Good Grief!!!!

Setanta: If the voters who squandered their votes on Ralph Nader had "squandered" their votes on Al Gore, you and I would have never heard of Kathleen Harris, hanging chads or butterfly ballots. Had he gotten the votes spiphoned off by the Greens (especially) but also by the Libertarian. the Socialist Workers and the (What the ****?) Natural Law Party, Mr. Gore would not have found himself involved in a Supreme Court case.

No?

BTW : here's the Ballot.


Joe(who'd I leave out? Workers World Party.... yeah, fat chance)Nation

So essentially, rather than acknowledge that Harris and her crew took active steps to exclude people from the voter registration rolls, and that the Supremes interferred in an unconstitutional manner, you want to blame those who don't vote as you think they should have.

Yes Sir, Comrade ! ! !

Set(i'm sure as hell glad you're not in a position of responsibility)anta

Are you suggesting there should only have been two candidates on the ballot?

Seems like crazy talk to me.

The Ralph Nader/Green/Libertarian/Socialist Worker/Natural Law Party voters would have voted for Mr. Gore? I dunno about that. People are looking for alternatives to the the big old parties.

That's one of the most pro-partisan, limited thinking, undemocratic posts I've ever seen you post, Joe. You seem to be seriously suggesting that this country is better off with a two-party system, no matter how bad those two choices are. Unfortunately, most of the time I go along with this mind-set but I'm far from proud of it. I, too, have said to people I know, "Don't vote for Nader. You're trowing your vote away. No way he can be elected." And have received this answer: "What difference does that make? I vote my conscience. I vote for whomever seems to be the best man." It shames me, seriously, it does, knowing I'm not going to vote my conscience but do the pragmatic thing and vote for someone who has a chance of winning.

What I do in the privacy of the voting booth is one thing. Unfortunately, I'm as pragmatic as the next fellow but I'm not really proud of it. The two-party system we have today is shameful. It has run its course. We just don't seem to have any way of replacing it with something more "democratic."

the last few elections here my local riding (both federally and provincially) had 5 parties, i'd like to see a few more myself

i was proud to be one of the 277 folks who voted for the university kid running for the communists

I'm not sure I could total the number of different parties/affiliations I've voted for over the decades.

Best candidate, not best party is the way to vote (except for one exception - that I kinda regret).

Yes, Harris and her crew did suppress the vote. Sure they did. Would we have ever heard of her if Al Gore had won Florida anyway. ??

No.

I think the Naderites pissed away a chance to hold onto the White House.

Nader himself was approached three times during the campaign, especially in the closing days, with guarantees that a Gore Administration would be a greener administration with specifics from Micheal Moore's book that I can't remember right now, if he would throw his support to the Democrats. He refused, an act I find completely and hopelessly as arrogant as his completely hopeless campaign.

Look, (And this is sort of a reply to eBeth and Lustig at the same time) there is no viable third party on the Presidential level in the United States of America. So, if I were so inclined to build a third party, I would do it at the city council, State Representative, State Senator level until such time as there was enough support to win a state-wide seat. (Winning Governorships was once thought to be the start of something big, but it turned out just to be Jesse Ventura.)

Would I want, for now, just two names on the Presidential Ballot? No, I'd like it to be The Republicans, the Libertarians, the Tea Party and the Constitution Party against the Democratic Party. So the GOP would get their support watered down and not the Democrats.

BUT, if there were a 50 State Organization of (let's call it The Middle Party) of Middlers, who had already run and won campaigns and seats, who had written legislation on the State and Federal level, who had shown themselves to be tough when it came to their principles but able to work to find flexible solutions to Taxes, Immigration, Civil Rights, growth of the Military, control of the Banking system and the rest of all the National Issues, yeah, then put them on the Ballot right between the GOP and Democrats.

Right now, there isn't a third party in America who can garner more attention than a fart in a cornfield and anybody who votes for one wants to cause a stink, but can't.

