destroyed Bush in those debates, but Gore couldn't and didn't.

Nader eloquently made his case against the corrupt status quo but the corporate-owned MSM were terrified of Nader too. That's why they barely covered him.

That election was rigged from the start. And without thinking people voted like they always do, for the repubs and the dems and it's because of them our country keeps getting sold out more and more every day. I sure wish people would wake up!

[saltpoint]

59. Nader, the warrior against corporate power and influence,

owns significant corporate stock.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

69. Ralph Nader- "I felt like a nigger."

-Ralph Nader, on being left out of the presidential debates.

Yeah, some progressive.

[AnArmyVeteran]

71. Please inform yourself about what Nader's beliefs are.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

73. I've got a pretty good idea what Nader's beliefs are.

Fucker's a real scumbag.

[saltpoint]

77. I know where Ralph stands.

Ralph's problem is that no one can see him and his supporters because there aren't very many of them.

He's hyper-marginal.

[suzie]

111. Nader wouldn't have destroyed anyone.

Average voters can be taken in by all kinds of politicians, but they seem to suss out the supreme narcissists and avoid giving them their votes.

Nader would have delivered even more votes to Bush if he'd been in the debates.

Which might have been his goal.

[SidDithers]

172. And who's been the more vocal and effective "progressive" since 2000?...

Gore or Nader?

Sid

[EstimatedProphet]

179. Zing!

:toast:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

293. depends if there is an election on or not

Nothing draws out Nader like a camera.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

294. ROFLOL. Nader was out debated by a puppet dog.

He would have destroyed himself by alienating the Dem base with his racist comments.

[LAGC]

60. Don't blame me, I voted for Cynthia McKinney in 2008!

(Just kidding!)

[saltpoint]

62. So YOU were the support she garnered in that election!

I wondered who it could have been..

- - -

I have no idea what the Greens were thinking when they nominated Cynthia McKinney.

By no means a great way to build support for the U.S. Green Party.

[NoPasaran]

68. They're still human garbage in my book

[bushisanidiot]

78. Ralph Nader voters are why AWOL Bush was in the white house for 8 years.

Voting third party is a vote for the republican tea party candidate. Why waste a vote on the middle man when you can just go ahead and vote for Palin, etc. directly?

[depakid]

85. Still clueless

Democrats enabling, legitimizing and adopting Republican policies caused their own problems- and if it hadn't been for Nader (or the Greens) a lot of these folks might not have voted in the first place.

As you are destined to see again on November 2nd.

In no small part due to the influence of the same person who played a major role in the 1994 disaster.

[HughMoran]

90. Clueless?

How many times do the Naderites make lame excuses for giving us Bush for 8 years? (might not have voted :rofl: - laaaaame)

[depakid]

99. Utterly and completely

You're about to get rolled by the sorriest bunch of nutters and snivelers that ever graced the national stage!

Because you willfully failed to learn a very simple lesson from the 1990's and 2000-04.

See you on November 3rd!

I'm sure you'll be stamping your feet and blaming progressives yet again for your own failures.

[HughMoran]

100. I'm not miserable

:shrug:

[depakid]

110. Neither am I

I'm a member of and work for the Australian Greens- who just elected a member of the lower house -and captured 4 more Senate seats, giving us the balance of power for at least the next 6 years.

No matter which major party ends up forming a minority government.

btw: Labor plummeted from near historic high approval ratings to nearly losing power outright, due in large part to their failure to stand up and fight for the progressive policies they purportedly believed in.

Something the Dems really ought to have considered, as it's the same dynamic that's cost them so dearly in the past.

[BzaDem]

128. Your biggest mistake here (and there are many) is equating the Australian form of government

(where third parties can join coalitions with other parties) and the American form of government (where progressive third parties do nothing but enable, legitimize, aide, and abet the right, due to the winner-take-all system). In the American form of government, there is no such thing as a viable progressive party other than the Democratic party, and there can never be such thing unless the Constitution and our system of elections is changed dramatically.

This is in direct contrast to the Australian system, which in various forms includes instant runoff voting and proportional representation (features that are required to allow votes for third parties not to aide and abet the right).

Are there people who vote third party or deliberately stay home out of spite in America (i.e. the five year olds who trash the room when they don't get what they want, and then wonder why they end up with nothing but a trashed room)? Of course there are. But that doesn't mean this is legitimate and acceptable behavior of a responsible citizen. Likewise, robbery is a crime that happens. But that doesn't mean we should try to "win the robbers over," or appease and legitimize them.

If there are people not educated about the responsibilities of citizenship or the most rudimentary aspects of our electoral system that limits the viable parties to 2 -- then we should work to educate these people. But anyone on DU is educated enough to know this. So anyone on DU who threatens to stay home or vote third party should not be appeased or legitimized, and should instead be called out as the right-wing enabler that they are.

Blaming the rest of the Democratic party for the actions of the tantrum throwers is the same as blaming the homeowner for the actions of the robber that robbed the home. You correctly identify the tantrum throwers in post after post, but you incorrectly try to appease and legitimize them and get others to do so (rather than holding them accountable for their actions).

[depakid]

173. I make no mistake about that- I'm simply pointing out the inherent FAIL of the center right

apparatchik's and those who knuckle under to their browbeating.

They never learn. Ever.

No matter how many times they make the same mistakes- no matter how many times you alienate your constituencies and pander to the right and LOSE.

Face it- results speak for themselves- your wing of the party is not very bright (and also seem to be riddled with poor character, too- every bit as bad as many Republicans).

That Australians have a choice preferentially- and that we do in fact exercise that choice only illustrates the effect that electoral reforms might have- if the two parties had the courage to implement them and compete on a more level field.

The political dynamics- the rejection of corporate right pandering and corruption is very much the same.

The difference being that Americans end up losing much worse and when they win- win much less.

[suzie]

238. delete

[HughMoran]

175. Excellent analysis

Thank you for chiming in - I have little patience with those who would throw tantrums and appreciate those who can elucidate the reasons why such behavior is so destructive.

:thumbsup:

[Yeshuah Ben Joseph]

330. A lot of people do confuse US politics with Australia.

Like when right wingers call themselves "liberals", for example. In Australia, that's normal.

Here, it's just DLC spin. :crazy:

[MineralMan]

193. You know, I wonder why an Australian is meddling in US

politics in the first place. What's your agenda here. Go work in the Australian elections. Thanks!

[depakid]

221. I sometimes wonder about new posters who haven't been around DU too long as well

I tend not to call them out- but instead, attempt to discuss issues, policies and politics- giving everyone (sometimes naively, for sure) the benefit of the doubt.

I mean hey- ya never know who you're interacting with.

For all you know, some poster who you obtusely deride may well have some useful experience with _____ (fill in the blank)

For the more nationalistic- some posters' grandfather not many generations ago might have even put forth the motion to the Continental Congress to declare independence from Britain.

Ya never know.

Which is why it pays to try to keep it cool - and have discussions on the merits (however heated they might become).

[EstimatedProphet]

186. The only way we're destined to see it again

is if we have voters who believe that there's no difference between Tarryl Clark and Michelle Bachmann, or between Justin Cossoule and John Boehner, or between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle, or between Jack Conway and Rand Paul, or the same match between decent people and crazystupidevil fucks an any number of elections. Anyone who honestly says "I don't see any difference between Tarryl Clark and Michelle Bachmann, so I'm staying home" will never get any respect from me.

