The Nader Factor

TolkiEinstein writes "The NY Times is running an article on The Nader Factor that details the threat level old Ralph represents to John Kerry. Nader has made it on the ballots of 30 states, and polls show he could influence the outcome of 9 states where the race is a dead heat. While Nader argues that he isn't a spoiler, a Zogby poll suggests that if he weren't on the ballot, 41 percent of his supporters would go to Kerry and 15 percent to Bush. Ironically, this is why some of the prime movers in getting him on the ballot have been Republicans. As per the article, Terry McAuliffe - the democratic party chairman - says he should 'end the charade' of a campaign being kept afloat by 'corporate backers.' Could it be that in this way Nader is beholden to corporate interests? For shame, Ralph."

Comments

Betraying what he ran for last time

[ApharmdB]

Ralph is betraying what he ran for last time, which was to help build a viable third party, by running as an independent. The Green Party was smart enough not to run him again or else become a one-candidate party. Also, they recognized that with the number of people who say he spoiled the last election that he would be more of a liability than an asset. The Greens are winning some local elections and with time might become a viable national party by working from the ground floor on up.

McAuliffe likes Nader being in there

[w3rzr0b0t5]

I'm wearing my tinfoil hat again, but the signals I'm receiving from outerspace tell me that the DNC and Clinton puppet Terry McAuliffe like Nader being in there.

I doubt you could convince me that Hillary Clinton is pushing for a Kerry victory. There's no way the most ambitious woman in the world has given up on running against Guiliani in '08.

Re:Nader has lost it

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm the same as you- and yet I'll be voting for Kerry in the swing state of Oregon unless he's got greater than 10% in the polls whenever I get around to voting (ballot will probably be in the mail tomorrow- we don't use polling places in Oregon anymore). Because while Kerry would make a bad President- Bush would make a disasterous one, as already proven by his first four years in office. Nader could have said that- and I'd have given him a pass on it. Nader could have done like his replacement in the Green Pary, Cobb, and avoided campaigning in swing states. He didn't. And because of it, the Betrayer of the Unborn, the Betrayer of the Common Man, the Lapdog of the Saudi Royal Family, could well be in DC to cause us another 4 years of abject misery.

Re:Every political story on Slashdot has a Dem. sl

[RobertB-DC]

"Could it be that in this way Nader is beholden to corporate interests? For shame, Ralph"
What proof do they have for this?! It's just a smear campaign by the Democrats.

It's just the Democrats learning from Karl Rove: attack your opponent's strength, not his weakness. Nader's whole raison d'etre is that he's not "beholden" -- so accuse him of it, and defuse his strength.

On the other hand...

Don't vote for the "better" of two evils, vote Nader in 2004! Evil is still evil and there's very little difference between the two major parties.

I say, don't vote for the "better-known" of the less-evils. If you're going to vote on the left side of the aisle, vote for the Green Party candidate -- David Cobb. We told Nader to take a hike at the Green Party convention.

Personally, I'm hoping that on November 3, we're looking at the map and smiling at the votes that Badnarik "stole" from Bush. If third parties on the left *and* the right are changing the outcome, maybe people will see that it's time the Big Two got put out to pasture.

Exit polls from 2000

[Rheingold]

You might want to look at the exit polls from 2000 if you don't want to take this data at face-value: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/epolls/US/P000.ht ml

Some points:
* Nader only got twice as many Dems as Repubs; and those combined were only half the number of Independents.
* Compare Nader's 2% of Dems with the Repubs %8 of Dems--4x as many Democrats voted Republican as voted for Nader.

What is it Christians don't like to hear? Oh right:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thy say to thy brother, "Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?" Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

He is trying to move the Dem Party Leftwards

[Cryofan]

He is trying to defeat Kerry, thus forcing the rich liberals to fund think tanks and foundations to build a Leftist Propaganda Machine to match the rightwing propaganda machine (google "tentacles of rage" for a good explication of the Rightwing propaganda machine).
Once the LPM is underway, it can put out memes about leftist ideas to match the rightwing ideas that have dominated political discourse over the last 35 years or so. But if Kerry is elected, that LPM will be much slower to grow.

Just as necessity is the mother of invention, desperation is the mother of donations.

Please provide more information.

[jbn-o]

While Nader argues that he isn't a spoiler, a Zogby poll suggests that if he weren't on the ballot, 41 percent of his supporters would go to Kerry and 15 percent to Bush.

First, framing the debate in terms of "spoilers" means votes are owned and that we should do nothing to challenge an inherently undemocratic system where the two entrenched parties push other parties and independents off the ballot (or make it harder to get on the ballot in the first place). Don't even get started about the exclusion from the televised debates run by the DLC and RNC.

Second, Nader has been saying that this Zogby poll shows a three-way split: half of his voters would not have voted at all. The other half is evenly split between those who would have voted Republican and Democrat. Thus only 25% of his voters would have otherwise supported Kerry, not a majority (not that there's anything wrong with that, as I said before, it's fine to compete and everyone is taking votes from someone else). Nader talked about this Zogby poll last night on Letterman's show.