Joe(ptoot)Nation

However if a good swath of the far left hadn't voted for Nader, or not-voted for Gore, it wouldn't have come to that.

edit: whoops, didn't go to the next page. Obviously I agree with Joe Nation on this one though.

Anyway, just to fill out my own thinking:

In 2000, there was a lot of talk about "it doesn't make a difference, Gore and Bush are the same, we'll get screwed either way," etc., etc.

So this cartoon and the thinking behind it are very familiar to me.

And in 2000 that went really, really badly.

I got into many big arguments with people about voting for Nader or not voting at all -- people who were quite opposed to Bush.

It was a false equivalency. I realize that Gore never became president so we don't have a direct basis of comparison. But the same people who were saying "Bush, Gore, whatever," were spitting tacks for eight years at what Bush was doing once he got into office.

And Bush was a really, really damaging president. About as damaging as you can get within the confines of the office, IMO.

So it's scary to me to see people saying now, "Obama, Romney, big diff."

It IS a big difference.

I know this cartoon is just that, a cartoon, so I'm not taking it too seriously. Didn't say anything the first time around. Just chiming in to agree with Joe/ articulate my own position on this.

you're assuming voters would have followed him to Gore, or that any other voter group would switch over.

I get that you think the split was the problem for Gore. I think that you're better off thinking that (many or all of) those voters weren't going to ever be Gore's. The votes Gore got were the votes he got. That's it. That's all.

There's a small core of non-strategic voters out there. Thinking they will ever fit into one of the big parties is a mistake (IMNSHO).

But what you are saying is that Nader really had no sway with his own voters.

Do you mean that if Ralph Nader had held a press conference and said "Today I am announcing that I am endorsing the candidacy of Al Gore for President and I hope and wish that anyone who holds my ideals will ally themselves with Al Gore and propel him into the White House. " , no one would have been moved?

I find that difficult to believe.

It kind of undercuts the whole system of endorsements that we use here in the lower forty-eight.

Joe(fifty, whatever)Nation

but if all your friends jumped off a building

dj(didn't you listen to your mother)jd62

What I am saying is that there is a group of people who were willing to vote for Nader. They were not going to vote for Gore.

In our party leadership campaigns, candidates sometimes suggest who people should vote for in the second/third round. Most often, they set their voters free. It makes things interesting. The candidates sometimes say where their own vote will go. Not always.

Maybe that whole system of endorsements should be trashed. doesn't sound like it allows voters to vote their own conscience. It sure wouldn't fly here.

Weird that the U.S. sounds so much less free than Canada when it comes to politics.

Useful post.

Hopefully a large group of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum voters will refuse to vote for Romney and stay home but probably not. They hate Obama too much for that, and like it or not the GOP has always been head and shoulders better at organizing and getting their supporters to fall in line

Especially the internalization of the two-party oligopoly. And of the idea that Republicans and Democrats will always be those parties. If voters in the 19th century had been so intimidated by the oligopoly, Lincoln and his Republicans could have never gotten a foot into the door, and America would still be governed by totally-pro-slavery Democrats and partially-pro-slavery Whigs.

Even in America, I think there is value in voting for "none of the above". The only thing I disapprove of is not voting.

That's easy - they're sheep.

Yes on those two points.

I hope you weren't expecting an argument

I WILL dispute that allegation.
I am an independent thinker,
open to consideration of argument,
even from the commies, the nazis, and the gun controllers.

I have not been shy about questioning GOP leaders,
when the occasion presented itself. I am used to DOING
what I damn well PLEASE!

I have been accused of being very "bull-headed"; to that I confess.
(I took it as a good compliment from a conservative lad), but I remain open-minded.

I have not known my fellow supporters of the GOP to resemble "sheep".
There may be some exceptions (e.g., approving the Patriot Act
[conceived under the Clinton Administration, but not yet implimented] ).



We tend to mouth off.





David