Curious for Mike's opinion on the news about PA's Green Party Senate Candidate

[Sam]

So, given that Mike's a member of the Green Party and a big proponent of third party politics, I'm wondering what he makes of the news out of PA. For those of you who hadn't hear this, Rick Santorum is *way* behind in the polls against Bob Casey, his Democratic opponent. They're pretty much scrambling for anything they can think of to sap off some of his double-digit lead.

Well, it turns out that one of their strategies is a Green party candidate.

And not in some abstract way, but in the very literal sense that the PA Green candidate, Carl Romanelli, has had quite literally his entire campaign financed by, you guessed it, the Rick Santorum election campaign, purely for the purpose of drawing votes away from Casey.

Here's the initial article that broke the story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_el_ge/santorum_green_candidate;_ylt=AnmHoqQTnkYkIs4uKuok cmCyFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-

It gets better, though. Muckraker has done some more digging into the Romanelli campaign's listed campaign contributions, and with the exception of a single $30 he donated himself, literally every single dollar he has received has come from Republican lobbyists and Santorum contributors.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001256.php

Now, the Democratic and Republican responses to this are all fairly obvious, but I was wondering what Mike would think about it. Everyone else is free to comment as well, of course.

[Ed Cunard]

That's just scummy, and guarantees my vote for Casey.

[Drew Van T.]

It's not the Green party's fault that the two-party system encourages spoilerism, and spoiler-corruption.

[Ed Cunard]

It's not the Green party's fault that the system encourages spoilerism, and spoiler-corruption.

True.

.

[Mike Smash!]

It's not the Green party's fault that the two-party system encourages spoilerism, and spoiler-corruption.

It's not the Greens' fault for that and it's amazing how nobody screams at Democrats who receive funds from many of the same Republicans. I can guarantee that Casey has gotten Republican money and support as well.


I know people that know Carl Romanelli and they say he's a good, principled, progressive guy without the vast resources of the major parties.

It's really amazing how people turn purist when a Green gets Republican donors but turns a blind eye when a Democrat does. Or when the Democratic nominee Casey is pro-war, pro-life and says that he would have voted in favor of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court.

I've encountered this shit before and it's a symptom of a shitty election system and the corruption of the two major parties. Voters will instictively nitpick for any excuse to not vote Green, but will overlook just about anything, no matter how horrible or opposed to their values a Democratic candidate might be. And that's certainly the case with Bob Casey who is little more than a Republican in all but name taking on a crazier Republican.

It's Santorum's people who are the assholes in this, not Romanelli.

And it also buys into the bullshit notion that third party candidates "steal votes" especially when people like Casey have no right to lay claim to a progressive or pro-choice voter's support in the first place. Yet, Romanelli is the bad guy for giving people another choice on the ballot.

[Mike Smash!]

Also, the money given to Romanelli's campaign was spent entirely on paid signature gatherers because of the shitty ballot access laws in PA, which require people like the Greens to gather tens of thousands within weeks to even get your name printed on the ballot when the big two get on for free.

From Ballot Access News:

Daily Kos Mis-Informs its Readers
August 2nd, 2006

On August 2, Daily Kos reported that conservatives are responsible for paying “all but $30″ of the costs for getting the Pennsylvania Green Party statewide candidates on the ballot. The truth is that Pennsylvania Green volunteers got 30,000 signatures (just as they did in 2004, when the party got on with an all-volunteer effort), and the remaining 65,000 signatures were paid circulators.

Daily Kos should consider that the real motivation of the conservative donors who contributed to the paid petition effort was not so much to get the Green Party on the ballot, as to trick the Democrats into acting like a bully. The Democratic Party of Pennsylvania has fallen into this trap, with the announcement today that the party will challenge the Green petitions. In 2002, the Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Ed Rendell, actually signed the statewide Green Party petition, to show that the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania was confident, open-minded, and not afraid of competition. Rendell was elected. The face of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party in 2006 has changed.

And it's amazing that they will challenge the Greens' right to be on the ballot, not based on problems with their legitimacy, but out of the arrogance to assume that no one but them has the right to run for office.

The same shit is being pulled currently in Illinois as we speak. The Greens in an all-volunteer effort gathered 39,000 signatures to put their slate of candidates on the ballot (more than the 25,000 required within 90 days) and within an hour of them filing the signatures with the Board of Elections, the Democratic Party's lawyer filed an objection and demanded copies of the signatures so that they could attempt to toss them either off the ballot, or bankrupt them with legal challenges.

It's disgusting and amazingly, when the Republican fail to live up to their own meager obligations for ballot access, they give them a slide. In 2004, the Bush campaign in FL failed to turn in the appropriate paperwork for Bush's ballot access for more than a week past the deadline, but the Democrats didn't challenge his right to be on the ballot? Who DID they challenge on a technicality? Ralph Nader.

Such utter bullshit and yet, we're the bad guys...

[Mike Smash!]

More from Ballot Access News (http://www.ballot-access.org/):

Pennsylvania Democrats Will Challenge Green Petition
August 2nd, 2006

On August 2, the state chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party said that the Democrats will challenge the Green statewide petition. This is only the second time in the last 60 years that any minor party or statewide petition has been challenged in Pennsylvania; the first time was in 2004, when Democrats challenged Nader’s independent petition.

How is this anything other than disgustingly undemocratic, acting like you own peoples' votes by taking any other options away?

[Sam]

It's not the Greens' fault for that and it's amazing how nobody screams at Democrats who receive funds from many of the same Republicans. I can guarantee that Casey has gotten Republican money and support as well.

I think it's also fairly safe to say that no Democrat has ever had every single dollar of his campaign, minus $30 from the candidate himself, financed by Republicans. Or directly paid for by the Republican candidate he's running against.

That's what makes this so blatantly cheap -- it's not just that Republicans are donating. It's that the Rick Santorum campaign fund has donated to the Green candidate.

I know people that know Carl Romanelli and they say he's a good, principled, progressive guy without the vast resources of the major parties.

Oh, that's part of what makes this so interesting. I'd bet dollars to donuts Carl Romanelli is quite principled and really believes in his platform. And what is he gonna do, turn down campaign money?

Yet, Romanelli is the bad guy for giving people another choice on the ballot.

I don't think he's the bad guy. His presence on the ballot is a naked attempt at creating a spoiler for the election, though -- the entire process of getting him the signatures to get onto the ballot was directly funded by the Santorum campaign.

[moebius]

If this was Germany, the Greens would get my vote about 50% of the time.

This isn't Germany.

If the Greens want to change the system, start at the state and local level where you have pockets of strength (much like the German Greens did in the early 1980s) and concentrate your resources there. Do good work once you get elected, and overcome the image that you're "out of touch" with mainstream voters. Push for electoral change at those levels, which will grow your organization and add to your legitimacy as you do better in subsequent elections.

Running for high state or federal office is a terrible idea. It's no secret that strategic voting means you won't win. Moreover, you're wasting resources that could go to viable candidates. Not to mention the possibility that you might peel off enough voters to swing the election.

Say what you want about 2000, but it's no secret that Nader was dead wrong when he said there was "no difference" between Bush and Gore. There's a pretty strong case to be made for the counterfactual: we wouldn't be in Iraq right now, we wouldn't be getting screwed on energy prices and we wouldn't be running historic deficits.

[Gingold]

Geez, Santorum's people must be scared. I've nothing against Romanelli, and if the system worked differently, I'd probably vote for him. But I'm voting for Casey.

[Mike Smash!]

I think it's also fairly safe to say that no Democrat has ever had every single dollar of his campaign, minus $30 from the candidate himself, financed by Republicans. Or directly paid for by the Republican candidate he's running against.

The $30 remark is inaccurate. The Republican money was donated fto the ballot access drive, not his entire campaign. 30,000 of his signatures were done with volunteers, the last 65,000 with paid petitioners.

Of course, he wouldn't have to gather so many goddamn signatures in the first place if the Ds and Rs didn't get the barriers so high for third parties.

That's what makes this so blatantly cheap -- it's not just that Republicans are donating. It's that the Rick Santorum campaign fund has donated to the Green candidate.

So how is Romanelli the bad guy in this and not Santorum? How about instead of demonizing the Green and trying to toss him off the ballot, they change the election laws to institute things like IRV and PR?

Oh wait, that would mean they could wield an arrogant monopoly on power.

Oh, that's part of what makes this so interesting. I'd bet dollars to donuts Carl Romanelli is quite principled and really believes in his platform. And what is he gonna do, turn down campaign money?

Especially when you're running a grassroots campaign that many times operates hand to mouth, do you really think we have time to walk away from gathering tens of thousands of signatures and fighting to even get mentioned in the media to do complete background checks on everyone that donates?

I don't think he's the bad guy. His presence on the ballot is a naked attempt at creating a spoiler for the election, though -- the entire process of getting him the signatures to get onto the ballot was directly funded by the Santorum campaign.

The spoiler argument is bullshit. Voters deserve a choice on the ballot that isn't pro-war and pro-life. Only in the U.S. are third party candidates treated this war where we're at fault and not say, the two parties that write the elections laws that allow the "spoiler" shit to even be an issue.

[spoon_jenkins]

See, I'm suspicious of some of the support for Greens. Sometimes you see some folks (I believe even on CBR) who voted for Bush and Republicans, and now they're like, supporting Greens is a good idea. Seems to me that there's a significant group of folks who just want to find any way to keep Democrats from taking back Congress. When you see people who are strongly conservative and take the substantive agree with Republican positions and despise Democratic position trying to stir support for a party that's consider further Left than the Democrats, it looks awfully Machiavellian.

Tons of conservative see that the country is at a tipping point. The election could swing many seats to more liberal folks. Their problem is that the motivation to support Republicans is so low. They can't muster the votes to beat certain Democrats one on one, so the only viable strategy is to siphon Democrats off to Greens so that the Right Wing candidate ends up on top.

If the Greens want to change the system, start at the state and local level where you have pockets of strength (much like the German Greens did in the early 1980s) and concentrate your resources there. Do good work once you get elected, and overcome the image that you're "out of touch" with mainstream voters. Push for electoral change at those levels, which will grow your organization and add to your legitimacy as you do better in subsequent elections.

Running for high state or federal office is a terrible idea. It's no secret that strategic voting means you won't win. Moreover, you're wasting resources that could go to viable candidates. Not to mention the possibility that you might peel off enough voters to swing the election.
I agree with those so much. The Greens strategy isn't conducive to actual political change. They ought to focus on winning key races to build a party (and start to have folks with a track record of governing) rather than being spoilers who end up moving Congress to the Right.