[fascisthunter]

292. that's a MYTH... the Dems didn't fight hard enough when they were counting the votes

they folded like a cheap suit, while Bush and his people STOLE the election. BTW - Gore WON Florida but the Supremes had other plans.

[Radical Activist]

89. Obama has passed things Nader spent years figthing for.

So no, I think someone with that attitude is being mislead by professional left pundits with an agenda.

[flamingdem]

113. + 1000000 nt

[ibegurpard]

117. pfft

[Catherina]

250. Did you really type that with a straight face? OMG. n/t

[Radical Activist]

258. The new consumer oversight agency, credit card regulation, mortgage regulation.

I wrote it because I'm informed by something more than the cliche narrative that gets mindlessly passed around by bloggers and pundits who think they're still fighting Bill Clinton.

[Catherina]

274. You're not informed at all. You're selling bad goods. Here is what Nader said about that fake shit

We already went over some of this once (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8652859#8653928)but you deliberately ignored it and continue with your deliberate misrepresentations. You are not informed at all. Deliberately it seems.

Obama has done NOTHING, absolutely nothing to enact anything Nader and the left wanted. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Window dressing does not count.

June 14 2010

...

JAY: So, as we speak, the House is speaking to the Senate, negotiating the final finance reform bill. Some people have said there's no way it's going to touch real structural blackmail. What's your take on that?

NADER: It's a weak bill in both houses, in the Senate and House. It's premised on weak regulation across the board, rather than shift the power. The only way, really, to get this to work is to bring investors and shareholders into a more powerful role, since they do own the companies but they don't control the companies and they don't control the bosses and they don't control executive compensation. They're just told, if you don't like a company, you know, Citigroup, Bank of America, sell your stock. So unless consumers, investors, shareholders have a way to organize—and this is the proposal that Senator Schumer has put forth. We gave him this proposal in 1985 in the savings and loan scandal, in the House, when he was in the House. It didn't get through. Now he's reintroduced it in the Senate. And it basically sets up a financial consumer association which would have millions of dues-paying consumer members, credit card, mortgage users, etc., and it would be outside the government, lobbying against the huge lobbying force of Wall Street and the banks, which will descend on whatever law is passed in the agencies. Just for example, thin regulation, the consumer agency, which is the best part of the bill, is strapped in a lot of ways. Elizabeth Warren, who should be new director, said if it's weakened anymore, forget it, it's a waste of time, because it's going to be in the Federal Reserve, for example, and it's going to be vetoed by a group of regulators if they protect credit card holders too much, for example.


JAY: The House bill had it as an independent agency, but apparently more limited in its power. So maybe they'll come out with the best of both. Or are they going to come up with the weaker of both?

NADER: It looks like the Senate is going to have the odds on it. They're going to defer more to the Senate. But that remains to be seen. Barney Frank favors an independent, but, as you say, it's weaker in some ways. But on the rating agencies, Standard & Poor's and so on, ridiculous. It's laughable. On too-big-to-fail we got bigger banks controlling half of the deposits in this country—five giant banks. They're already too big to fail. Nothing in this bill is going to break them up, or tax them to keep them down, or require spinoffs.

http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=5267&updaterx=2010-06-14+12%3A43%3A15

Video of interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LnQY9CbL-4

No Time For Consumer Power
by Ralph Nader

In the end, late on Thursday’s Senate passage of the financial regulation bill, the Senate had no time for independent, non-government consumer power. In the end, after listening to swarms of corporate bank, brokerage, hedge fund, private equity, and insurance lobbyists, the Senate had no time for Senator Chuck Schumer’s amendment to create a non-profit Financial Consumers Association (FCA, SA 3772).

In the end, this massive 1500 page bill shifted very little power directly to shareholders and consumers of financial services (meaning just about everyone) either to better use the courts and to organize nationwide to counteract the lobbying muscle of the financial goliaths ready to turn the new regulators into procrastinatory putty.

The FCA proposal (see csrl.org), which Senator Schumer had backed in 1985 when he was dealing with the savings and loan scandal, did not receive the time of day. It would have required the companies to place an invitation to their customers in their mailing and electronic communications (bank statements, bills etc.) inviting consumers to voluntarily join and pay dues to build a powerful consumer lobby to countervail what Thomas Jefferson once called the “monied interests.”

After all, the criminal, reckless, self-enriching collapse of the economy by the Wall Streeters—the millions of lost jobs, the trillions of dollars in lost pensions and savings—Main Streeters deserved some reciprocal gesture for all the Americans who were forced, as taxpayers, savers and workers to bailout the crooks and ultimately pay the costs of this financial disaster.

In the end, the Senate, like the House of Representatives, told their consumers—their voters—to get lost. There was no room for a Financial Consumers Association in the 1500 pages.

The FCA is crucial to assure that many of the other parts of this bill are enforced. For very little in this legislation includes outright prohibitions. Rather the Senate, like the House, delegates the authority, within a broad range of discretion, to a variety of existing agencies, and a new consumer financial protection agency nesting allegedly independently inside the big bankers’ Federal Reserve.

There are so many complex reviews and procedural obstacles for these agencies that the corporate lawyers will collect enough fees to spoil their great-grandchildren. “Paralysis by analysis” is what consumer groups call such legislation. I call them no-law laws—mired in pits of quicksand that mock everything but eternity.

...

http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/2187-No-Time-For-Consumer-Power.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

354. Credit card regulation that refused to ban usurious interest rates

Some accomplishment!

[LostInAnomie]

96. Yep. They're still scum in my book.

Self-righteous scum.

[wookie72]

213. That'll get them to vote for your guy

"You're a bunch of self-righteous scum, and you are personally responsible for the deaths of millions of Iraqis. I hope we can depend on your support in 2012."

I voted for Nader in 2000. Gore won the state without my vote. I "wised up" (read: held my nose) and voted for Kerry in 2004. Kerry lost my state. So in either case my vote didn't count.
What pissed me off about the fallout from 2000 is that instead of, say, election reform or actually appealing to the progressive base, we got four years of recrimination from DLC types.

i blame Iraq on the people who actually did vote for it - the House and the Senate. (And Clinton did nothing about the sanctions on Iraq before the war)

It's amazing that people who claim to be "rational" expect us to have some psychic powers about what would happen. I assumed Bush would be an ineffectual president gone in 2004. I was wrong about that. But to blame us for Iraq, etc? Nuts to that.

[LostInAnomie]

322. If they're dumb enough to make the same mistake twice...

... fuck 'em.

I've always loved the "Gore won it anyway" excuse. If Gore would have had even half of the 97K votes Nader got it wouldn't have been close enough to steal.

I don't blame Greens for the war or any of the other disasters of the Bush years. They and their self righteousness do deserve a good portion of the blame for putting him in power though.

[wookie72]

336. Actually, if Gore had done what nearly every winning candidate has done

and CARRIED HIS HOME STATE, we wouldn't be having this argument.
I wasn't in Florida, so why should I get the blame?

