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Ralph Nader Back On The Florida Ballot
Makoto916 writes "It's official. The Florida State Supreme court has ruled in favor of 3rd party candidate Ralph Nader. He is now back on the ballot, and just in time since absentee ballots were to be mailed out tomorrow (Saturday). This is certainly a victory for those of us who believe that the country is better off when alternative political voices aren't suppressed."
I don't think that not being on the ballot means your political voice is being suppressed. Plenty of people don't make it onto the ballot, but they are still free to express their ideas.
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ok, i don't know shit about American politics apart from my half-arsed following of newspapers but isn't this going to take votes away from Kerry? i.e. it's a move to hurt democrats not help democracy. this is bad, i want Kerry to win and save the world see. i could well be talking from my rear here, as i'm sure i'll soon find out. (ignore my sig, it's out of place on this thread).
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Again as a gladly non-US voter this discussion amazes me.
.. have a read ..
If you really want a victory for alternative policical voices then push hard and jump and down for a democratic preferential voting system. This way you could have 10 or more candidates and the person that was ultimately most popular would win - not the person that splits the least number of votes.
If you had a preferential voting system then you might be discussing the merits of a first vote for Nader instead of worrying about loosing a vote by voting for him. Your second and third votes may be the ones that ultimately count.
As an Australian voter, where everything is Preferential, I cannot imagine having to use such an archaic "First Past the Post" system as they use in the US. I am also amazed there is not a major movement for change there.
If you don't know what a preferential voting system is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting/
It is good to have two parties with two center seeking candidates that appear indistinguishable from each other, and split the vote evenly between them. It is good if everything congress can agree on has already been passed into law, and everything else before congress is gridlocked. Agreement on a quantity (taxes, spending, etc.) is when exactly half think the quantity is to high, and the other half thinks it is too low. Some people see our two party winner take all system as dysfunctional, when it is really mature democracy near equilibrium. 3rd parties, bipartisan agreement, and a widely varied candidate positions is really disequilibrium.
It looked like we were close to equilibrium in 2000. The problem was that both candidates and the center were all disastrously wrong on counter-terrorism policy before 9/11. And when congress was unanimous after 9/11, it was only because we were disastrously wrong before, not that there was any new sense of cooperation after.
Of course, everyone would like it if the "center" was closer to their own views. But that is what contributions, lobbying, and political action is for. Everyone can be a special interest, all you have to do is open your checkbook or write your representatives.
3rd parties would be more effective as lobbies or think tanks. CATO is more effective at moving the center than the libertarian party, and environmental lobbies are more effective than the green party.
...for the Republican party.
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I tend to agree about Nader. I don't think he's serious about campaigning for president, only feeding his own ego and perhaps his wallet.
A couple of elections ago, when (as usual) the "third parties" were shut out of the presidential debates, C-SPAN organized a "third party" debate so the candidates would at least have some chance of airing and comparing their views where people could evaluate them all together. Harry Browne (Libertarian) was there, of course, as was Howard Philip of the rather creepy[1] "U.S. Taxpayers Party" (as far as I can tell, they are also called the "Independent" party and I think the "Constitution" party.) and I THINK they had someone from the "Peace and Freedom" (hardcore socialist/borderline communist[2]) party there, and of course at the time the Greens had Nader....oh, wait, no, Nader didn't show up. He was, according to the announcer on the show, too busy promoting his new book to bother.
That kind of tells me everything I need to know about Nader...
[1]- Disturbingly extremist (in my own opinion) bible-pounding, God-bothering rightists. As far as I could tell from the debate, that party's entire platform is composed of two claims:
- Abortion is Murder(tm)
- Sex Education causes Homosexuality
.[2]- Disturbingly extremist (in my on opinion) wealth-hating, welfare-legislating leftists. Kinda helped balance with the other extreme party mentioned above. I'm guessing a lot of European people living in small countries where socialism won't necessarily become Stalinism[3] would tend to like these people
[3]- I still maintain that the degree to which a government can be "socialist" without being oppressive is inversely proportional to the size of the governed population. If California seceded from the US, I think they'd just BARELY be small enough to get away with a socialist government. If the entire US tried to do it on a national level, we'd end up with USSR II. Or so I maintain. I think this is why USAians - even Democrats - often seem "extreme right-wing" to Europeans.
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I think that's the point. Nader takes votes away from the Democratic candidate, so Democrats want him to be removed because it gives more votes to Kerry. On the other hand, a Republican would be more likely to want Nader on the ballot since it makes it more likely that Bush will win re-election. So the AC's post indicated that the original poster was Republican because they think that third party candidates are important, despite (my thoughts) the fact that no third party candidate stands a chance in our system.
I'll go ahead and burn some karma here...
Isn't it a little peculiar that the Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to keep somebody off the ballot, but yet this gets little to no coverage in the mainstream media? However, can you imagine the shock and revolt the Democrats would spew out if the Republicans were trying to keep a candidate off the ballot?
Now I'm sure the Republicans would indeed do the same thing under similar circumstances, my point here is about the coverage. If Republicans do it, it's evil and it needs to be on the front page. If the Democrats do it, then it's just good ol' fashion politics, nothing to see here folks.
Flame away.
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People tend to confuse communism and fascism for socialism.