It really bugs me that Greens are willing to use the Adrian Veidt strategy of electoral politics. It seems like they could love their country that much if willing to pull votes in unwinnable races and drives Congress dramatically Rightward. The Right has too much damage already. Why entrench them even more? The smart thing to do would be to focus their efforts so they could win rarely rather than never winning an spoiling a lot. A smart strategy would be to focus on change ballot access, fundraising laws, etc. to build for the future.

It doesn't make people think that the Green Party is serious about real change when they do stuff like pick a VP candidate (Winona LaDuke in 2000) who doesn't even bother to campaign. It makes it look like they think politics is a game rather than something with real, important consequences.

[Mike Smash!]

If the Greens want to change the system, start at the state and local level where you have pockets of strength (much like the German Greens did in the early 1980s) and concentrate your resources there. Do good work once you get elected, and overcome the image that you're "out of touch" with mainstream voters. Push for electoral change at those levels, which will grow your organization and add to your legitimacy as you do better in subsequent elections.

Running for high state or federal office is a terrible idea. It's no secret that strategic voting means you won't win. Moreover, you're wasting resources that could go to viable candidates. Not to mention the possibility that you might peel off enough voters to swing the election.

Say what you want about 2000, but it's no secret that Nader was dead wrong when he said there was "no difference" between Bush and Gore. There's a pretty strong case to be made for the counterfactual: we wouldn't be in Iraq right now, we wouldn't be getting screwed on energy prices and we wouldn't be running historic deficits.

You have no idea how sick of this bullshit remark I am.

We do run for and win local offices. Over 250 across the country including mayors, city councilmen, county council, school board members, state legislators...etc. And when we win, we're almost always re-elected.

But we run at all levels of offices because people deserve a choice on the ballot at every level to affirm their beliefs, especially when there are as many stark policy differences between us and both major parties.

In running for President in 2000, Ralph Nader helped countless local Greens get elected and let people know that our party even existed. A big name partisan candidate will draw a helluva lot more people to an event or fundraiser than any city council or mayoral candidate will. And many who like Ralph but may not vote for him will usually vote for our lower ticket candidates, but will only join the Greens if they know we exist and see how we stand on the issues that they vote on (war, abortion, civil rights, gay rights...etc. things we can't talk about if we only run locally).

And many times because the current ballot access laws require us to run at the statewide level so that we can keep the ballot line to run local candidates. We have to run and score at least 5% in statewide races in my state so that we can get local Greens on the ballot without a massive petitioning drive.

Voting reform won't happen unless we run. Romanelli, especially post-election, will have a lot of power to force through things like IRV that Democrats go into overdrive to prevent most of the year.

Believe me, I've worked to lobby for voting reform and it's the Democrats that fight it tooth and nail, but after a tight race with a popular third party candidate, they're willing to at least vote for it. Only in cities with strong third parties that don't back down do we get voting reform...San Francisco, Burlington...etc.

And please drop the bullshit about how we should have voted for Gore. Gore was a shitty candidate that would have been a shitty president, no matter the rosy colored lenses you look at him through with Bush in office and Nader is not responsible for it.

Gore could have run a stronger campaign. He could have won his own home state of Tennesee or Clinton's home state of Arkansas. He could have asked for a full state recount, which multiple studies show he would have won. He could have stood up for illegally disenfranchised African American voters in FL, when NOT ONE Senate Democrat would call for an investigation into voter fraud. He could have chosen a better VP nominee that Joe fucking Lieberman. He could have run a more progressive campaign, because every time Nader's numbers went up, Gore poured on the populist rhetoric and his numbers went up and then Nader's numbers dropped and he went back to the status quo.

Or the fact that 25% of Nader's votes came from registered Republicans, or that compared to Nader 97,000 votes in Florida, 250,000 registered Florida DEMOCRATS voted for Bush (compared to the 8 million Democrats nationwide that voted Bush, compared to Nader's 3 million votes total).

So please, drop the bullshit about local candidates (we already run them and run them hard) and spoilers (it's a myth) and do something about your own damn party which is pathetic instead of looking for a scapegoat for why shitty candidates lose.

[Drew Van T.]

It really bugs me that Greens are willing to use the Adrian Veidt strategy of electoral politics.

Heh, gotta love that metaphor.

I wonder what it takes to break the two-party system, though...will it take a giant tentacled cloned monster teleported in from Antarctica? :D

That's what it looks like.

[Mike Smash!]

It really bugs me that Greens are willing to use the Adrian Veidt strategy of electoral politics.

That's a lie. We don't destroy or spoil anything. And we certainly aren;t the ones who wrote and put into place the elections laws that allow for a "spoiler effect".

We run because the Democrats that win office these days would have been called Republicans 30 years ago and are only getting worse and that there is no way to pull the debate back into a more progressive direction by continuing to give them support without conditions or by apologizing for them.

Because that's worked so well so far.

[Sanagi]

I prefer to focus on the good news here, which is that Santorum may be on his way out.

[moebius]

You're a Green Party activist, so I won't hold it personally that you're taking this personally. I will, however, take your comments with a grain of salt.


We do run for and win local offices. Over 250 across the country including mayors, city councilmen, county council, school board members, state legislators...etc. And when we win, we're almost always re-elected.


There are over 500,000 elected positions in the United States. If only 10% of them were partisan, that leaves 50,000.

300 Green offices/50,000 partisan offices = 0.6%, maximum.

Or the fact that 25% of Nader's votes came from registered Republicans, or that compared to Nader 97,000 votes in Florida, 250,000 registered Florida DEMOCRATS voted for Bush (compared to the 8 million Democrats nationwide that voted Bush, compared to Nader's 3 million votes total).


You haven't disputed my point.

Yes, Gore was not a particularly good candidate.
Yes, the Butterfly Ballot in Palm Beach cost Gore the election (this has been statistically proven; see Wand et al. in the American Political Science Review).
Yes, the Supreme Court possibly have cost Gore the election depending on the outcome of a recount (mixed evidence, with some support for Gore's case).

That does not disconfirm the following hypothesis: If Ralph Nader had not run for President, Al Gore would have won the election.

None of the statistics you cite disconfirm this hypothesis. 250,000 Democrats voting for Bush does not change the the number of Democrats who voted for Nader. By your own admission, "25% of Nader voters were registered Republicans."

What were the other 75%, and how would they have voted?

If you believe the commonly accepted exit polls published after the election, the breakdown of Nader voters is as follows:
-47% would have voted for Gore.
-32% would not have voted.
-21% would have voted for Bush (this is very close to the 25% number you cited).

97,000*47% = 45,590 votes to Gore
97,000*47% = 20,370 votes to Bush

Bush won by 537 votes.

I will let you do the math, then decide the likeliest outcome if Nader had stayed out. I'd be interested in seeing if you can find a single major paper or political scientist who believe the outcome would have been any different than I described. Even if all the voters who said they would have voted for Bush actually voted for Bush, and less than 1 in 2 who said they would vote for Gore actually voted for Gore, Gore still would have won.

All the other numbers you cite are spurious. That Pat Buchanan (indirectly) cost Al Gore the election does not change the fact that Ralph Nader also cost Al Gore the election. That's just the way the world works sometimes. I'm not particularly angry with Pat Buchanan for something he had no control over, but Ralph Nader entered the election knowing he would take significantly more votes from Gore than Bush.

Finally, I find it interesting that you've called the Democarats "my" party.

My first loyalty is to progressive principles; I'm economically communitarian and socially liberal. In Germany, that puts me between the SPD and the Greens.

I'm also a political scientist (in training, to be fair) writing on party system change and the emergence of new parties in advanced industrial democracies, so I know a thing or two about "new," "small," or "third" parties, when they succeed and when they fail.

In America I'm a Democrat, because I recognize that the only engine of progressive change in this country at this time comes from the Democratic Party. Based on the theory of party system change I subscribe to (which could either be described as a "punctuated equilibrium" or an "issue shock" model), in addition to a basic understanding of strategic voting, I understand that the best the Green Party can hope to do is force the Democrats to steal their voters.

Party systems generally don't change endogenously...they change because some large event comes along and punches voters cognitively, forcing them to alter their preferences and the established parties don't have the answers. Keeping a functioning Green Party apparatus is a good thing, because it allows the party to bide its time. Running for offices you can't win, however, only drains resources. The best thing to do would be to work to increase the social factors that make people amenable to changes in electoral rules (which I would imagine to be education, based on the areas that have STV or AV). Yelling about how unfair it all is will do exactly jack and shit.

The conditions are absolutely wrong for the Green Party to significantly improve its position today or in the near future. There is no one issue position the Green Party that fulfills the minimal requirements a small party needs to build its base:

1) There have to be issues where they are significantly different from the major parties. Iraq might be such an issue if Americans weren't convinced that significant numbers of Democrats weren't also anti-war.
2) On the issues where they are significantly different than both the major parties, the public has to support their position.
3) The issues where the Greens have a "comparative advantage" in respect to the other parties must also be salient in the public discourse.

Environmentalism, while important in the 1980s and the domain of the Greens, never motivated the public the way it did in Europe (one possible reason is population density, which has influenced Europeans for decades). Combined with the mechanical and psychological effects of strategic voting, it's no surprise that the Greens never got off the ground (though that doesn't rule out future success).

[Mike Smash!]

There are over 500,000 elected positions in the United States. If only 10% of them were partisan, that leaves 50,000.

300 Green offices/50,000 partisan offices = 0.6%, maximum.

And we run for plenty of them, usually with an average of 400-500 candidates running each year. Considering that in most races, we're running against people plugged into a major party apparatus, 250 is quite good.

Nonpartisan is not truly nonpartisan. Parties are still quite involved in such races and usually work their asses off to prevent a third party victory (such as Matt Gonzalez nearly winning Mayor of San Fransisco in 2003) and even when we do win, many people don't realize it.

The President of the Seattle School Board is a Green and I didn't realize it for a long time, but my last Mayor was a Libertarian.

You haven't disputed my point.

Yes, Gore was not a particularly good candidate.
Yes, the Butterfly Ballot in Palm Beach cost Gore the election (this has been statistically proven; see Wand et al. in the American Political Science Review).
Yes, the Supreme Court possibly have cost Gore the election depending on the outcome of a recount (mixed evidence, with some support for Gore's case).

That does not disconfirm the following hypothesis: If Ralph Nader had not run for President, Al Gore would have won the election.

None of the statistics you cite disconfirm this hypothesis. 250,000 Democrats voting for Bush does not change the the number of Democrats who voted for Nader. By your own admission, "25% of Nader voters were registered Republicans."

What were the other 75%, and how would they have voted?

You haven't proved your point. Given that exit polls revealed that only 34% of his votes came from registered Democrats and 25% came from Republicans, the other votes all came from voters who said that had Nader not run, they would not have voted for any candidate. That's nearly half of his votes.

And there's the Butterfly ballot which truly cost Gore voters their votes. That is, people who intended to vote for Gore but had that vote taken away from a bad ballot.