[wookie72]

337. And wait a minute...

You say "fuck 'em" while at the same time giving them this awesome power over the election. SO who's the one being spiteful and self-righteous?

Are you so convinced that the Dems are always right that you'll support them even as they drift further and further to the right?

[flvegan]

98. I wish we could have a Nader thread every day.

I love idiotic blame and logistical failings around this time at night. The entertainment value alone makes it worthwhile.

[McCamy Taylor]

101. If they understand that Grover Norquist persuaded Nader to do it, they understand everything,

[Maru Kitteh]

103. I understand they pretty much fucked the environment, medical research and about 1M+ Iraqis

for starters.

I feel exactly the same about them now as I did then. They can still go fuck themselves.

[depakid]

120. LOL- yep, we progressives signed the salvage rider "logging without laws" and voted for IWR en masse

And later on, the bankruptcy bill.

Nice try.

[ElectricLightDem]

104. I'm one of those Nader voters

I voted for him in '96 when I was living in Utah. I then voted for him again when I was living in Colorado. When I voted for him I felt like I was voting for somebody who spoke for me. Plus, when I vote, I like to think I'm voting *for* something, not *against* something. Unfortunately, since that last vote, I've come to....not regret my vote entirely. But I've come to the sad conclusion that his metaphorical warts are more obvious than his strengths at this stage. The Green Party really needed Nader to make the right moves at the right time and he just couldn't, wouldn't, didn't pull through.

[rucky]

108. I understand their frustrations, but not their actions...

at least the ones in the states where Bush & Gore were close. I had some friends who did "vote trading" in states that were either solid red or solid blue and that made sense. I was in California at the time, and didn't feel comfortable with voting Nader there, so I really can't understand what the Nader voters in Florida were thinking.

[Smarmie Doofus]

109. Frankly, yes.

Until Iraq II, I didn't fully realize how deeply disturbed is our social order.

Clinton and Gore seemed to me... in the 90's.... a reasonable compromise --- given the nature of the barbarians on the other side. Cultural issues ... esp. GLBT... were paramount to me then. Triangulating, maneuvering and compromising seemed not just excusable but wise.

I no longer think this way and I certainly don't *feel* this way. That said, I'm still no Nader fan. And the third party idea is doomed from the outset. A challenge from the left, i.e. the mainstream of the party, from WITHIN THE PARTY is much more feasible.

Bradley tried it against Gore in 2000, but it was a weak challenge led by an unappealing candidate. Also Gore's aura was *slightly* more progressive than Clinton's was or Obama's is.

[Arkana]

114. No.

Ralph Nader spent all of 2000 smearing Al Gore and claiming there was no difference between him and Bush.

And it may not have been ALL his fault, but he's a BIG reason Dumbass was allowed to fuck this country over for eight goddamn years.

[Liberal Gramma]

115. It's all relative

The Democratic party isn't as liberal as I would like it to be. There is still the issue of lobbyists writing legislation and conservative Dems watering down legislation that would be genuinely helpful to society as a whole. BUT the Republican party is so much worse on every issue, and the Tea Partiers are dedicated to destroying the country out of spite. If I vote my heart, which would be closer to green than Dem, I will only be empowering the Republicans. Any split in the party benefits the opposition. VOTE DEMOCRATIC and work to move the party to the left from within.

[bobbolink]

116. I gotta salute your bravery!

:patriot:

"Dimes worth of difference" is making more and more sense to more and more people.

Sad learning curve, eh?

[saltpoint]

140. Ya gotta reliable count on that, bobbolink?

Clear, vivid, alternate choices have been on the U.S. ballot for decades and voters reject them cycle after cycle.

You are wishing for something that isn't going to happen. Not in our lifetimes, anyway.

I'm sure that will disappoint you. You are so tuned to see the Democrats fail because you personally blame them for your troubles.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

119. I reluctantly voted for Gore in 2000, but he might have gone to war, given his history

(founding member of the DLC, staunch supporter of the Contras and the Afghan "freedom fighters"), I think that anyone who states categorically that he would never have gone to war is naive. Or maybe has a short memory. Or maybe wasn't born yet when Gore was in the Senate.

He was always a conservative Democrat, and on top of that, he ran a LOUSY campaign.

Recall that three days before the election, 1/3 of the voters were still undecided. My memory of elections goes back to 1960, and I have NEVER seen so much indecision before or since, even in close elections like Kennedy-Nixon or Nixon-Humphrey. The results may have been close, but the people on either side decided pretty early.

This tells me that Gore failed to differentiate himself from Bush enough to win over the low-information voters. Bush would say, "I'm for the death penalty," and Gore would say, basically,"Me, too." Bush would say, "I'm pro-business," and Gore would say, "Me, too." He let Bush set the agenda and mumbled the same damn platitudes about "policies that benefit working families" (without specifying what those policies were).

It's easy to blame Nader and a few voters in Florida, but it's just a way of making lame excuses for a candidate who somehow managed to win the popular vote despite being tied with Dukakis for Worst Campaigner Ever.

By the way, everyone seems to forget that if Gore had won his own damn home state where he was a Senator, he would have become president.

I actually voted for Nader in 1996 as a protest against NAFTA and Clinton's caving in to the Republicanites,but I would not vote for him again, since he does not try to build up a movement between elections.

[depakid]

121. That bit about the "social security lockbox" sure was dry and unpersuasive then

though it would sure would have been nice to hear from leading Dems over the past several months.

[suzie]

261. Gore would have gone to war in Iraq?

Have we truly gone down the rabbit hole? Because attempting to justify voting for a guy who collaborated to install Bush in office by sliming Al Gore as someone who "might have gone to war" seems like reasoning in some alternate universe.

Would Gore have told his advisors from the first week of his administration that they would be going to war in Iraq? Would he have spent a year building up lies about Iraq to convince the public to go to war? Would he have hired Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Feith and the rest of the chickenhawk cheerleaders for intervention in Iraq?

But, to start with, one has to make the assumption that as CIC, Gore would ignored the warnings of his national security staff about "hair on fire" warnings about the Middle East. One has to assume that Gore would have demoted Richard Clarke and ignored his advice.

One has to assume that Al Gore, who actually served in the military and was not in combat in Vietnam, but did go there, would not listen to his generals and other military experts about how unwise it was to go to war in Iraq.

One has the make the assumption that someone who'd honorably served in a hierarchical organization like the military would not have been able to rattle the bushes of the various law enforcement bureaucracies so that the information that was available which could have stopped 9/11 would have floated out.

In fact, it's just as likely that we would have had no wars in the Middle East, because we might have stopped 9/11.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

266. No, what I'm saying is that his attitudes on foreign policy as a Senator

showed that he was in line with the Reaganite conventional wisdom on those topics.

He probably didn't know that much about foreign policy and just went along with the crowd, which was all ra-ra for supporting the far right wing in Latin America and the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan. Or maybe he really believed that a bunch of Central American peasants were a threat to the U.S. or that men who were rebelling against the idea of women's rights were "freedom fighters."

Who knows?

I'm saying only that we cannot GUARANTEE that he would not have gone to war in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

As Obama has shown, it's easy to campaign one way and govern another, which is why a politician's RECORD is the best indicator of where he will go in the future.