Ironically, this is why some of the prime movers in getting him on the ballot have been Republicans.

All of the prime movers getting Republicans on the ballot in Illinois were Democrats. That's not irony when you consider that Republicans and Democrats are both fighting for the same corporate dollars and corporations are pleased to have either of those two parties win (hence a lot of large multinational corporations donate to both of those parties and set their agendas). It works well for both of these parties to exclude anyone that would question global corporate hegemony (as many third parties and independents do).

As per the article, Terry McAuliffe - the democratic party chairman - says he should 'end the charade' of a campaign being kept afloat by 'corporate backers.' Could it be that in this way Nader is beholden to corporate interests? For shame, Ralph."

Please provide proof of this corporate backing and please supply evidence the Republicans and Democrats aren't taking corporate cash. My guess is that you'll have problems with both ends of this because (as far as I know) Nader/Camejo's campaign takes no corporate or PAC cash and only takes money from individuals (and each individual contribution is capped). McAuliffe is fine with misrepresentation: filling an Oregon ballot rally with Democrats who had no intention of signing the petition to put Nader on the ballot, thus Nader's people would think they had enough participation to get on and then be short signatures when they got the petitions back.

Re:Nader is Nader, not a Democrat...

[nicknicknick]

Here's an article that raises the possibility that in some close states like Nevada and New Mexico Badnarik could be a spoiler who hands victory to Kerry. http://www.nysun.com/article/2672

What is really at risk under a Kerry admin.?

[jbn-o]

That colosally misstates Nader's take. Nader has said that Kerry would make a marginally better choice than Bush.

However there is an argument for Bush: Under Clinton the Left fell asleep. It would be horrible if that happened again.

• NOW (the National Organization for Women), for instance, had some tough financial times during the Clinton years. They chose to take money from Clinton in exchange for keeping quiet on the Monica Lewinsky affair. Tammy Bruce, former head of the (LA, i think) chapter of NOW talked about this in her book "The New Thought Police".
• There was very little criticism from the Left on the 1996 Telecommunications Act which (in part) deregulated media. By 2003, the FCC's proposed deregulation raised more mail than the FCC had ever seen.
• Clinton killed more Arabs with sanctions (500,000 of them were children) than the invasion and occupation of Iraq under Bush. Clinton's secretary of State Madeline Albright went on 60 Minutes and said that that was a hard choice but ultimately "worth it". The anti-war movement marched millions of people in the streets in opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. No comparable action occurred over the sanctions.

Perhaps we're risking another Leftists-asleep-at-the-wheel under Kerry:

• The occupation will continue (the anti-war movement insists that they'll pick up marching again after they've given Kerry their only leverage--their vote).
• The draft may pick up (it's hard to know where else the US would get the 40,000 troops Kerry wants to add; European countries aren't going to come up with troops without being given something incredibly valuable in exchange, something Kerry has yet to name).
• The power to make war anywhere anytime without Congressional approval will live on in a Kerry administration (Kerry voted for this resolution and he supports it even now).
• Kerry's health care plan is unlikely to be passed because Kerry takes money from HMOs and HMOs aren't willing to give up potential customers. Clinton's complex health care proposal also offered to keep HMOs in place. By proposing yet another health care plan that people don't want and that is unlikely to pass, Americans are disincentivized to fight for universal single-payer health care.

People are going to lose money and services under either Bush or Kerry, so it's not a question of harming the poor; the poor will suffer no matter which of the two major parties gets their candidate into the White House.

Wow, Interesting

[Madcapjack]

You know what's interesting? For the fact that 3rd Parties get so little of the vote...a few percent, there appear to be a lot of supporters of third parties here on /. Now if all those Slashdotters would just go vote for who they wanted to win...

Re:Every political story on Slashdot has a Dem. sl

[Narchie Troll]

"Kerry and Bush came down on different sides of virtually every single issue in the debates."
Did they?

"Taxes."
Bush: Let's cut taxes massively.
Kerry: Let's cut taxes merely hugely.
Both: Let's keep the overall tax structure the same.

"Abortion."
Bush: I'm opposed to abortion, and I worked to ban partial birth abortion.
Kerry: I'm opposed to abortion, but I wouldn't work to ban it.

"Foreign policy."
Bush: I led the war on terror. The Patriot Act is good.
Kerry: I will hunt down and kill the terrorists. The Patriot Act is good, but we need to 'monitor' its use.

"Health care."
Bush: I passed Medicare 'reform' and support 'health savings accounts', which are thinly veiled tax shelters for people who can already afford health care. I oppose buying drugs from Canada because they cannot be trusted.
Kerry: I support opening up the federal insurance system to the public -- the system that, by and large, still deals with the for-profit middlemen. Also, I think we should undermine the Canadian pharmaceutical price controls by buying the drugs that they imported from us.
Neither: If we're considering buying drugs from Canada that they imported from us, shouldn't we consider implementing our own similar system? Neither candidate supports any major reform of the health system -- just small, iterative changes that merely solidify the status quo.