The Butterfly ballots should be the blame or the 50,000 African Americans that Democrats didn't stop the GOP from striking from the voter rolls.

What cost Gore the election was Gore refusing to fight for it.

Nader didn't take a single vote from Gore. Because votes do not belong to any one candidate.

And you didn't answer my challenge. When 8 million registered Democrats vote for Bush, aren't they to blame for him taking office, rather than the 3 million Nader voters, 25% of which would have voted for Bush had he not been in the race.

Nader voters did not elect Bush. Democratic Bush voters did. Gore's weak campaign did. The antiquated Electoral College did. The Supreme Court did. The Butterfly ballot did. Republican voter fraud did. The silence of the Democratic Senate in the face of voter fraud did. The Democratic Party refusing to fight for an election that they had actually won did.

The bottom line is that Gore didn't lose. But he sure as hell didn't fight for what he won. Instead of pissing and moaning over 2000, why not either fight for voting reform or run better candidates?

That they didn't just steamroll Bush in 2000, with Gore refusing to even call Bush out on his record, is to blame. Not Ralph Nader.

And the Democratic Party has done what since 2000 to remedy the voting system? What to abolish the Electoral College? What to eliminate the so-called "spoiler effect".

Nada.

And they don't plan on doing anything, either.

At the heart of the notion, though, is that the Democrats are not entitled to votes that they do not earn and they're perfectly able to compete for them, but not by only being marginally better than the Republicans or refusing to fight them.

I own my vote and I only give it to candidates that earn it. Some Democrats pass that test, so do a small minority of Republicans. But I will not give away the only leverage I have in a democracy and allow my country to go down the shitter with worse and worse Democrats who will take my vote more and more for granted and give me less and less in return.

I mean, after the last 5 years of Bush, why are the midterm elections even a toss-up? I gather its because the Democrats aren't offering the public much of a contrast with the Republicans aside from "we're not them".

That's why they lose and that's why Gore isn't President right now.

[moebius]

You haven't proved your point. Given that exit polls revealed that only 34% of his votes came from registered Democrats and 25% came from Republicans, the other votes all came from voters who said that had Nader not run, they would not have voted for any candidate. That's nearly half of his votes.

First of all, that's not "nearly half," it's 41%. 100-34-25 = 41.

Second, by your logic apparently Nader voters who were Registerd Dems (34%) go to Gore, Registered Reps (25%) go to Bush and "nearly half his votes" (41%) go nowhere:

97,000*34% = 32,980 to Gore
97,000*25% = 24,250 to Bush

Net gain for Gore = 8,730 votes. Wow, even using the statistics you provide, Gore wins the election by more than 8,000 votes..

What you don't realize is how far in my favor the statistics are. If only 0.6% more Nader would have voted for Gore than would have voted for Bush in that election, Gore would have won. For Nader's candidacy to not hurt Gore worse than Bush would violate everything we know about Green voting behavior and political attitudes.

For example, if the numbers you presented were "25% were Reps, 26% were Dems, and 49% wouldn't have voted", numerically Gore still wins.



Nader didn't take a single vote from Gore. Because votes do not belong to any one candidate.


Prove it. And not through bullshit semantics on the definition of "take" or "belong". Prove that if Nader had not run in Florida, Gore would not have gotten at least 538 more votes from Nader supporters than Bush. Find any evidence that suggests your hypothesis is more likely to be true than mine, then present it. Or at least provide sources (for example, the exit polls I cited came from the Washington Post, which they got from the pollers on election night).


Nader voters did not elect Bush. Democratic Bush voters did. Gore's weak campaign did. The antiquated Electoral College did. The Supreme Court did. The Butterfly ballot did. Republican voter fraud did. The silence of the Democratic Senate in the face of voter fraud did. The Democratic Party refusing to fight for an election that they had actually won did.


All of those statements are true, except the first.

If any one of those things had happend, Gore would be president. Saying the Butterfly Ballot "elected" Bush is no less true than saying Nader "elected" Bush is no less true than saying the "Electoral College" did; all of those events denied Al Gore enough votes to become President. All are equally "true." Some are unfortunate accidents. Some are institutional failures. Some are personal weakness. That doesn't make some of them "untrue".

Tell me with a "straight face" that you don't believe that in the 2000 presidential election more voters who voted for Nader would have voted Democratic than Republican.

Tell me with a "straight face" that if Gore were president (at least from 2000-2004) we'd be in Iraq right now, or running hundreds of billions in deficits after giving massive tax cuts to the rich, or stripping EPA, FEMA and OSHA of their authority.

To bring us full circle, tell me with a "straight face" that you don't believe that in the Pennsylvania Senate race that more Democrats will switch to the Green candidate than Republicans.

Your "the Greens are not spoilers" assertion might be philosophically true, but it is objectively false.

[ragnarok_2012]

See, I'm suspicious of some of the support for Greens. Sometimes you see some folks (I believe even on CBR) who voted for Bush and Republicans, and now they're like, supporting Greens is a good idea.

Such as?


It seems like they could love their country that much if willing to pull votes in unwinnable races and drives Congress dramatically Rightward.

The Democrats and Republicans only hit you because they love you, America. :D

[Adam Crocker]

Prove it. And not through bullshit semantics on the definition of "take" or "belong". Prove that if Nader had not run in Florida, Gore would not have gotten at least 538 more votes from Nader supporters than Bush.

That's not even the point he was making with that statement. The point he was making is that people have relentlessly villified the Greens for the Democratic Party's own failures as a party. Yes Gore might have won had Nader not run, but also might have won had he actually contested the results of Palm Beach, or if the Senate Democrats had stood up over the issue of voter fraud. They didn't bother to fight those matters though and they lost. It strikes me as pretty pointless, not to mention petty, to hammer the Nader issue when the fact was the party was presented other opportunities to win this election that they didn't bother to take.

Mike's point is that it is not the responsibility of the Greens to make sure that the Democrats win elections. It's the responsibility of the Democrats. If they are losing votes to the Greens it is probably because they aren't doing a very good job projecting themselves as a party, especially since in 2004 the party selected an even crappier candidate, who had even less difference between him and Bush. And Bush had already proven his incompetence at that point.


Tell me with a "straight face" that if Gore were president (at least from 2000-2004) we'd be in Iraq right now, or running hundreds of billions in deficits after giving massive tax cuts to the rich, or stripping EPA, FEMA and OSHA of their authority.

No the U.S. wouldn't, but really, what is your point? What I'm getting off this statement is that it is the Greens fault that he got into office when the Democrats wouldn't even fight the 2000 election that their crappy candidate nearly won.

And even then Bush might not have gotten as far as he did had both the legislative organs of the American government, the press, and her people actually subjected him to proper scrutiny. Yet the American press did a lacklustre job of questioning his "evidence" for Iraq in the lead up to the Iraq war, and in fact Ahmed Chalabi's propaganda was reprinted uncritically by the New York Times. The so-called party of small government let him get away with spending like a drunken whore. He got re-elected because the main selling point of Kerry was "I'm not Bush!" even after it was clear he was an incompetent fuck-up. But the party that backed Bush still has a good chance of taking the mid term elections because the Democrats haven't put forth anything to sell themselves to the populace over the Republicans, who have proven themselves to be even more corrupt and incompetent than major parties generally are.

That Bush has run amuck is a failure of American democracy to keep the abuse of authority in check and provide sufficient oversite of the President. That he got into office and got re-elected is the failure of the Democrats to be an effective political party and an opposition. These are matters that should be addressed before anyone starts looking at third parties to scapegoat.

[Mike Smash!]

Prove it. And not through bullshit semantics on the definition of "take" or "belong". Prove that if Nader had not run in Florida, Gore would not have gotten at least 538 more votes from Nader supporters than Bush. Find any evidence that suggests your hypothesis is more likely to be true than mine, then present it. Or at least provide sources (for example, the exit polls I cited came from the Washington Post, which they got from the pollers on election night).

Prove what? That I own my own vote? That the only vote Gore owns is his own? That I'm not entitled to vote for one major party candidate over the other because I fall on one side or another of an imaginary line?

I'm sorry, but that's complete bullshit, moebius.

I showed you have Gore screwed up or refused to fight that stopped him from being elected. Things that cost him a helluva lot more than 538 votes. Yet, instead of insisting that Gore and the Democrats take responsibility for that, you blame a man who is not obligated and never stated that it was his job to elect one major party candidate over another.

3 million Nader voters did not vote for Bush. 8 million registered Dems did. That's nearly triple Nader's votes from all voters, whether Democrat, Republican, independent, Green...etc.

Nearly triple. Yet, apparently a Democrat who voted for Bush is less culpable than a registered Democrat voting for Nader.

If any one of those things had happend, Gore would be president. Saying the Butterfly Ballot "elected" Bush is no less true than saying Nader "elected" Bush is no less true than saying the "Electoral College" did; all of those events denied Al Gore enough votes to become President. All are equally "true." Some are unfortunate accidents. Some are institutional failures. Some are personal weakness. That doesn't make some of them "untrue".

The Butterfly ballot according to the Palm Beach Post, cost Gore 6,607 votes, either having punched the wrong candidate's bubble or having punched more than one, with their vote going to either Pat Buchanan or David McReynolds, who were next to him on the ballot.

Pat Buchanan himself has admitted that most of his votes in Palm Beach County were meant for Al Gore, saying he "did not campaign and bought no advertising there"

A Washington Post review (2001) found that Gore would have had a net gain of 662 votes, enough to win, if there had been a hand recount of "over-votes," mostly from double bubbles.

Even if none of the factors mentioned above had happened, the votes of Florida voters themselves show that Ralph Nader was not responsible for George W. Bush’s presidency. If one percent of these Democrats had stuck with their own candidate, Al Gore would easily have won Florida and become president. In addition, half of all registered Democrats did not even bother going to the polls and voting.

Yet, beyond Florida, if Gore had simply won Tennesse, his home state, Florida would have been irrelevant. And Gore lost TN by a much larger margin than Nader's earned vote total.




Tell me with a "straight face" that you don't believe that in the 2000 presidential election more voters who voted for Nader would have voted Democratic than Republican.

No one can say what would have happened had Nader not run, many might have voted for another third party candidate, like the Socialist Party's David McReynolds or the Libertarians' Harry Browne, many may not have voted at all, many voters, according to Al From, the former head of the Democratic Leadership Council, voted because of Nader being in the race: some came out for Nader, but got cold feet and many came out for Gore out of fear of the so-called "spoiler effect". According to From in a post election report put out by the DLC, had Nader not been in the race, Gore would have lost the popular vote by 1%. (http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=2919&kaid=86&subid=84)

"The assertion that Nader's marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked voters how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race."

And no, he has refused to explain that finding in the years since. You'd have to ask him.