I don't think Gore would have instituted tax cuts for the wealthy, but that's about as far as I'm willing to speculate. Recall that he was vice-president for Clinton, who put through a harsh welfare "reform," signed NAFTA, signed the deregulation of the broadcasting industry, bombed Iraq and Sudan, and signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act--all of which would have been Republican positions just twenty years before.

[suzie]

304. As a former military guy, Gore was more likely to have sent forces after the murderers who

killed 3,000 of our citizens and actually get them than Bush was. But as a former military guy who'd been in country in a war, he was probably less likely to engage in a nation building kind of war that we ended up with in Afghanistan.

And far less likely to have gone to war in Iraq.

Don't know how one gauges a politician's record on war, other than to look at his military experience. Seems like those with it are more likely to be able to listen to a variety of military views and to actually avoid war easier than those with no military or little military service.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

312. Perhaps, but George Bush Sr., who was a combat veteran,

sent troops into Panama to overthrow Noriega (a violation of international law), a totally unnecessary act of aggression. (Or maybe he was afraid that Noriega would rat out his CIA connections.)

[suzie]

344. Sent troops into Panama. Wasn't that after the generals who begged the U.S. to

intervene were executed by Noriega? And did I miss the part where we got involved in a war of nation-building? Because when I was in Panama, one of the former U.S. bases along the Canal was now an ecotourist lodge. I thought that Panama was where we played rock music until Noriega came out. Seems like we sent a bunch of troops in and then left, because I don't think that we reoccupied the country. Last I heard, the Chinese run the Canal, not the U.S.

I believe that George HW Bush also determined that he would not send U.S. troops to Bagdad, although many people called for that in his own party. And most likely among his military advisers.

But nice try.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

348. "Begged the U.S. to intervene?"

I suppose Noriega did execute them for treason. What would happen to some American generals who "begged China to intervene?" I can't imagine that the president say, "You asked China to overthrow me? Cool."

What I know of the U.S. invasion of Panama (and it WAS an invasion, which is the name for sending troops into another sovereign nation and deposing its leader) came from the several Panamanian students who were at the college I was teaching at during that period. They were so angry that they could hardly talk without bursting into tears.

When the military told you what to believe about the Panama invasion, did it tell you the WHOLE sorry history of the U.S. treating Latin America as its private property?

[suzie]

351. I'm quite aware of the history of Latin America, thank you.

And I went to college with quite a few Latin Americans, so the fact that the students at your college were angry, does that mean that their families were part of Noriega's inner circle?

I thought the Panamanian invasion was stupid business, but for once the U.S. got rid of the guy who was very bad news for his country and then left. The Panamanians have had a fairly long record of elections since then, not always a given in Latin America. They're free to negotiate with China to run the Canal, to favor Japan over the U.S. in other aid/trade. Would another president have invested more effort in military occupation of Panama? Very possibly.

But I notice that you focused on Panama and avoided mention of Iraq, where Bush Sr. refused to get involved in a full-scale overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

352. No, these students were not part of Noriega's inner circle

And it is still none of our business to decide which foreign leaders to depose. It is a very bad and long-standing habit.

As for Bush Sr's Gulf War, I was opposed to that. The U.S. ambassador (and Foreign Service Officers are required to give the official U.S. line on foreign policy at all times) told Saddam Hussein that the U.S. had no objections to his preferred method of settling the dispute with Kuwait.

Then all of a sudden Saddam Hussein was evil (although he wasn't evil when he was taking on Iran).

The level of hypocrisy in U.S. foreign policy is astounding, which is one reason why I ended up choosing not to accept a job offer from the Foreign Service, even though I passed both the written exam and the day-long interview process.

[grahamhgreen]

123. Yes. We Dems need to incorporate more of his ideas to get his voters, duh.

[Cleita]

124. No. Not me.

I knew voting for Nader would be instrumental in giving Bush an edge and I still feel that today. I would rather hold my nose and vote for a person whom I wasn't that crazy about but whom I knew wouldn't give away the store to the corporate conservative agenda. Ask me how many times I held my nose and voted for Dianne Feinstein.

Did not the last ten years teach you guys anything?

[ShamelessHussy]

125. the corporate dems ignored and vilified him and his ilk first, now it's our turn

to be ignored and shat upon.


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BKC0CDTGL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
http://www.amazon.com/Crashing-Party-Corporate-Government-Surrender/dp/0312284330

an excellent book that explains all the BS he had to put up with from the party elites, third-way, neo liberals who sold out long ago.:

[Touchdown]

127. Isn't he like 80 years old and his groupies laughed at McCaine's age?

The hypo... err... irony burns.

[saltpoint]

134. So. Ralph. If you're lurking here at DU, it seems to me

you have a couple pals hereabouts, but not much more than that.

Certainly you could give it another go out on the presidential campaign trail, but you'll draw only the votes you got the other times, if that, while ignoring that your purist vision was rejected as a ballot choice by landslide-huge majorities of progressive of all stripes.

I think you'll be looking at just about exactly the same scenario this next time.

[The Second Stone]

135. Yes, there are people so stupid that they don't see the

difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

[wookie72]

216. Stupid because they couldn't see the future? nt

[pipi_k]

228. Before 2000 I didn't know Dubya from a hole in the wall...then one day

about a month or two before the election that year, I saw him being interviewed by a news anchor on a Boston TV channel.

He (Bush) acted like a total snarky sarcastic smug little asshole, and that's when I knew.


I knew he would be bad for this country. He turned out being even worse than I imagined.

[The Second Stone]

275. Stupid that they didn't see that they had an obligation to their

country to choose the less of the two possible evils instead of the jerk off ego fantasy of a third worse evil.

Yes, they can legally make the chose to write in Stalin if they want to, but if the real choice is between voting for a 4 year destruction of the country and a 20 year destruction of the country, you don't write in Mickey Fucking Mouse.

Stupid is as stupid does, and a vote for Nader was a vote for the quicker destruction of the country. Bush voters were stupid, Nader voters were stupider and Gore voters made the best of it.

[Name removed]

136. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[saltpoint]

137. Lucian, it's not really a 'mentality,' but more of a

case of hard arithmetic.

The votes aren't there. The organization is not there. No funding. No leverage, no influence, no grassroots presence in the great majority of U.S. communities, and to top it all off, the U.S. Greens have nominated complete losers to top their tickets.

Ralph Nader is a smart man with absolutely zero chance, ever, of becoming president. He would have to claw his way into a Congressional seat, that is if he survived the primary.

Cynthia McKinney? Laughable.

If the U.S. Greens are ever going to make any headway, they need to gather out back behind the shithouse and draw up a new plan. The one they're using now ain't workin'.

[Lucian]

139. I agree...somewhat.

The Greens need organization and they need better candidates.

But the votes are there. People are just too afraid to vote for them. People are afraid of change.

[saltpoint]

141. Agree that U.S. American culture is not given to

change. I think you should actually start a post on that, only give yourself every option for what it is that makes them hesitate. What I mean is, it isn't political change they're afraid of. Something else is pulling at them from behind the curtain and limits their movement.