We are closer to fascism than most people think. Apparently some crazy leader shouting about the evils of the world (could be Hitler, could be Bush) gets people's nationalism at a high, at the same time they erode the rights of citizens. Then all it takes is candidates sponsored by the pharmaceutical/oil/(insert big business here) industry. Remember during WWII Italy was the Fascist Business Republic. Here is a good write up of where we are apparently heading.
Oh yeah and Sweden is socalist as well. They have their problems as well.
> # Abortion is Murder(tm)
:(
That's a big part of the Constitution Party platform, yes. Probably too big. I certainly agree with them on that, but America isn't ready to elect someone as rabidly anti-abortion as they are, so they're pretty much screwing themselves over.
They're also big on eliminating the rampant Constitution violations that the big parties continue to commit without thinking.
They also want to get America out of most foreign "problems" such as Iraq. They believe that America should be a "friend of liberty everywhere, defender only of her own." Makes sense to me.
Personally, I'd love to vote for Peroutka (their candidate this year) -- he matches my values much more closely than Bush does. But realities of the two party system will force me to vote Bush.
> I think that's the point. Nader takes votes away from the Democratic candidate, so Democrats want him to be removed because it gives more votes to Kerry.
Unless of course they just stay home in disgust. It's hard to imagine a Naderite voting Democratic after the Democrats forced their man off the ballot.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The purpose of these candidates on the far edges of the spectrum is not to get elected or indeed even have a whisper of a chance; the system from top to bottom is designed to favor the (two?) most moderate candidates. (For example, the electoral college: The fact that winner-takes-all in each state is a moderating influence.)
The purpose of these fringe candidates is, instead, to drum up enough of a base that the moderate candidate that's closer will want to drift over in that direction in order to pick up those votes. In other words, they should judge success not by how many votes they get, but by how much they ultimately move the definition of "moderate".
So don't feel too bad for having to vote for Bush, as long as you answer Peroutka in the polls. The fact that you are being forced to vote for the more moderate candidate means the system is working exactly as it is intended to, for the greater good of the overall population.
Read Counterpunch articles on Ralph Nader. They've recently published articles on these issues and frame the debate in a more balanced way by examining where the Democrats and Republicans are getting their money from (as well as differentiating between what individual citizens do versus what political parties do, and looking at how much money was collected from various sources for Nader and the two dominant parties), and recognizing that you can't control who runs ads criticizing you or your opponents, as well as examining how the Greens came to arrive at their nomination of David Cobb and Pat LaMarche over Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo.
Not that I'm saying you're an Anyone But Bush supporter (which I don't know if you are), but I would think this is something the ABB crowd could appreciate (and this is taking your critique at face value) -- swallowing something bad for a greater good. I don't think most Democratic Party voters actually like Kerry; the delegates disagree with him on some major points of policy, but they plan to vote for him to get Bush out of office. Similarly, if you believe Reform Party endorsement to be bad, consider that Reform Party endorsement gets Nader/Camejo on the ballot in some states and that means a lot when one is trying to push for democratic (small-d) electoral reforms as Nader/Camejo clearly are. I'm sure Nader realizes more than anyone posting to this website what immense barriers his campaign faces and how slim his chances are of winning. He wrote a book about the need for structural electoral reform a few years ago called "Crashing the Party" when he was endorsed by the Green Party. But we shouldn't push out people who have such a fight ahead of them. Not only would that have denied some victories (like Jesse Ventura's in Minnesota) but it would say that democracy is only for the two parties who already have a lock on the system.
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Mussilini said that a better name for facism was corpratism- facism was the ultimate marriage of buisness and government.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Third parties in the United states serve as a source of direction for the larger parties. When the little guys start growing, the big guys know it's time to shift their policies to get back the votes-- or fade into obscurity.
The exceptions have been few. In a few cases, a figure of sufficient charisma and political clout has been disatisfied, and sparked a flare for a few years-- such as Teddy Roosevelt and Perot did. The end result isn't much different than other third parties. The other exception is the Republicans themselves; the issue that rose them to prominence so polarized the country that civil war resulted. Let's hope they don't go back that far to their roots. =)
Of course, the unity of the big two is now, and has always been, an illusion. The "Dixiecrat" faction is noted in the Democrats, and while all Republicans seem to be either Religious Right or Fiscal Conservative, the majority are not both.
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I am not a Nader supporter, Bush or Kerry are far better choices than Nader IMHO. However Nader should have his shot just like anyone else. The whole idea that Nader screwed Gore or will screw Kerry is bulls**t. Nader has said a lot of screwy things but one thing he has right is that Gore/Kerry are not entitled to any democratic party member's vote. They have to earn it. If Gore/Kerry can not get the vote of a person who is inherently inclined to favor them then that is their own damn fault. Blaming Nader is just a pathetic attempt to blame someone else for their own failures and shortcomings. Of course what else should we expect from career politicians.
> and ending the war in Iraq.
That's because they don't really want to "end" the war in Iraq -- not any faster than President Bush does anyway.
In fact, John Kerry said that he would have started it himself had he been in office. He just claims that he would have run the war better somehow.
So, you see, both major parties are essentially on the same side of this issue. But since it's the correct side, I'm willing to cut them some slack.
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