Tell me with a "straight face" that if Gore were president (at least from 2000-2004) we'd be in Iraq right now, or running hundreds of billions in deficits after giving massive tax cuts to the rich, or stripping EPA, FEMA and OSHA of their authority.

That's a loaded question. First of all, we would probably be engaged in Iraq, just not the degree that Bush has us. Remember that the Clinton/Gore administration is still responsible for more Iraqi civilian deaths because of his air strikes and sanctions than Bush has. To be fair, Bush is killing people at a much faster rate, but to say that we wouldn't be killing Iraqis is humorous, espoecially considering the Clinton was the one who signed "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998", which really began the process that we have now. Of course, Clinton is much more competent and subtle than Bush (which is like saying that you're a better gymnast than Stephen Hawking), but the bottom line is that the difference between a Gore and Bush Iraq policy is one of degree, not type.

But the real question is not what the Democrats would have been like, because that's speculative and impossible to prove. Let's talk about what the Democrats have been.

After all their scaremongering in 2000 about how we cannot let Bush pick Supreme Court Justices, he's appointed two reactionary thugs. One that the Democrats refused to filibuster at all, the second that a handful made a good attempt and were stopped by the rest, who as always chose political expediency over principle. That's two votes on the nation's highest court that Democrats refused to fight with anything other than empty gestures and rhetoric.

And the appointment that was recalled, Harriet Myers? Stopped by Republicans.

Count in that Democratic votes had the power to stop both Scalia (99-0, with both Gore and Kerry voted for him) and Thomas (passed with Democratic support that put him over the top), everyone's favorite conservative judges, who cast those famous votes in Bush v. Gore.

And the war in Iraq, the Democrats sure did call Bush out on those fabrications and lies and stood against the invasion with a united front. Oh, wait. They didn't. Most Senate Dems voted to invade Iraq and Kerry even cheerled the invasion in late 2002. During his campaign, Kerry's stance on the war wasn't that it was wrong to invade, just that he could do a bad thing more competently than Bush did.

Ah, the PATRIOT Act, passed without debate when the Dems had a Senate majority. Only one Dem in the Senate voted against a 500 page police powers bill dropped in front of their lap without reading it and endorsed by John Ashcroft and that lone Dem was Russ Feingold. The rest were afraid to look like unpatriotic pussies and sold us out. That's one big attack on our civil liberties than the Democrats refused to fight and could have defeated with their votes alone.

And CAFTA, passed by only two Democratic votes, with even a handful of Senate Republicans realizing that huge corporate agreements to outsource American jobs and destroy the economies of foreign countries and turn them into our sweatshops was not a good thing. If two more Democratic Senators had listened to the unions that fought CAFTA for years and voted loyally Democrat without fail, they could have shot it down.

But yeah, a Democratic Presidency would have been all puppy dogs and daffodils, especially with progressives making it clear that we will vote for them and not make demands.

Again, it's a difference of degree, not type. They don't criticize what Bush does. They criticize how he does it.

To bring us full circle, tell me with a "straight face" that you don't believe that in the Pennsylvania Senate race that more Democrats will switch to the Green candidate than Republicans.

That depends on Pennsylvania votersand who's on the ballot. Even many Republicans are likely to vote against Santorum if they feel he's betrayed their values by being a nut, but under your logic, they should be "obligated" to vote for him out of selfless and counterproductive party loyalty.

With no other candidates on the ballot and a three way race, Romanelli will get alot of conservative protest votes, cast not for him but against the two parties. The same thing happened in our County Executive race last year in my county. After the election, I spoke to members of the Libertarians and the uber-right Constitution Parties who cast a "pox on both your houses" votes for our Green, out of protest.

Hell, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that "common wisdom" is rarely so. There's the reality viewed by political nerds and there's the reality for the average voter.

Most conservatives whose doors I've knocked on have always been very receptive to progressive ideas when it's not coming out of a Democrat. That's the bias pumped into us from childhood. "Democrats/Republicans" are the bad guys, as a way to avoid thinking about issues. You have no idea how many pro-marriage equality, anti-war and pro-universal healthcare Republicans I meet. I've also met a handful of right-wing Nader voters who "liked his style". Plenty of Greens I know were former Republicans. The Seattle Greens' last Facillitator basically said how he'd moved farther and farther Left as he got older and that the only thing that stayed the same from his old Republican days was that he "still couldn't stand the Democrats".

And I'm sure that I'd get a door in the face without the opportunity to talk about those issues if I'd introduced myself as a Democrat.

[Mike Smash!]

(cont'd)

Your "the Greens are not spoilers" assertion might be philosophically true, but it is objectively false.

A vote for a Green is not a vote for a Republican, it's the symptom of a shitty election system that the Dems have made it clear that they're dead set against reforming. And believe me, I've tried to lobby them.

We have tossed them a life preserver with IRV, PR and other voting reforms and they refuse to grab it. That's on them, not us. If they want to continue to use a voting system that allows someone with only a minority of the vote to win when there are alternatives offered, that's their problem, not the Greens'.

My state is all but owned by the Democratic Party and they could institute these changes overnight if they had the political will or even desire to enact them. They don't, because they know the real truth:

They're the spoilers, not us. I don't know a single pro-war, pro-PATRIOT Act voter that is aching to vote for Bob Casey or John Kerry or Maria Cantwell or Hillary Clinton, but don't because they feel forced to vote for the Green candidate and hold their nose.

They take advantage of a shitty electoral system that they have the power to change to take our votes for granted.

[ragnarok_2012]

*stands and applauds Mike*

[ragnarok_2012]

Arguments that "It isn't the right time" or "You can only effect change by working within the system" are rationalizations for doing nothing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

By that rationale, Rosa Parks should have just quietly voted Democrat until they saw fit to end segregation for her.

Gore has a moment of popularity right now thanks to his documentary (which I haven't seen yet). I hope it's wonderful and helps people realize that there are some problems that need to be fixed. But it won't make me forget that Gore didn't really do much for the environment as vice president. It also won't make me forget that he chose Joe Lieberman as his vice presidential candidate. And it won't make me forget that he's married to Tipper Gore, who pushed a censorship campaign against musicians in the 80's (among other things).

I really hate presidential elections where the two main choices look like "good cop" and "bad cop."

[Sebastian22]

I am actually a registered green voter, and luckily in the bay area in caliifornia, so i can actually vote for them and not worry about the republicans winning. However, the status and future of the green party is a fight I get in with my family constantly. All of us are liberal, but I would say ideologically I am the farthest left. My brother and mother constantly spew hate towards the dems, say they run bad candidates, are pussies, flop on the issues, etc. All of this may be true. And certianly, on the surface, voting for dems appears to support this behavior of pandering. But, isn't it better than the alternative. I personally, would rather have the moderate, pro choice dem in charge, than f*cking rick santorum, who is one of, if not the, last person i want running the government. To me, voting green, at least now, is a symbolic victory, but a real world loss. And if you look at demographics, twice as many people self-identify as conservative than self-identify as liberal, so it seems to me we would be lucky to have moderates like clinton or gore, as opposed to yahoo likes bush, brownback or santorum.

Full Disclosure: I half believe this, and half am playing devils advocate

[Mike Smash!]

I am actually a registered green voter, and luckily in the bay area in caliifornia, so i can actually vote for them and not worry about the republicans winning. However, the status and future of the green party is a fight I get in with my family constantly. All of us are liberal, but I would say ideologically I am the farthest left. My brother and mother constantly spew hate towards the dems, say they run bad candidates, are pussies, flop on the issues, etc. All of this may be true. And certianly, on the surface, voting for dems appears to support this behavior of pandering. But, isn't it better than the alternative. I personally, would rather have the moderate, pro choice dem in charge, than f*cking rick santorum, who is one of, if not the, last person i want running the government. To me, voting green, at least now, is a symbolic victory, but a real world loss. And if you look at demographics, twice as many people self-identify as conservative than self-identify as liberal, so it seems to me we would be lucky to have moderates like clinton or gore, as opposed to yahoo likes bush, brownback or santorum.

Full Disclosure: I half believe this, and half am playing devils advocate

Actually, Casey is fairly conservative pro-life Dem. I don't consider voting Green a "real life loss" at all. I think it's a necessary action and the only pragmatic response to politicians that will always cash the blank check we give them in elections and give us nothing in return.

I loathe Santorum, but basically they're running a mainstream Republican against a batshit one. Is Casey better? Yes. Is Casey good? Not at all. And voting for these sorts of candidates encourages them to run alot more of them.

Yahoos like Santorum, Bush and Brownback get the power they have because the Democrats like Clinton and Gore never really oppose them head on for fear to piss off people that will never vote for them anyways.

When Dems slide to the Right, the Republican move even further and then redefine the middle.

As for self-indentification, I think it's because the Republican Party really markets an "identity" for their supporters and the Democrats do not. It's not that the Republicans are pulling people to the Right, it's that compared to the Dems, who don't really take any hard stances or define themselves very well, they look a lot cooler by comparison. And it doesn't help that the Democrats retreat and flinch while the Republicans are very good and turning "liberal" into a pejorative.

If you believe in the Greens, vote for them because we're building in the long term rather than these sad, powerless "holding actions" in the short term.

Like the Greenback Party, Socialist Party, Liberty Party, Populist Party and the Progressive Party of the past, we're running to win the races we can and raising issues in the races that we are underdogs. Like women's suffrage, the abolition of slavery, the minimum wage, the end of child labor, the social security administration and the 8 hour work day before them, the changes we're calling for are fought tooth and nail by the major parties. The major parties never want change and only give it when a third party or independent people's movement build up enough support that the major parties will either adopt them or be made irrelevant.

These third party activists refused to vote for two pro-slavery candidates or anti-labor candidates or candidates that opposed women's rights and demanded change and got it by refusing to back down, and were called self-righteous spoilers and extremists for backing issues that all of us call the bare minimum for a decent society.

That's why I favor a long term plan where we fight to change minds, win votes, grow the party and push our agenda while getting local Greens into office and affect change there while we use the big races to increase visibility and grow the party.

It's not an easy thing to jump into an election system with two parties that set up barriers to prevent your existance. It's like starting a fast food chain in a world where the laws for starting such businesses are decided by Burger King and McDonald's. And if I like the chain better and want to see it grow, I'm going to eat there and not worry about the big twos' market share.

[Mike Smash!]

Oh, and welcome to CBR, Sebastian.

[Sebastian22]

Yeah, I have never understood how republicans are able to cultivate a kinda macho/family values image and promote it under the banner "conservative", while the dems are unable to really define themselves too well other than as the opposition. And if you really look at the parties, i think that the republicans have many seemingly non-overlapping factions like big business and evangelicals, or crazy gun nut rednecks who fear any outside control of their lives.