It's not just true in times of economic hardship, either. When the dough was rolling in after the Second World War, there was a powerful draw for people to be like everyone else. The country wound up with brain-numbing suburbs with all-alike houses and freeway exits with exactly the same fastfood joints and gas stations almost coast to coast.

The Greens could make a huge gesture and get farther than they've gotten to date using the same arguments the U.S. Left used at the turn of the last century.

[Lucian]

145. I think what they need is a candidate who is charasmatic...

someone the American public would like.

I believe the issues are the most important to vote on, but people also want a candidate who they like. I'm a huge fan of Kucinich, but the media has already labeled him as a weirdo. Nader was boring and people blamed him for the 2000 election loss of Al Gore. They need someone who had the charisma of John Edwards or Bill Clinton (1992's Bill Clinton), but the values of Kucinich.

Hmmmm.

[saltpoint]

162. That would help them a lot, not just at the

presidential campaign level, but for local races.

The voters the U.S. Greens need are not voting Green. They're voting Democratic and volunteer for Democrats like Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold and Barney Frank and Alan Grayson and so on.

Intent alone is not enough. There has to be means, too.

I expect them to keep at it, but they'd do well to listen to your advice on a a more charismatic figure to head them up.

[eridani]

142. Problem is, Nader has never offered real change

If you want to win elections, you have to have large numbers of people willing to connect with the majority of voters who don't pay attention. Nader has never done this, nor has any recent third party with the exception of the New Your Working Families Party. (An excellent example of the success of fusion voting compared to IRV and other proposed tweaks.)

[Douglas Carpenter]

146. their basic premise that both parties serve the interest of Wall Street is obvious

One would have to be naive beyond imagination not to get that. I knew that about Senator Obama when I supported him for the Presidency. It boggles my mind that anyone was so gullible not to understand that. The problem is that the Democrats by and large represent the left-wing of Wall Street while the current Republican Party of today doesn't just represent the right-wing of Wall Street - They represent a genuinely dangerous strain of ideological extremism unknown in the mainstream of the western democratic political world since World War II. Given how the American political system is structured has the end result of making support for a major third party effort into allies of these utterly dangerous and reactionary forces that are a real threat to the future of American democracy and even humanity itself (outside of some rare exceptions like with Bernie Sanders)

Given these realities, the only hope is for progressives to do within the Democratic Party what the right-wing extremist did within the Republican Party. But this would be difficult given that the Democrats who serve the interest of Wall Street can find it far easier to raise money and to gain the acceptance of the mainstream media.

[hfojvt]

147. only if you think the switch from Clinton to Bush wasn't REAL change

"I don't really care"

Yeah, that's what Nader said when asked if his candidacy might help elect Bush.

For some reason, I was thinking that the Bush years were an epic disaster.

How soon we forget.

Stephene is likely to be another Blue Dog, instead of "real" change. No big deal then if Yoder wins?

[JoseGaspar]

149. By golly, those votes must have had "Property of Gore"...

...etched on their undersides.

Let me see if this thread says what I think it does:

Clinton invents triangulation and pretty much beats up on the Left for two entire terms.

In 2000 Gore decides to run largely to the right of Clinton.

By now, there are a handful of left-leaning voters who don't want to vote for this anymore.

So Nader runs and gives them an outlet for their votes... Because, otherwise, that handful of voters would have been "forced" to vote for Gore.

The vote is so close that those voters are enough in one state (if we ignore vote suppression, felony disenfranchisement, election fraud, the fantastic Democratic Party machinery election machinery in Palm Beach and Dade, and the Supreme Court) to "throw" the election to Bush.

And thus, Nader is "responsible".

It is not Clinton's fault or Gore's fault or the fault of the campaign.


But in Florida, about half the people who are theoretically eligible to vote, either can't or don't vote - they are "idiots" for not voting. What can you do?

And about half the ones that do vote, vote "wrong" - it goes without saying that they are "morans" - because they "vote against their interests".

So the handful of alienated Left votes are the problem.

And they would have been over a barrel if not for Nader...

This is quite the narrative...

And this is the narrative that passes as "pragmatic and realistic"?

Very, very impressive.

[LostinVA]

164. +1

[Robeson]

268. Hell of a summary...

...that ties it up pretty well.

[Raineyb]

288. That pretty much sums up the argument.

I would add that the Democratic party is entitled to our votes no matter how they actually govern to your list. But otherwise you're spot on.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

290. Their vote had a consequence and they must live with that consequence.

Same as people who don't vote at all.

[Catherina]

343. Thank you. And let's not forget all the Blue Dog Democrats who voted for Bush n/t

[dmallind]

151. Already understood them perfectly

Whiny little spoilers who were stupid enough to think Gore and Bush were the same, and are still stupid enough to think Obama and ...whoever gets the GOP nod are the same.

Luckily most of the dumb fuckers wised up after 2001-2009 proved them to be disastrously wrong. I hope they don't regress into cretinism fast enough to forget that lesson for the next elections.

[LostinVA]

166. "whiny little spoilers"

:eyes:

Gore won Florida, Gore won the election, Nader and Green voters didn't "spoil" anything. People are allowed to vote for whom they want -- a Party and a politic an should have to earn someone's vote.

I voted for Gore in 2000, although I didn't want to.

[Vickers]

152. I understand they are a bunch of unrealistic douchebags. n/t

[Panaconda]

154. This thread is surreal

I didn't realize that there were still people who believed the fallacy that Nader cost Gore the election.

It's also beyond the pale to blame supporters of Nader for the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. That is such a jaw dropping misstatement you have to wonder if people even read history any longer.

Colonial supremacy would evaporate if only folks would do fine acts in a voting booth? Please.

Wake up and smell the capitalism people.

[WinkyDink]

156. Gore would have invaded Iraq? After all, both parties are the same, no?

[Panaconda]

157. That comment proves my point

No one is saying anything about Gore invading anything. You are using pretzel logic to arrive at your pre-ordained conclusion.

Perhaps there is some knee-jerk reaction that supercedes critical thinking on this matter that prevents people from understanding the historical trajectory of colonialism.

The occupation would have continued under Gore even if done more obliquely and done through proxies and economic stranglehold. As we are seeing under Obama as we saw under Clinton. I suggest you read up on these matters.

[EstimatedProphet]

194. Actually, someone upthread stated that he would likely have invaded

And there is no way I am buying that, not ever. I lived in DC from 2000 to 2003. I remember the constant drumbeat for war that was going on there. I remember how Bush pulled the weapons inspectors out of Iraq before they could report that there was nothing there after all. Most importantly I remember that the pro-war attitude had to be continually reinforced by every propaganda organ available. We almost didn't go to war even with Bush bound and determined to do so regardless of what the people thought. Anyone honest enough to assess the actual information saw through what was going on - that's why we all did. Gore may not have been that progressive, but he didn't come to office with the goal of a war from the outset.

[WinkyDink]

271. To assume Gore would have been a war criminal beggars belief.

[WinkyDink]

270. "Continued under Gore", how, exactly, when it began in 2003 with Bush?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

353. The bombing of Iraq and the economic embargos began under Clinton

Bush merely intensified what had been going on for years.