"Iraq."
Bush: I believe I was right to invade Iraq.
Kerry: I believe I was right to authorize him to invade Iraq, except he should have spent more time on diplomacy. But then unilateral invasion would be fine.

"The environment."
I have to agree with you there -- Bush's record is pretty abysmal on the environment. Of course, Kerry hasn't really given concrete proof he'll do better -- remember, Bush claims to be an environmental president, so you can't always believe what is said.

In general, though, Bush and Kerry had DIFFERENT views, but their views were very close.

Re:30 whole states????

[overunderunderdone]

Why does this guy get all kinds of press... and libertarian party has a far larger percentage of votes.

For three reasons, none of which requires a tinfoil hat to understand.

1) Because your second statement is simply wrong. Nader got over 7 times as many votes as the Libertarians did last election cycle. 2.8 million votes to 400K.

2) Related to the first: Because his vote was large enough to play the role of a spoiler and toss the election to Kerry. The Libertarians probably draw a little more from both parties so they're not obvious spoilers and even if they were they came in behind Buchanan who would be a more obvious spoiler on the Republican side (If Buchanan's vote had gone to Bush he would have won the popular vote)

3) Because Nader is already a well known and (formerly) respected (by liberals) national figure. Everyone knows who Nader is and what he believes in. Who the hell is Badnarik? what does he stand for? No one knows. Libertarians are a tiny, largely irrelevant party... nobody gives you much press nor SHOULD they. I don't consider it a conspiracy when the business pages give more coverage to McDonalds and Burger King but ignore Bob's Burgers at 132 Main Street. If Bob wants start a national franchise he can't just whine about how unfair it is that nobody knows who he is... he has to market himself, find funding, maybe recruit a celebrity spokesman. It's going to be tough, even if he gets funding and can compete on the same playing field with BK and McD he's going to be a distant third for a Loooong time.

I find the incessant Libertarian whining ironic. They seem to be expecting a handout rather than achieving on their own merits. Leave that to the Socialist Workers party that actually believes in that crap. Nobody owes you coverage or respect... you have to EARN it. PROVE your relevance. Show a little of that darwinian rugged individualist backbone and stop blaming others for your failures. Perhaps next time recruit a celebrity candidate (like Nader) or fabulously wealthy self-funding candidate (like Perot) that can help you to break through. Maybe focus on actually winnable local and state races to build credibility slowly. Instead of thinking a State Rep from Alaska is a credible candidate for President maybe have him run for state senate, then try for the U.S. House, then U.S. senate, or state governor... THEN for President. Running a complete unknown who's only relevant experience is losing a race for state rep. doesn't earn you the right to complain about not being taken seriously. In fact I think it gives the rest of us the right to complain that the LIBERTARIANS aren't taking this seriously.

Re:Running to the Right requires undemanding voter

[quantax]

I agree with this; my breaking points are when social issues (more so than economic, since honestly speaking, I wish to have a greater understanding of economics until I decide whether 'trick-down' is crap, or if taxes are the answer; I honestly dont know at this point and need to read more to adequately state an opinion on it) have re-aligned to the right within the democratic party. As the above poster said and the one who also responded as well, when social issues like abortion, gun control, gay rights, stem cell research, environmental protection and such begin to slide to conservative positions within the greater part of the democratic party, this would be the breaking point. Probably one of the most telling things about Bush during the debates came out during the last debate when he sidestepped the question on whether he would repeal the Roe vs Wade decision. This is the sort of stuff that makes me fear for America's future within the greater world, which with the exception of some Arab states and 3rd world countries, is moving towards greater progression within science and human rights.

America has enjoyed a major technological boom within the last 30 years or so with computers. As the prime developers of the computer as well as the internet, we've enjoyed a superiority within the field for a long time and we still do in certain respects. If we apply this same idea to stem cell / bio-tech, I find it outragous that we'd just hand off the potentials of this to other countries; its a fact that someone is going to develop and bring this technology to fruitation and the first nations to seize upon it will be the ones who will most likely have the upperhand during atleast the first period of expansion within that industry. I am friends with several people who are doctors & hospital administrators here in the USA, and they often talk about how people from other nations come to America to have important surgeries as we have amongst the best medical practitioners in the world; imagine throwing that all away and now instead you goto China, Japan, Britain, India, etc for these operations. Whos the one who gets the benefits then? Its definitely not America.

http://www.votepair.org/

[yem]

http://www.votepair.org/

"In vote-pairing, swing-state progressives whose first instinct might have been to vote for Nader, Cobb or Badnarik are paired with Democrats (and others whose first choice for President is Kerry) in 'safe' states where either Bush or Kerry has a decisive lead. Paired voters can communicate with each other and decide to vote strategically: swing-state participants for Kerry and safe-state participants for Nader, Cobb or Badnarik. As a result, the paired voters' support for progressive third parties is recorded in the popular vote and their preference for Kerry over Bush finds voice in the Electoral College."