I was shocked when i ventured out into the world and heard all hippie and liberal used as invective. I always thought that conservative was the more obvious dirty word.

But anyway, my main problem with the green party is that they (we) seem to be advocating letting the republicans take over for the next 20 years until we get enough support to do something.

In general, i hate advocating "working within the system", especially when our system is a ridiculous, out-of-date 200 and some year old cock-up, but I kinda think the greens should establish a base WITHIN the dems to shift them left.

[ragnarok_2012]

Good points Mike re: working for the long-term and liberals having no real "identity" inside the Democrat Party.

Liberals need a mascot. Like Crackers the Corporate Crime Chicken only edgier. :D

[ragnarok_2012]

But anyway, my main problem with the green party is that they (we) seem to be advocating letting the republicans take over for the next 20 years until we get enough support to do something.

Do you have an alternative suggestion?


In general, i hate advocating "working within the system", especially when our system is a ridiculous, out-of-date 200 and some year old cock-up, but I kinda think the greens should establish a base WITHIN the dems to shift them left.

I like our Constitution. I just wish it were adhered to by the people in power.

As for working within the Democratic Party, that's problematic. The Democrat & Republican Parties are designed to co-opt and marginalize viewpoints at odds with that of their upper level leadership (whether it be libertarian, green, antiwar, etc.).

I'm not saying that it's impossible. Just very, very difficult. So best have a good plan.

[Mike Smash!]

Yeah, I have never understood how republicans are able to cultivate a kinda macho/family values image and promote it under the banner "conservative", while the dems are unable to really define themselves too well other than as the opposition. And if you really look at the parties, i think that the republicans have many seemingly non-overlapping factions like big business and evangelicals, or crazy gun nut rednecks who fear any outside control of their lives.

I was shocked when i ventured out into the world and heard all hippie and liberal used as invective. I always thought that conservative was the more obvious dirty word.

But anyway, my main problem with the green party is that they (we) seem to be advocating letting the republicans take over for the next 20 years until we get enough support to do something.

Oh, not at all. We're just people that realize that backing Dems, who have refused to fight the Right in any meaningful way is a losing strategy. And the Dems get worse and worse, especially when we give them our vote and demand nothing in return.

In general, i hate advocating "working within the system", especially when our system is a ridiculous, out-of-date 200 and some year old cock-up, but I kinda think the greens should establish a base WITHIN the dems to shift them left.

By running for office, we're working within the system. There are some on the Left that consider that selling out.

But establishing a base within another party is a waste of time, especially when you look at the attempts by progressives to "save the Democrats from themselves". How many failed Democratic primary attempts have their been? Jesse Jackson, Eugene McCarthy, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Shirley Chisholm....the list goes on.

Then there is Progressive Democrats of America, Democracy for America, MoveOn.org and countless other progressive groups that swear allegiance to Dems, and make demands that they aren't willing to back up with action. And because they basically say "we want you to change, but even if you don't, we'll still vote for you", the Dems realize that all they need to do is wait them out through the primaries, ignore them if they can, destroy them if they must and then win all of their supporters without making a single concession. All in all, they wield great influence over their own members and absolutely none on the Democratic Party.

Kucinich said near the end of his campaign that his goal was to affect the Democratic platform and help influence Kerry's positions? How much influence did he end up having? Absolutely none, yet he cheerled for Kerry anyways.

Democratic primary fights are a waste of time and Greens shouldn't involve themselves in them, certainly not as a party. Because for one, we're not Democrats. You don't see the Dems trying to build a caucus within the GOP to help more tolerable Republicans win primaries.

We're a separate party and what the Democrats do isn't our concern if we're to be something different. Also, people join us because we're not the other two parties and so much money and effort is wasted on progressive Democrats that will never see a general election ballot or manage to change their party at all.

And then there's the fact that the Dems don't want to be changed. As we saw with McGovern's '72 campaign, the party bosses would rather see a populist Democrat lose to a Republican than shake the boat and lose their psotion of power in the party. Both major parties go to great lengths to frogstomp any challenge to the parties' status quo by a primary candidate that talks about "taking back the party" and either absorbing them into their number if they can with a taste of power or just destroying them utterly.

Howard Dean '04 and John McCain '00 are probably the best examples of this. Stomped and destroyed by their own party leadership in the primaries until they eventually kneeled and kissed the rings of the very people they used to rightfully condemn and eventually shilling for them, without shame.

A good way to see the respect that the Democratic leadership has for progressive is to look at the way they treat their own progressive elected officials. Where is the party when a lone Dems or small group of Dems calls the GOP out on lies about war, voter fraud, civil liberties violations...etc. Whether it's Russ Feingold, John Conyers or Dennis Kucinich, they will be treated like they're crazy, ignored, laughed at, marginalized, mocked and even condemned by the party leaders.

In more than one televised debate, Kucinich challenged Kerry and Edwards to support something like universal healthcare and said, "promise me right now that you will support this policy or plan" and they wouldn't answer or even look at him.

On a greater scale, that's what the party thinks of us.

As someone who has honestly tried to change the Democrats from within, it's not worth it. They don't want to be progressive and their talk of a "big tent" is disengenuous at best. A inclusive party would make concessions. A Kerry would make a platform concession to the party progressives, perhaps on the war, but they don't. It is the progressives that are asked to make all of the compromises while the vanilla nominee makes all sorts of comments that imply while he'd be happy to have the progressive vote, he'd rather not be seen in public with them.

[Mike Smash!]

As for working within the Democratic Party, that's problematic. The Democrat & Republican Parties are designed to co-opt and marginalize viewpoints at odds with that of their upper level leadership (whether it be libertarian, green, antiwar, etc.).

Exactly, they will ignore any movement until it is too big to ignore then they'll suddenly champion it when it becomes popular and then once they have that constituency in the bag, they can ignore it and take it for granted and give it nothing but empty rhetoric and not really take on any of its issues. The gay rights movement is probably they're most recent acquisition.

The Democratic Party doesn't support same sex marriage (and I'm unsure if it even mentions civil unions) but acts entitled to the votes of gay voters and it's party chair, Howard Dean was even recently shilling for the party as a guest of Pat Robertson's 700 Club and was bragging about how the national party platform defines marriage as "one man, one woman".

The same with anti-war activists. They unrepentently support the war with few exceptions and then they act like they own the anti-war vote without giving it anything in return.

[Sebastian22]

I honestly thought dean was gonna win the nomination, thanks to moveon.com, since kerry was so wooden, maybe the dems will nominate someone else more radical. Although, i'm pretty sure it will be hillary, who i will vote for just to have a women president, if for no other reason., I may reconsider if she continues on her whole censorship trip, plus, its hard not to dislike mccain, even though I think our political sensibilities are too far apart and so i will never vote for him. He does seem to be honest, though, and he seems to vote for what he believes in more than most people in congress ( although he has, on occasion, toed the party line)

As regards the constitution, I regard it as an outdate novelty (well, maybe an outdated step in the right direction). People constantly make MORAL decisions based on the constitution, as if it is a supernatural document. In my opinion, people shouldn't argue for free speech or religion because of the bill of rights, but rather because it is the rational and right thing to do.

I prefer a system without an offical constitution, which i believe offers much more flexibility, like in britain.

Also, i think the whole state rights thing is bullshit. Wyoming with like 500,00o people, has the same represenation as my home state california, with like 30million. 250,000 wyominites(?) have as much power as 15 million of us in the senate. its ridiculous.

Finally, although I fit most neatly into the green party, i do have some concerns. I am fairly environmentally conscious, but I still believe in business and the economy, and eventually, free trade. Free trade makes sense to me, as far as i have studied it, and my impression is that some in the green party would do away with all business

[Sebastian22]

shit, i didn't know dean was anti gay marriage. what a fucker. i feel betrayed.

[Mike Smash!]

I honestly thought dean was gonna win the nomination, thanks to moveon.com, since kerry was so wooden, maybe the dems will nominate someone else more radical.

Not likely, given that when Dean was the frontrunner, the name of the game was "dogpile Dean!" and when Kerry was the frontrunner the tune changed to "protect Kerry!"

Although, i'm pretty sure it will be hillary, who i will vote for just to have a women president, if for no other reason., I may reconsider if she continues on her whole censorship trip,

I could not be paid to vote for Hillary. From her hawkish stance on Iraq, support for the PATRIOT Act and her statements that the Democratic Party needed to be more religious, pro-life and calls for more "welfare reform" and a ban on flag burning, she's a Republican in Democrat's clothing.

I'd love to elect a woman President. I just want it to be a good woman. By that logic, you'd vote for Condi Rice or Margaret Thatcher too.

plus, its hard not to dislike mccain, even though I think our political sensibilities are too far apart and so i will never vote for him. He does seem to be honest, though, and he seems to vote for what he believes in more than most people in congress ( although he has, on occasion, toed the party line)

He's not that very much different from Hillary politically, save that he's more willing to criticize his own party...to a point. They market themselves differently, but they both support many of the same major issues.

As regards the constitution, I regard it as an outdate novelty (well, maybe an outdated step in the right direction). People constantly make MORAL decisions based on the constitution, as if it is a supernatural document. In my opinion, people shouldn't argue for free speech or religion because of the bill of rights, but rather because it is the rational and right thing to do.

But that right is legally protected by the Bill of Rights, that's why it's argued. And I can't fathom the idea of the Constitution, the basis for all of our laws and the set of limits upon our government from becoming a dictatorship, being a "novelty" or as Bush once called it, "a piece of goddamn paper".

It's not a supernatural document, but its as close to sacred as any document can be for me. It legally ensures my right to free speech, association, religion, self defense and that I will be treated in a just and humane way by the authorities.

I prefer a system without an offical constitution, which i believe offers much more flexibility, like in britain.

But that "flexibility" is usually exercised more by the state than by the general populace and believe me, they will take advantage of it.

Also, i think the whole state rights thing is bullshit. Wyoming with like 500,00o people, has the same represenation as my home state california, with like 30million. 250,000 wyominites(?) have as much power as 15 million of us in the senate. its ridiculous.

It depends on the issue. When it comes to taxation and infrastructure, I believe in states rights. When it comes to civil rights and liberties, we need a strong federal standard.

Finally, although I fit most neatly into the green party, i do have some concerns. I am fairly environmentally conscious, but I still believe in business and the economy, and eventually, free trade. Free trade makes sense to me, as far as i have studied it, and my impression is that some in the green party would do away with all business

On that, we disagree again. I've found that free trade means "free for the corporations, but the burden shifts to the rest of us" while our environmental, workers rights and human rights standards shift and we lose good paying jobs to sweatshops overseas.

[ragnarok_2012]

As regards the constitution, I regard it as an outdate novelty (well, maybe an outdated step in the right direction).