[WinkyDink]

273. I suggest you try criticizing a Republican or two. You prove MY point about Nader.

[Raineyb]

328. If you need someone to tell you what is wrong with Republicans you are in the wrong place.

People already KNOW what's wrong with the Republicans. We have to keep an eye on the Democratic party to make sure they don't act the damn fool either. Why should people waste time telling you what should already be obvious to you? Is this not a left leaning board?

[saltpoint]

165. We don't have even one crystal ball at our house to

predict the future, but our very best guess is that a President Al Gore would not have ever seriously considered an invasion and occupation of Iraq in response to the 911 attacks.

[WinkyDink]

272. There wouldn't have BEEN a 9/11 attack. GORE AND CLARKE WOULD HAVE READ THE MEMO.

[saltpoint]

301. I get that point but this, that, or the other administration

would not, in and of itself, preclude a terrorist attack.

I'd feel a lot better about what would be done in response to an attack had Gore been in the Oval Office instead of the guy who was instead.

And R. Clarke is a class act in almost any context, IMO.

[HughMoran]

240. Nader gave us 8 years of Bush

Period.

Anybody who can't comprehend simple math needs to think about why they've come to a faulty conclusion based on guilt.

[WinkyDink]

155. No. Nader, when specific, criticized only Democrats. He's no fool; he knew he was helping Bush.

[Name removed]

158. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ganja Ninja]

159. Totally. n/t

[Cal33]

160. Kucinich would have brought along real change, too. But

too many Democrats wouldn't have voted for him. I also wonder
if he and Nader would have survived assassination. Remember
JFK? It also occurred to me if Obama is doing his best to
survive? Nobody ever brings up this topic.

[trumad]

161. Fuck Nader

[LostinVA]

163. Cynthia McKinney was the Green candidate in 2008, not Nader

Just an FYI. I know most posters are discussing 2000, but not all.

[SidDithers]

167. Fuck Ralph Nader...nt

Sid

[county worker]

168. You need to see the end first. Noble ideals suck when they cause us all to get the

shit kicked out of us like the Bush years did.

Got pragmatism?

[LynneSin]

178. That's lovely but here is the problem

You won't get a better progressive voting for someone like Ralph Nadar - you help get a right-wing screed elected instead.

Until we can get a true party run-off where if no candidate makes 50% then the top 2 have a run-off, then we will never see anything more than a 2-party system.

[MineralMan]

182. Sure. I understood them in 2000, too.

Screw that shit!

[S_E_Fudd]

183. I do...however...

In 2000 Gore was the progressive candidate. Nader was simply in it for his own aggrandizement...

[depakid]

196. This thread's really interesting- as we've gone full circle

back to the Green Dem "wars" of 2001-03.

To all of you who remember, I take no pleasure at all in having called the shots- or in being correct on the dynamics and the outcomes.

Indeed, in a way- some of us- like public school teachers, may well deserve approbation for our inability to lay it out in a way that folks who listen to and watch a lot of "mainstream" media can understand.

[MineralMan]

219. Fringe parties never function in a positive way. They only serve

to dilute the political process. Nader never had a prayer of being elected to any national office. Never! It wouldn't matter if he was Jebus returned. So, voting for him was always a vote for futility. Had even two-thirds of the Nader voters in Florida voted for Gore, there would have been no question about the winner and the SCOTUS would never have had a chance to select Bush.

You can deny that all you like, but it is an actual fact, supported by the actual numbers.

You're welcome to support whatever unelectable candidate you prefer, but if you do, you're voting to allow everyone else to decide who will be the elected official. Is that what you really want to do? If so, you are irrelevant to the process. And, since you're irrelevant, there is no point in discussing such issues with you here.

Go in piece...

[depakid]

235. Fail to learn- cast insults- browbeat allies- case in point

Nicely done.

Well, one thing that looks like a good bet at this point is that there'll be ample opportunities for the "bipartisanship" that the administration and the Senate "leadership" have throughout the past 20 months yearned and bent over backwards for.

Looks to be interesting times.

[JoseGaspar]

260. I hate to break it to you, but it is you who are stubbornly maintaining...

...a "fringe" position, and the numbers bear that out. Something like 60% of the electorate will not vote in 2010. Perhaps they are "lazier" or "dumber" than you, but most of them will come from Democratic "demographics" and, I suspect, many of them will feel the impact of the election more than you.

Half of the remainder (perhaps more) will vote Republican. That is a surprise because the Republicans were dead after 2010. They were mobilized by the Teabagger Movement, whether that is mainly AstroTurf or not, and focused like a laser against the Entitled-Wing of the Republican Party. That could have, and still may, express itself as an independent party of popular reaction.

The half that will vote Democratic will in part be motivated by fear of Republicans rather than any support for Democratic policy. How do we know this? Because that has now become the number one "Campaign Strategy" of the Party in 2010; not an attempt to win votes based on a two year record, but an attempt to scare people based on a previous eight year record.

Now, look at the remaining consistent stump of the population you are counting on to keep you out of the "fringe". The base of the Democratic party shares your perspective on American society, does it? African Americans, Hispanics, Union workers, all believe as you do that gradual incrementalism will serve their interests over the long run by improving their position? Perhaps in 1972 people might have believed that - a rising tide does in fact raise all boats (and votes). But do people still believe that today? What does your polling data tell you about that?

The Entitled-Wing of the Democratic Party faces the same issues as its counterparts in the Republican Party who preached gradual, incremental reaction.

American politics is like a water balloon. Push on it in one spot and it will bulge out in another. You can complain about the physics of it all day long and it will not matter. The "Two-Party system" is certainly a drag on that evolution but, on the other hand, it is no more a guarantee of avoiding fringiness than watching Major League Baseball. You might as well hang your hat on baseball.

The Democratic Party will represent a majority of the people or not. It will represent the real interests of its supporters, as perceived and not "sold" to them, or not. If it does not, it will face the exact same revolt - whether expressed internally or externally - because practical circumstances have changed in very fundamental ways. In this change, the early "third-party" events will count as simple warning shocks of the tremors to come... just as with the Republicans.

Honestly, I heard your exact position articulated in exactly the same terms 40 years ago...

...but then, it still had a grain of truth left in it.

[JNelson6563]

200. Yeah, I'm still celebrating 8 years of Team Bush!

Stirring up anti-Dem sentiment on DU? I thought this was one of the few rules that was still enforced.....

Julie

[saltpoint]

209. Sitrring up with a big spoon, too.

:hi:

And wouldn't you know it -- just a few weeks before crunch time for the 2010 midterms.

My stars.

[RainDog]

206. Yes. But I don't think that voting for Nader achieved those aims

I volunteered to vote swap with Nader voters in Florida during that election (b/c my vote was going to be null anyway b/c of the stupid fucking electoral college... cause, yeah, it's a way to rig the vote for the right,) because Nader could still qualify for funds with x number of votes.

so... I understood then, too.

what I don't understand is how anyone now thinks that letting republicans win will accomplish any useful goal.

in anger, I often say I will not vote - b/c, honestly, I am sick of the way the conservadems, throughout history, have shown how regressive and stupid they are - b/c, honestly, they have always been on the wrong side of history.

but I still for vote for lesser of two evils because I cannot, in good conscience, help a repuke to win.

however, as the democrats make their positions even more difficult to distinguish from the republicans, this gets harder and harder to justify - so I understand the thinking now, too.

it seems that we need to elect democrats and then occupy their offices until they start legislating like democrats, not republicans - or, maybe we're just going to hell in a handbasket anyway because the DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO GOVERN LIKE DEMOCRATS.

in which case, maybe it doesn't matter who you vote for anyway.

I go back and forth about this with myself because, beyond a few democrats, there are not many I think are worthy of the name.

[MineralMan]

224. The goal of the third-party folks is nothing but spite.

They're saying, "We don't like your stupid candidate, because he doesn't support 'X'. So we're going to vote for Larouche (or whomever) and you can live with a Republican and see how you like it. Neeener, neener, neener!"

That's what their goal is. They want to defeat the Democrats, in the irrational belief that their acting to defeat that candidate will somehow result in a grand awakening of the voting population. Pure magical thinking.

[wookie72]

237. "magical thinking"

Is that if Gore was elected, we would have had 8 years of nothing but sunshine and kitten's breath. Which is only a slight exaggeration of what some here seem to believe.

[pipi_k]

251. And it's also magical thinking for anyone to think

that, even if by some bizarre chance Nader had won, things would have been all sunshine and lollipops.


Here's what I equate the stupidity of voting for Nader with:


Horse race.

Do people actually bet on the horse they think will NOT win?



So let's see...while polls aren't perfect, they do at least show a trend...when people voted for Nader, they must have been aware of the fact that he wasn't carrying anywhere near what Gore and Bush carried. While Bush and Gore are relatively...uncomfortably...close.

What do they do?

Vote for a guy who isn't going to win, taking votes away from one, enabling the other to win.


Vote for the known loser in a horse race because.....who knows why...

people betting with their own money...hey. No problem.

People voting for a known loser are being selfish beyond belief.

[wookie72]

255. Um, clearly you've never been at a race track.

You can always bet on horses to win place or show.

And you don't get the point: "taking votes away from one" assumes that that person owned your vote. Gore didn't own my vote.

It was not a choice between Gore and Nader. It was between Nader and not voting for president at all.

[pipi_k]

262. My ultimate point was...

that even if someone wants to bet on "win, place, or show", it's presumably his own money he's betting.

Unless he's using the rent money or the kids' college money or whatever.

He's not going to hurt someone else by betting that way.

He may even win if he gets the order right.


But voting for someone who has NO chance at all of winning...or not voting at all, knowing that it's one less vote for someone who could win, and someone who could be (even marginally) better than the other guy...

People who do that might think they're being morally right in voting their consciences, but they may potentially be hurting lots of people who could suffer at the hands of the "worse of two evils".

So what's that....screw other people...at least I voted with my conscience even if lots of people get hurt (or die?) because of it.

No. Sorry...I don't understand the concept of the conscience of the one being more valuable than the lives of the many.

:shrug:



PS...I have indeed been at a racetrack. Many times, in fact. I've never lost more than ten dollars because I only bet $2 per race, and I don't keep betting in the hopes I'll win big. In other words, I know when betting on horses that lose becomes an exercise in futility.

[wookie72]

263. Again, you're claiming hindsight

Look at Bush 2000, one could not say truthfully that he would lead the country into war (and all the people discounting the Dems who voted for the war because Bush "lied to them" - it was obvious to a LOT of people at the time that the case for war was nonsense. If anyone needs to own up to their votes it's them).

[pipi_k]

278. I knew in 2000

that Bush would be a disaster for this country.

While it's correct to say that nobody would know he would lead this country into war, I KNEW in my heart and gut that he would be a fuckup of the first degree.

He looked like a fuckup. He sounded like a fuckup. And when I looked into his past, he was, in general, a fuckup.


So, for me, the choice was between:

Bush....major fuckup

Nader...who had absolutely NO chance of winning the election. None. Zero.

Gore...not perfect, but at least he had never done anything as fucked up as Bush



Really...I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure it all out.

Fuckup?

Loser before he even starts?

Or the guy who might possibly do more good than harm?

[wookie72]

280. Try to understand my frustration

It wasn't spite or anything like that, it was being sick of triangulation. I was tired of being told that progressive issues would be addressed "just after the next election." Because I've been voting for 20 years now, and I hear this EVERY TWO YEARS from the Democrats.

Obama was the first time I felt that I was really voting *for* someone, instead of against someone. I voted against Bush Sr, against Dole, and against Bush Jr. Not until Obama was I given a candidate I could actually believe in. And you know what? Come 2012, I will probably not be voting *for* Obama, but against Palin or Romney.

The fact is that Clinton was helped greatly by having Perot divide conservatives in two elections. The difference is that Republicans were actually willing to listen to the Perotistas and therefore make them ineffectual in 2000 and beyond.

That, fundamentally, seems to be the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. When Republicans falter, they tilt towards their base. When Democrats falter, they tilt towards the center and try to force their base to tilt with them.

[wookie72]

286. And I still don't understand how insulting Nader voters will get them to vote for the Dems

That's another thing I liked about OBama. Instead of saying "if you don't vote Democrat, you're voting for McCain," he actually treated voters like adults.

[pipi_k]

298. Of course, you're right...

insulting someone never got them to do what we would like for them to do.

But I don't think it was insulting people to tell them the truth...that every vote they gave to Nader was, essentially, flushed down the toilet in the end.

It told us they were displeased, but that was it.

Nothing changed. Nader was not, and probably never will be, a viable candidate.

Voting for him is a colossal waste of time except to express one's displeasure and possibly ensure the Republicans win.

[wookie72]

299. Again, missing my point

we knew he wasn't a viable candidate. Personally, I was hoping to help the Greens grow (and was disappointed when he abandoned them). But it was in protest of Democratic triangulation.

[pipi_k]

302. I get your point.

And in the end, protesting Democratic triangulation by introducing yet another faction didn't work.

[wookie72]

306. So does that mean we shouldn't have tried?

Is it our fault the Dems didn't learn their lesson?

[pipi_k]

297. I understand your frustration, honestly I do

I just don't happen to agree that voting in a manner that will probably end up hurting lots of innocent people is a great way to express it, or deal with it.

[wookie72]

307. "probably end up hurting lots of innocent people?"

You COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN what would happen.

[pipi_k]

325. Yes. I did.

I KNEW when I first saw his interview on TV that he would NOT be good for this country, that many people would be hurt. I knew the instant I saw video of him mocking Karla Faye Tucker that he was nothing but a piece of shit.

His face and name are different, but believe me, I knew exactly "who" he was. He was, and is, exactly like every other dry or active alcoholic sarcastic and sneering little smartass I've ever known.

See, I have this radar that is really good at sniffing them out because at the time I had spent nearly 50 years dealing with his ilk.

[wookie72]

333. whatever

I knew what I knew about Gore. He had already proven himself adept at the art of triangulation.

And as for mocking Karla Faye Tucker, sure that was horrible but remember, Clinton cut short his campaign to sign the death warrant for a brain-damaged black man.

[NNN0LHI]

208. Nader and his rocket scientist supporters can go fuck themselves

Right along with the Larouchies and the other assorted loons.

Don

[Name removed]

355. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[austin78704]

357. That's a personal attack

Hardly constructive.