You and the President both :D


I prefer a system without an offical constitution, which i believe offers much more flexibility, like in britain.


Yes. That's precisely what Bush needs. Less accountability!

[Mike Smash!]

shit, i didn't know dean was anti gay marriage. what a fucker. i feel betrayed.He never support same sex marriage, nor do most of the Democrats in federal office. If they have their arm twisted, they'll mostly give a "states rights" or "civil unions" answer, but only if they're asked. They'll never trumpet it.

As far as I can tell, the only Democratic Senator that's publically come out in favor of marriage equality is Russ Feingold.

[ragnarok_2012]

I'd totally vote for a guy who wore an eyepatch.

[Sebastian22]

first off, i don't see the constitution stopping bush right now too much anyway. if worse comes to worse, he can just do whatever he wants, on then count on the supreme court to agree with him, seeing as he just got 2 of his guys on, after its been in court for 6 months.

Certianly other countries, like britain, are able to maintain civil liberties as well as a fairly consistent interpretation and execution of law from regime to regime, certianly comparable to anything we have.

Although i appreciate it as a groundbreaking document, i think its time has passed. This was written and voted in by people who overwhelmingly owned slaves. surely our nation's collective ethics have changed since 1787?

Personally, among other things, i don't see the need for anyone short of a police officer to carry a gun. I don't believe in hunting, and i Do believe there are better and less drastic self protection measures than guns (mace, say, or a taser).

see, to me, the constitution is frozen in time, forcing the values of people who lived 200 years ago into a future they never could have imagined. Its not nimble enough to deal with modern politics.

Finally, i disagree with the presidential system. there is some quote about our governmant being our worst export, but i too lazy to find it.

Also, on free trade. I do believe that right now it leads to abuses such as sweat shops. but I'm not wholly concerned with the whole losing jobs argument. Why should i prefer for an american to have a job over a mexican or honduran? Not that i want americans to lose their jobs, but people in other countries welfare should be just as important.

Don't get me wrong, i'm no fan of big business. I'm a socialist, really. But i do think that some level of competition is good for business, as has been stated by smith and ricardo and every other person who followed them.

[Sebastian22]

also, thank god for feingold. are you sure about boxer? not that i don't believe you, i just thought she had come out in support for it.

[ragnarok_2012]

The pro-business.....socialist?

[Sebastian22]

not pro business. I'm a fan of nationalization, when done right.

[Mike Smash!]

first off, i don't see the constitution stopping bush right now too much anyway. if worse comes to worse, he can just do whatever he wants, on then count on the supreme court to agree with him, seeing as he just got 2 of his guys on, after its been in court for 6 months. That's no reason to chuck it out.

That would be waving the white flag and taking the stops off of Bush and his people giving them the freedom to establish a national religion, gut what rights we have left and lock up dissidents.

The Constitution has stopped Bush. The Supreme Court decision that shot down the way he ran Gitmo being a good example.

Certianly other countries, like britain, are able to maintain civil liberties as well as a fairly consistent interpretation and execution of law from regime to regime, certianly comparable to anything we have.

Although i appreciate it as a groundbreaking document, i think its time has passed. This was written and voted in by people who overwhelmingly owned slaves. surely our nation's collective ethics have changed since 1787?

And it's been amended since then, but the process of amending it was made difficult specifically to protect us from abusive government and demogogues.

Personally, among other things, i don't see the need for anyone short of a police officer to carry a gun. I don't believe in hunting, and i Do believe there are better and less drastic self protection measures than guns (mace, say, or a taser).

The Second Amendment is about government abuse as well. It's essentially a doomsday provision to give us the ability to overthrow our government if it were to become tyrannical. Also, I believe that the "well regulated militias" mentioned in the Constitution are a direct rebuttal of the standing armies we've had since World War II, which Washington and others rightly and strongly opposed.

see, to me, the constitution is frozen in time, forcing the values of people who lived 200 years ago into a future they never could have imagined. Its not nimble enough to deal with modern politics.

Its not nimble, but there are rights, like those in the Bill of Rights that are timeless and protected us from people who thought that limiting those rights was an act of "flexibility".

Free speech being the big one. There hasn't been a generation where the government hasn't tried to fuck with the First Amendment using pragmatism and security as their rationale.

[Sebastian22]

off topic, but i just looked at your livejournal ragnararok, and I love the ice and fire series, even though the 4th one was a bit of a letdown. Also, and i kid you not, steve wozniak's kids went to my public elementary and middle schools, and he gave every class their own laptops (this was in like 96), as well as holding classes for every kid. many of these kids never could have afforded one otherwise. he is like the nicest, most genuinie guy ever. although he is really spacey

[Mike Smash!]

also, thank god for feingold. are you sure about boxer? not that i don't believe you, i just thought she had come out in support for it.

Not that I can tell. Though Boxer commendably stood up for an investigation of alleged voter fraud in Ohio, she was silent on Florida in 2000. She's also campaigning for pro-war hawk Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primaries this year. She voted for the USA PATRIOT Act too, which is a crime that will forever cost them my vote.

[Sebastian22]

yeah, but despite free speech in the bill of rights, we still have been been screwed with in the past. I think it was called the sedition act in ww1 trampled over free speech. i realize that was some time ago, but it was the same constitution

[ragnarok_2012]

off topic, but i just looked at your livejournal ragnararok, and I love the ice and fire series, even though the 4th one was a bit of a letdown. Also, and i kid you not, steve wozniak's kids went to my public elementary and middle schools, and he gave every class their own laptops (this was in like 96), as well as holding classes for every kid. many of these kids never could have afforded one otherwise. he is like the nicest, most genuinie guy ever. although he is really spacey

Very cool.

I'm still trying to understand how you combine the ideas of competition in a free market with nationalizing industries.

[Mike Smash!]

yeah, but despite free speech in the bill of rights, we still have been been screwed with in the past. I think it was called the sedition act in ww1 trampled over free speech. i realize that was some time ago, but it was the same constitutionYes, that act was tossed out as Unconstitutional.

It wasn't the first such act, nor will it likely be the last, sadly. Just an example of what happens when we let fear overtake our basic rights and give politicians the power to silence or jail people for unpopular ideas.

But it's the Constitution that eventually slays these dragons, as they never hold up under a real judicial challenge.

[Sebastian22]

ahh. well, i would like competion between different nations nationalized industries. although (and keep in ming, i'm still a 21 year old college student, so i'm idealistic) my true dream is to have robots run all industry while we devote ourselves to the arts and leisure. I beleive that as the world stands right now, the theory of comparative advatage holds true. Some countries can make some products or provide some services cheaper than others. it would be nice for every country to someday have an equally well-educated population base, but right now, that's not the case. So while i would like to see america nationalize the energy industry, among other, i think that it is best for america not to waste time and money competine with mexico or china for manufacturing jobs. we're not ever going to be cheaper than them, and thus our products will lose to theirs on the world market.

Keep in mind this a a half-cooked theory forged over political discussions with my swedish roomate, who is a semi-socialist

[Sebastian22]

see, even though the constitution eventually, i think it was like 4 years later, prevailed over the sedition act (and hopefully, at some point, the patriot act), I don't think it would have been any different if we had had no constitution. We would have dealt with it for a little while until enough people disagreed with it, and then it would have been gone. If anything, i think that without a constitution, it would have gone away faster. all this is speculation, of course.

[Tages]

At times like these I wish that 2004 would have seen Kerry win the electoral vote and Bush win the popular vote. My sense of humor is like that.

No, I don't get out much.

[Drew Van T.]

You know I agree with you on many points, Mike.

But Moebius is right, IMO, that if Nader hadn't run, Gore would have won (then again, that's just one of many "ifs" that would have caused a different outcome, as you point out, and all those other "ifs" have nothing to do with Nader. The main responsibility for the loss lies with the Democrats themselves). Moebius is also right that the general conditions for the Green party to really take off are very far from being ideal.

But you know: neither would ever have stopped me from voting for the Greens (hypothetically - if I were American), for all the other arguments you make. The philosophical reasons are paramount here, even if they are trumped by objective reasons sometimes. Also because...

Tell me with a "straight face" that if Gore were president (at least from 2000-2004) we'd be in Iraq right now, or running hundreds of billions in deficits after giving massive tax cuts to the rich, or stripping EPA, FEMA and OSHA of their authority.

In that case, I think the US would have taken a different, longer path to arrive at more or less the same destination.

First of all, Gore would have continued to contribute to the general right-ward shift, just as Clinton had. Karl Rove would still have developed his strategy of getting the Christian Right to the voting booths with social hot-button issues, and Gore would have been defenseless before it. In the end, Gore would have lost the 2004 elections by a large margin, leading to a presidency very similar to the one you have now.

The major economic, social and political trends are remorseless, and it's naive to think that a Gore presidency - the legacy of an era that itself bears some responsibility for those trends - would have been able to ward them off.

But those same trends will eventually, indubitably, lead to major crises. The whole right-ward shift contains so many self-destructive elements. In numerous ways, George W. Bush has accelerated the pace with which those elements are coming to the fore.

And once they have led to a real crisis, there will be many openings for the Greens, if you ask me. Not to mention a chance for a radically different Democratic party.

[Dr. Hfuhruhurr]

It's not the Greens' fault for that and it's amazing how nobody screams at Democrats who receive funds from many of the same Republicans. I can guarantee that Casey has gotten Republican money and support as well.

Mike, I don't think the issue is that the Green candidate received Republican money. I think the issue is that his candidancy was funded solely (at least, that's what I understand. It may be just a substantial majority) by Republicans.


not[/I] vote Green, but will overlook just about anything, no matter how horrible or opposed to their values a Democratic candidate might be. And that's certainly the case with Bob Casey who is little more than a Republican in all but name taking on a crazier Republican.

It's not nitpicking to point out that Romanelli is a candidate only as part of a Republican effort to split the liberal vote, and not as a result of any grassroots support for the Green party.

It's Santorum's people who are the assholes in this, not Romanelli.

No, it's both. Santorum is a sleazy as they come. Accepting this kind of support from Republicans who are using him as a pawn may make Romanelli less of an asshole than Santorum, but he's still an asshole.

And it also buys into the bullshit notion that third party candidates "steal votes" especially when people like Casey have no right to lay claim to a progressive or pro-choice voter's support in the first place. Yet, Romanelli is the bad guy for giving people another choice on the ballot.

The underlying point is that there is no support for Romanelli. If there was, then he'd be on the ballot for reasons other than Republican shenanigans. There is no reason for Romanelli's candidancy other than to steal votes from Casey. That much should be obvious.

[moebius]

In that case, I think the US would have taken a different, longer path to arrive at more or less the same destination.
...

The major economic, social and political trends are remorseless, and it's naive to think that a Gore presidency - the legacy of an era that itself bears some responsibility for those trends - would have been able to ward them off.