[Raine]

211. I could understand a vote like that NOW but

Gore was the last chance this country had to really go progressive and now that opportunity is gone forever. :mad:

[Pathwalker]

231. I never blamed the Nader voters. I blamed the lazy asses

who couldn't bother to vote, and frankly I think they are more to blame for Bush. But I save my greatest scorn for the Supremes for inserting themselves into that selection. Personally, I have never cared for Nader.

[wookie72]

239. "Personally, I have never cared for Nader."

Fan of automotive deathtraps?

[Pathwalker]

241. No, I am referring to him on a personal level, apart from his work.

His work as a consumer watchdog is fine with me. I was speaking about his less than pleasant personality, IMO.

[wookie72]

243. So we vote based on personality? nt

[Pathwalker]

248. I don't I was simply stating my opinion about the man.

I voted for Gore because, as a Democrat for over 50 years now, HE was my choice. You're trying to make my post say something it does not. Please go pick a fight somewhere else.

[GreenArrow]

321. We sure as hell don't vote on ideas.

Don't you remember; Bush was the guy you were supposed to want to have a beer with, while Gore was sort of a cross between a robot and a prig. Nader was the crusty, but funny old guy who was too angry and sloppy too take seriously.

[placton]

236. join the new branches of the Democratic Party?

the "stay at home" and the "selective voting" branches. Won't get fooled again.

[NJmaverick]

244. Nader voters are unrealistic and foolish in their actions

nothing has changed

[LaydeeBug]

245. No. nt

[Uncle Joe]

257. I understood them, I just didn't agree with them. In a perfect storm of events, I considered the

corporate media's betrayal of the American Peoples' best interests far more damaging to Gore's chances in 2000, more so than any other dynamic because it was a direct attack against his credibility and because they controlled the one way, top down, mega phones.

I'm convinced the corporate media relentlessly trashed and slandered Gore for the better part of two years prior to the selection, while never giving him credit for his advocacy of the Internet, precisely because Al was the prime political champion for opening up the Internet to the people.

The corporate media started up with a fresh slander or libel, ie; "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" etc. etc. repeated ad nauseum virtually 24/7 every time Gore's momentum started to pull him away from Bush, thus keeping the race close enough for Bush to steal.

I'm convinced the corporate media sold the American People down the river because they saw the growing power and influence of the Internet as a direct threat to their monopoly on information and all the power, money and influence that goes with solely controlling the nation's propaganda apparatus.

I consider nothing else on the face of the Earth as progressive as the Internet and the corporate supremacists knew/know it.

I honestly don't believe any lesson regarding voting patterns happening from 2000 can apply to today's circumstances because I'm not 100% certain we ever overcame the coup against the people's will.

Thanks for the thread, KansasVoter.

[gulliver]

276. You remind me of those people in the Poseidon Adventure...

...who were following the doctor toward the (submerged) bow instead of Gene Hackman to the surface. Ralph Nader said that Gore was equivalent to Bush, a lie. But in terms of destruction to our country and the world, it is true that Ralph Nader is morally equivalent to Bush. Nader is responsible for Bush.

When you pour your beer, does it seem to splash all over the place and never fill the glass? Try turning the glass right side up.

[Taverner]

277. I always understood Nader voters. But I don't think Nader voters ever understood us.

They think all you need is big dreams and a heart and everything will be all right

Because, gosh durn it, Americans really do want a super swell guy in charge...

[pipi_k]

279. Hah...

Maybe more people would have voted for Nader had he looked like he'd be as much fun to have a beer with as Bush...

;)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

289. Voting for people who refer to the first black president as an Uncle Tom is a sure fire way to win

voters.


:eyes:

[SoxFan]

295. .

"Who We Are: Democratic Underground is an online community for Democrats and other progressives. Members are expected to be generally supportive of progressive ideals, and to support Democratic candidates for political office."

"You are not permitted to use this message board to work for the defeat of the Democratic Party nominee for any political office. If you wish to work for the defeat of any Democratic candidate in any General Election, then you are welcome to use someone else's bandwidth on some other website."

[Iggo]

303. +

:toast:

[DailyGrind51]

305. I'm voting Green in local contests in Illinois!

[JerseygirlCT]

308. The problem with those voters is that

they were voting for an idea, or a feeling.

And they didn't take into much consideration exactly who they were voting for.

My problem is less the third-party thing than it is that Nader is an ass.

[Panaconda]

310. Voting for an idea

or a feeling? That sure rings a bell.

[DemocraticPilgrim]

309. Nadar is not a serious contender just a naysayer, he'd of a developed a party if he was serious...

[dave29]

311. I will never cast a stupid vote like I did in 2000 again

I see the world a bit more clearly now that I've been in it a bit.

[geek tragedy]

313. No, they have always been myopic, simple-minded knuckleheads

who are unable to appreciate the very real differences between a flawed Democratic party that is at least capable of positive action and the downright evil Republican party.

[aikoaiko]

314. I understand the Nader votes, but question the wisdom of them.

given the stakes of Bush versus Gore/Kerry.

[HuckleB]

318. No. After living with Bush in office for eight years, I'll never understand them.

The world we live in right now would be very different if they hadn't voted Nader. That, in itself, would have helped make pushing truly progressive change easier. We're now on a very difficult road. Further, the changes that have occurred since Obama entered office are actually astounding when one looks at history, especially in the midst of an economic downturn such as the one left by Bushco. I wanted a lot more, but giving power back to those who led us to the horrific economic end, and who would lead us to an even more horrific social end, does not make sense.

[cleanhippie]

320. I understand their point, but do not understand their votes.

While the intentions and the points they have are good, the votes they cast are, in the end, against their own self interest, and therefore ignorant and short sighted.

[SoxFan]

326. .

[Blue_In_AK]

329. I always understood myself.

[L0oniX]

332. What's worse ...not voting or voting for Nader?

I see the same lame ass arguments about how voting for Nader was like voting for Bush. Ya know what? Not voting is the same.

[Umbral]

338. What's to understand, you can vote for someone who believes as you do, vote for the opposition, or

you can vote for someone that pretends to support the things you do, but ignores you after the election (or worse, has their minions throw insults at you) and generally spends all their time appeasing every contingency but yours. Nader votes aren't hard to understand, they know what the fuck is going on.

[varelse]

342. I hope so

As one of them who is also a California resident, I never understood the logic of blaming us for that stolen election. My state went for Gore - that means my vote did not affect the results.

It doesn't address the real problem (the need for electoral reform) at all, but does detract from any attempt to do so.

[Warren DeMontague]

349. No.

Sorry.

[Warren DeMontague]

350. Hey- speaking of Nader, anyone find out what he did w/ all that $ he took from Republicans in 2004?

Nice to know there are still some people with integrity, right?

[spanone]

356. nope

[sabrina 1]

358. I didn't understand them back then, especially in 2004 I was

frantic to try to get them to vote for the Democrat. But now, I think of some of the points they made which to my regret I ignored because of my intense fear of Bush, and yes, Nader was/is right and I'm sorry I was angry at a few of his supporters.

However I knew they did not cost Gore the Election so I never blamed them for that. That was a coup and no one but the traitors responsible should ever be blamed for that.