I disagree, though we can say at least some things for sure: No tax cuts for the rich. No repeal on the Estate Tax. An effective EPA. An effective FEMA. No torture camps in Eastern Europe and Cuba. No illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

Maybe the Dems would have lost in 04. Who knows? My guess would be they would, but they would have kept us out of Iraq long enough (and a Gore presidency would have potentially made the right move to capture Bin Laden) to shortcut the necessity of a "War on Terror". That, combined with lower deficits and (possibly higher) growth might have been enough to wash the "Clinton smell" off the Dems.


And once they have led to a real crisis, there will be many openings for the Greens, if you ask me. Not to mention a chance for a radically different Democratic party.

There doesn't just have to be a crisis, there has to be a crisis where all the established partiess are inadequate to the task. Defaulting on the national debt would possibly do it. The current situation will not.

That's not "defeatism". I study minor parties and party system change for a living. My main subject is anti-immigrant parties in Western Europe. Believe me, they think the time is ripe for them to succeed. None of them can understand why their votes aren't increasing when people are so turned off from the federal government (in some state elections in 2006, voter turnout dropped below 50%). It's easy: voters don't vote for small parties because they don't like major parties, they vote for them when there's been some massive systemic failure or some issue they aren't dealing with.

The conditions for a Green movement are not there, and the entire voting behavior literature in political science tells us they're not.

You can also look at the history of Communist or Green parties in Europe; the Communists basically said for 80 years that victory was right around the corner, and the Greens have generated all the voter growth they can off environmentalism and social justice.

Where's the winning issue for the Greens? They don't have one. I understand that Green partisans wouldn't want to believe that. But Green partisans shouldn't be taken as the "last word" on the Green party's fortunes, considering how much of their cognitive well-being depends on positive self-evaluations.

If there's ar a new party in America right now, it will be nativist: heavily anti-immigrant, probably economically protectionist and socially conservative, a marriage of out-sourced blue-collar Dems and the racist/socially conservative Right. That's the major issue where a party could cleave itself off from Dems and Reps.

[Dr. Hfuhruhurr]

Just to show that I'm not solely dumping on the Green Party stalking horse, I think that clown Leiberman's embrace of the Republicans is no less disgusting. Hell, he's got the toads from the College Republicans campaigning for him:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/2/14247/70377

[Ed Cunard]

That's linked to in the first post, Doc.

[Dr. Hfuhruhurr]

That's linked to in the first post, Doc.

Oops. I'll edit.

[Mac Danny]

Also, the money given to Romanelli's campaign was spent entirely on paid signature gatherers because of the shitty ballot access laws in PA, which require people like the Greens to gather tens of thousands within weeks to even get your name printed on the ballot when the big two get on for free.

From Ballot Access News:



And it's amazing that they will challenge the Greens' right to be on the ballot, not based on problems with their legitimacy, but out of the arrogance to assume that no one but them has the right to run for office.

The same shit is being pulled currently in Illinois as we speak. The Greens in an all-volunteer effort gathered 39,000 signatures to put their slate of candidates on the ballot (more than the 25,000 required within 90 days) and within an hour of them filing the signatures with the Board of Elections, the Democratic Party's lawyer filed an objection and demanded copies of the signatures so that they could attempt to toss them either off the ballot, or bankrupt them with legal challenges.

It's disgusting and amazingly, when the Republican fail to live up to their own meager obligations for ballot access, they give them a slide. In 2004, the Bush campaign in FL failed to turn in the appropriate paperwork for Bush's ballot access for more than a week past the deadline, but the Democrats didn't challenge his right to be on the ballot? Who DID they challenge on a technicality? Ralph Nader.

Such utter bullshit and yet, we're the bad guys...


I signed one of those petitions as a registere voter in Montogmery County PA!

Everyone should have a right to run..

Go GREEN!

[Joe Rice]

Ewww! The Green Party has Republicooties!

[moebius]

That's not even the point he was making with that statement.


Actually, that's exactly what he's saying.


No one can say what would have happened had Nader not run, many might have voted for another third party candidate, like the Socialist Party's David McReynolds or the Libertarians' Harry Browne, many may not have voted at all, many voters, according to Al From, the former head of the Democratic Leadership Council, voted because of Nader being in the race: some came out for Nader, but got cold feet and many came out for Gore out of fear of the so-called "spoiler effect".


Mike's contention is that if Nader had not run, all things being equal, Gore still would have lost. That's simply not true.

[Mac Danny]

Hey mike,

As a grossly unaware PA voter, do you know anyplace I can go to get an idea of what these jokers stand for?

Gotta keep the man out of my private life, off the internet, from controling my wife's body, and stop hatiing people who dig the same sex.

Oh and if anyone wants to kill the teachers union so we can get some quality educators working, or at the very least, repeal tenor, that would be awsome.

Thanks Politico Hulk Guy!

[Joe Rice]

Hey mike,

As a grossly unaware PA voter, do you know anyplace I can go to get an idea of what these jokers stand for?

Gotta keep the man out of my private life, off the internet, from controling my wife's body, and stop hatiing people who dig the same sex.

Oh and if anyone wants to kill the teachers union so we can get some quality educators working, or at the very least, repeal tenor, that would be awsome.

Thanks Politico Hulk Guy!

You're not gonna find an anti-union person who believes all the rest of that stuff, even the teacher's union. Liberals have to suck up to unions because they're pretty much all they've got left these days.

I was such a die-hard unionist . . .until I joined one.

[Adam Crocker]

Actually, that's exactly what he's saying.

Let's look at his statements on the matter in the original post you were responding to when you claimed "bullshit semantics."


At the heart of the notion, though, is that the Democrats are not entitled to votes that they do not earn and they're perfectly able to compete for them, but not by only being marginally better than the Republicans or refusing to fight them.

I own my vote and I only give it to candidates that earn it. Some Democrats pass that test, so do a small minority of Republicans. But I will not give away the only leverage I have in a democracy and allow my country to go down the shitter with worse and worse Democrats who will take my vote more and more for granted and give me less and less in return.

Which is really his main point with his "votes don't belong to a single candidate" statement. If you want to argue that Nader diverted votes that might have gone to Gore, fine. But you went and accused Mike of playing semantic games when he was actually making an argument of principle in this regards to whom votes "belong" to.

Mike's contention is that if Nader had not run, all things being equal, Gore still would have lost. That's simply not true.

And what about the point that when exit pollers were asked how they would vote in a two way race, Bush actually would have won by a percentage point?

[moebius]

And what about the point that when exit pollers were asked how they would vote in a two way race, Bush actually would have won by a percentage point?

What about the WaPo's exit polls, that show that half of Nader's voters would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn't run?


Which is really his main point with his "votes don't belong to a single candidate" statement. If you want to argue that Nader diverted votes that might have gone to Gore, fine. But you went and accused Mike of playing semantic games when he was actually making an argument of principle in this regards to whom votes "belong" to.


Let's look at a statement.

"Candidate C took votes from Candidate B."

You can interprate this in two ways:
1. Parties do not have a "right" to a voter's votes. No argument there.
2. If a voter's preference set is C>B>A, and the vote was A=49, B=48, C=3, and would have been B=51, A=49 if Candidate C had not run, it is "true" that had Candidate C not run, Candidate B would have won. Candidate C "cost" Candidate B the election by "taking" votes that under other circumstances would have been his.

[Drew Van T.]

I disagree, though we can say at least some things for sure: No tax cuts for the rich. No repeal on the Estate Tax. An effective EPA. An effective FEMA. No torture camps in Eastern Europe and Cuba. No illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

True. Nevertheless, the Republican appeals for such things would have found much resonance, among the public and even among Democrat politicians (with their tendency of wanting to beat the enemy by joining him).

If 911 had happened on Gore's watch (that's "if"...but let's ignore the possibility he would have prevented it), he would have gone to war and yes, he might have captured OBL. But the temporary boost to Gore's ratings would quickly have been turned around by the Republicans' relentless blaming of Gore for the attack, their questioning of his patriotism at every opportunity, describing every one of his responses and solutions to the terrorism problem as "weak". They would have run Gore into the ground...ironically, for doing the same things that Dubya would have done (only less radically, and arguably without the torture camps).


My guess would be they would, but they would have kept us out of Iraq long enough (and a Gore presidency would have potentially made the right move to capture Bin Laden) to shortcut the necessity of a "War on Terror". That, combined with lower deficits and (possibly higher) growth might have been enough to wash the "Clinton smell" off the Dems.


You could be right...I am only speculating, after all.

But in all this, I don't see any incentive for the Democrats to abandon the Clinton way of doing things. At this point it has given them three presidencies, after all. For instance: you think Gore would ever, for the remainder of his life, have made a speech that might possibly be termed "anti-war", if he had won in 2000?

There doesn't just have to be a crisis, there has to be a crisis where all the established partiess are inadequate to the task. Defaulting on the national debt would possibly do it. The current situation will not.

It won't. There are lots of minor crises at this time, but we haven't seen a real recession yet (not like during the Bush Sr. years), or a real currency crisis, or a real healthcare crisis, or a real debt crisis, as mentioned. Globalization has led to a budding employment crisis, but the full effect is yet to come. There are the beginnings of an energy shortage, but not quite. The gap between rich and poor in the US has room to grow much further still. There have been wars but not with major countries (Afghanistan and Iraq, while very important, do not count. Iran does.) There is a counter-insurgency war that is being lost, but in a relatively small country. None of these wars have spilled over into true region-wide conflicts yet. All of these things could be around the corner...the logic of history dictates that at least some of these will come to pass.

911 was a crisis, to be sure, but it's easy to overestimate its historical importance because the psychological impact was so great...greater than the real, material or political impact.


...
The conditions for a Green movement are not there, and the entire voting behavior literature in political science tells us they're not.

You can also look at the history of Communist or Green parties in Europe; the Communists basically said for 80 years that victory was right around the corner, and the Greens have generated all the voter growth they can off environmentalism and social justice.

I agree, yet I still believe it could change quickly in the US. Not out of sentimental attachment or a belief in manifest destiny, just by looking at the major negative trends.

If there's ar a new party in America right now, it will be nativist: heavily anti-immigrant, probably economically protectionist and socially conservative, a marriage of out-sourced blue-collar Dems and the racist/socially conservative Right. That's the major issue where a party could cleave itself off from Dems and Reps.

Such a party is going to get a major opening, too, yes. But in this case it does require a split from the Republican party, first.

[moebius]

If 911 had happened on Gore's watch (that's "if"...but let's ignore the possibility he would have prevented it), he would have gone to war and yes, he might have captured OBL. But the temporary boost to Gore's ratings would quickly have been turned around by the Republicans' relentless blaming of Gore for the attack, their questioning of his patriotism at every opportunity, describing every one of his responses and solutions to the terrorism problem as "weak". They would have run Gore into the ground...ironically, for doing the same things that Dubya would have done (only less radically, and arguably without the torture camps).


Don't underestimate the power of the president to create the narrative. We're in Iraq because the President used his political capital after 9/11 to tie Iraq to the War on Terror, using premises proven to be false and evidence proven to be manipulated.

Gore would have had a the same capital to push his own narrative, which hopefully he would have done to usher in a Manhattan Project for energy independence. Which would have made the country safer: $500 billion to fund the Iraq war or $500 billion to end our oil addiction? Everything we've seen about Gore in and out of office leads me to believe his heart would be in it.

[Sam]

In that case, I think the US would have taken a different, longer path to arrive at more or less the same destination.

First of all, Gore would have continued to contribute to the general right-ward shift, just as Clinton had. Karl Rove would still have developed his strategy of getting the Christian Right to the voting booths with social hot-button issues, and Gore would have been defenseless before it. In the end, Gore would have lost the 2004 elections by a large margin, leading to a presidency very similar to the one you have now.

The major economic, social and political trends are remorseless, and it's naive to think that a Gore presidency - the legacy of an era that itself bears some responsibility for those trends - would have been able to ward them off.

I think this largely neglects the effect 9-11 had on the right's ability to ramrod any crazy thing they want into law and get the public to go along with them -- for a while, at least. Saying the current state of affairs was inevitable seems ludicrous on the face of it.

Would Gore have been a great candidate? Who knows; I personally think he's have been a bit better than most people grant him, but we'll never know that.

What I do know is that if Al Gore were President, we would not have invaded Iraq for no reason. We would not have instituted the catastrophic economic policies of the last six years, or anything like them. We would not have dismantled every environmental protection we possess. We would not have instituted the torture of civilians as military policy. We would not have begun widespread surveillance of American citizens. We would not have a White House seriously putting forward legislation that strips away American citizens' right to the due process of law, as is currently underway.

The Democrats leave a lot to be desired as a party, but saying they're identical to the Republicans is not just naive, it's patently ridiculous.

I wish we had a reasonable electoral system that made more than two parties feasible. In the long term, I would love to see it happen. I would do somersaults of joy if we had a real, progressive political party with a chance of winning elections.

In the short term, however, we are looking at the real possibility of the destruction of some of our most basic freedoms at the hands of the Republican party, to a degree not seen since Dupont & company tried to have a secret coup against FDR and institute a Mussolini-style fascist government in the US. This isn't just a choice between Conservative and Moderate Conservative. It's a choice between Shockingly, Dangerously Fascist and Moderate Conservative.

And as much as I agree with the Greens' philosophical points, the practical, immediate results here are the increased likelihood of the fascists staying in power. Which I find genuinely terrifying.

[Drew Van T.]

Gore would have had a the same capital to push his own narrative, which hopefully he would have done to usher in a Manhattan Project for energy independence. Which would have made the country safer: $500 billion to fund the Iraq war or $500 billion to end our oil addiction? Everything we've seen about Gore in and out of office leads me to believe his heart would be in it.

That is such long-term thinking, though, requiring an enormous investment of political capital, with no immediate economic or political benefits, with economic repercussions ("anti-market", "anti-oil-industry") that are easy for the Right to sink its teeth into. I am hesitant to ascribe the capacity for pulling this off to any mainstream politician, even the environmentally-conscious and genuinely enthusiastic Gore.

More likely, I think Gore's capital would have been needed to fend off Karl Rove's strategies for three years...ultimately failing.

In the short term, however, we are looking at the real possibility of the destruction of some of our most basic freedoms at the hands of the Republican party, to a degree not seen since Dupont & company tried to have a secret coup against FDR and institute a Mussolini-style fascist government in the US. This isn't just a choice between Conservative and Moderate Conservative. It's a choice between Shockingly, Dangerously Fascist and Moderate Conservative.

And as much as I agree with the Greens' philosophical points, the practical, immediate results here are the increased likelihood of the fascists staying in power. Which I find genuinely terrifying.

I completely understand this POV. I sympathize with it. However I also think that the loss of freedom and the quasi-fascist directions taken (and I really hate to say this, because it sounds so callous: ) is not going to be the most important challenge in the future. Personally, I would not base short-term priorities on this.

[Adam Crocker]

What about the WaPo's exit polls, that show that half of Nader's voters would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn't run?

WaPo? What's that? (And no, that one wasn't mentioned earlier.)

Let's look at a statement.

"Candidate C took votes from Candidate B."

You can interprate this in two ways:
1. Parties do not have a "right" to a voter's votes. No argument there.
2. If a voter's preference set is C>B>A, and the vote was A=49, B=48, C=3, and would have been B=51, A=49 if Candidate C had not run, it is "true" that had Candidate C not run, Candidate B would have won. Candidate C "cost" Candidate B the election by "taking" votes that under other circumstances would have been his.

Possibly, but it I think it was pretty clear that Mike was making a statement regarding principle as opposed the numbers of the case. This is especially in the context of various Democratic partisans having repeatedly attacked Nader and the Greens for being spoilers when there are very clear short comings in the party's approach to campaigning, handling problems with vote enumeration, and standing up to the Republicans. And in most of these attacks there is a pervasive sense of entitlement coming off the party that seems more focused on shutting out competitors than becoming more effective in luring support at the polls.


Gore would have had a the same capital to push his own narrative, which hopefully he would have done to usher in a Manhattan Project for energy independence. Which would have made the country safer: $500 billion to fund the Iraq war or $500 billion to end our oil addiction? Everything we've seen about Gore in and out of office leads me to believe his heart would be in it.

I'm not completely up on Gore's careerr and record, but I am curious. Can you provide more elaboration on this?

[moebius]

WaPo? What's that? (And no, that one wasn't mentioned earlier.)

WaPo = Washington Post. Conservative for my tastes, but they were using exit polls conducted by the polling agencies in their analysis right after the election.


I'm not completely up on Gore's careerr and record, but I am curious. Can you provide more elaboration on this?

Wikipedia is always a decent source.

In my opinion, Gore has been the most progressive national politician on the environment in our time, authoring Earth in the Balance in 1990 and more recently putting together An Inconvenient Truth. His environmental views were so strong and he was so tied to them in the public eye that one of the big mistakes he may of made in 2000 was downplaying them to not look like the "tree-hugging candidate" in an era when the environment wasn't considered important by the electorate. Made him seem less genuine.

He's technolgoically progressive and fiscally smart; he did not "Invent the Internet, but he was a strong poponent for bills in the late 70s and early 80s that made it possible, and he led the Clinton White House's efforts to streamline the government (ironically, the federal government shrank under Clinton and grew under Bush).

I would call him a little too dovish/wafflish on foreign policy for my taste; he and Clinton never developed a coherent foreign policy.

[Drew Van T.]

Wikipedia is always a decent source.


Lacking in that entry, though, are his views on employment (besides taking credit for the low employment figures in the 90's), anti-trust, welfare, healthcare, the minimum wage, and other issues that can be considered important for a progressive, besides the environment.

[moebius]

Lacking in that entry, though, are his views on employment (besides taking credit for the low employment figures in the 90's), anti-trust, welfare, healthcare, the minimum wage, and other issues that can be considered important for a progressive, besides the environment.

Do you have any sources you'd like to add that answer those questions?

His campaign promises are easy enough to find, but I would think that voting reports and policy reports from progressive orgs. from his 20 years in office would be a good bet.

[Drew Van T.]

Do you have any sources you'd like to add that answer those questions?

Not yet, sorry.

I was thinking that this particular entry - while competent in many ways - must have been written by a typical Clintonite democrat: trying to minimize the ways in which Gore resembled his Republican opponents.

[Mike Smash!]

Mike, I don't think the issue is that the Green candidate received Republican money. I think the issue is that his candidancy was funded solely (at least, that's what I understand. It may be just a substantial majority) by Republicans.

Not soley. That's inaccurate. It was the petitioning drive, 30,000 signatures of which were done entirely by volunteers.

It's not nitpicking to point out that Romanelli is a candidate only as part of a Republican effort to split the liberal vote, and not as a result of any grassroots support for the Green party.

Also not true. There is a deal of backlash to Casey and many liberals do not support him. He was running long before this Santorum thing. If anything Santorum supporters are stupid to fund a Green. One because we add a voice of criticism to their politics and have been able to hurt Republicans in the past and two, it's money that they cannot spend on Santorum.

No, it's both. Santorum is a sleazy as they come. Accepting this kind of support from Republicans who are using him as a pawn may make Romanelli less of an asshole than Santorum, but he's still an asshole.

So, the fact that the laws passed by the major parties that requires Romanellia to collect nearly 100,000 signatures isn't a factor when Casey and Santorum get on the ballot for free? And Greens have to do background checks on all of our funders while the Democrats can take money from the worst people, including many of the same types that gave to Santorum?

The underlying point is that there is no support for Romanelli. If there was, then he'd be on the ballot for reasons other than Republican shenanigans. There is no reason for Romanelli's candidancy other than to steal votes from Casey. That much should be obvious.

That's horseshit. The reason for his candidacy is to give voters a choice, becuase one between Casey and Santorum is unpalatable. They deserve an pro-choice option. An anti-war option. An option that says they wouldn't have voted for Alito.

And he does have support, but yes, it's small and grassroots. With all volunteers they managed to get 30,000 signatures before they got money for paid petitioners. That's not "no support".

[Mike Smash!]

Mike's contention is that if Nader had not run, all things being equal, Gore still would have lost. That's simply not true.

I'm not the psychic that you are. But yes, it's likely he would have still "lost". I've had detailed where Gore had fucked himself over on several things and refused to fight for others. Then I linked you to a report from the Lieberman-esque DLC where they even say that according to their exit polls that Nader didn't cost Gore the election.

The bottom line is that Gore didn't lose and he didn't fight. The Republicans did and he wasn't elected. He was screwed by voter fraud, illegal disenfranchisement, horribly designed ballots and a partisan Supreme Court decision along with his refusal to call for a full state recount. He also lost his own homestate by a large margin, which would have made Florida irrelevant.

Those are things that were specifically aimed at him or were huge administrative cock ups that he had the option of fighting or not fighting. He chose not to and instead of accepting responsibility for that, people have chosen to blame Ralph Nader, who never had the responsibility to electing Gore, didn't work for Gore and isn't responsible for Gore inability to inspire voters.

And the arrogance of people acting like Gore is "entitled" to my vote is just disgusting and for the Democrats to do it again in 2004 after doing nothing to change the voting system, even when they had a Senate majority, doesn't excuse them.

We have a shitty voting system that the major parties refuse to reform, the blame is their's not Nader's.