Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
Democratic slant that is. Take this latest one as an example:
"Could it be that in this way Nader is beholden to corporate interests? For shame, Ralph"
What proof o they have for this?! It's just a smear campaign by the Democrats. Just look at what Dems have been doing to Nader... all those frivolous lawsuits, constant misinformation's... Dems should be ashamed.
Two lawsuits try to keep Nader off ballot And this is just in one state, Florida! They've been using the same dirty tactics in other states as well.
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.
http://www.votenader.org/
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Why does this guy get all kinds of press when he is only on 30 states ballots. When Michael Badnarik is on 48 states and libertarian party has a far larger percentage of votes.......
Ohh yea Nader takes votes from Democrats and is a tool for the Republicans.
never mind.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
"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.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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:
Wil
wiki
> Voteing for the lesser of two evils still gives you evil.
Yes, I keep hearing that.
But - *less* evil. *less*. That means not as much! I'm not sure why this is so hard for everyone to understand. Less evil is generally better than more evil, unless evil is your bag, baby.
Nader is pulling for *no* evil - and while that's laughably innocent, it's not gonna happen this time around - and the efforts squandered in going after no evil are efforts removed from getting little evil into the white house.
I am not a Nader fan, but hearing dems criticize Nader is like listening to neo-nazis bitch about being discriminated against. Yes, he will 'steal' some of Kerry's votes, but the fact of the matter is that the dems have been extremely active in trying to keep Nader off ballots via legal manuevers, rather underhanded if you ask me; not the sort of thing that I would find inspiring in my leaders.
In the upcoming election I will be voting for Kerry, but seeing dems attack Nader only further demonstrates how sad the state of affairs are in our country when the 2 parties involved need to resort to ridiculous legal strategies in order to secure their voter base. Between republican efforts to remove voters from the voter rolls and other various underhanded tactics involving misinformation (which, imo, is definitely worst), and the dems trying their hardest to keep 3rd party canidates off the ballot, this year's election is anything but exemplary for other countries and sure leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
The democratic party is, unfortunately, bankrupt in many metaphorical ways, amongst them ethically, progressively, and has lost many of the things that historically made them what they are. Its a sure sign that you need to seriously reassess your party's goals, orientation and voting base if you have to get court orders to remove candidates from the ballot in order to stay in power.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Nader knows he won't win; he must.
Instead, he is running on the knowledge that if he or anyone else takes enough of the vote from one of the 2 major parties, they will alter laws so as to make 3rd party candidates not be spoilers.
This, of course, benefits everyone in the long run.
However, in the short run, a lot of folks won't vote for a 3rd party candidate if there is much at stake. It could be argued that the 2 major parties want people to think there is much at stake in every election, so they always remain the only two real options.
So, what I propose is that a party (probably the democrats) create legislation before it becomes an issue to eliminate the spoiler thing, or perhaps strike a deal with Nader that "If you don't run, we'll make the process more fair".
In other systems, if a party gets, say, 5% of the vote, they get 5% representation. That makes it appealing to start parties -- if you get 5% of the vote, you get 5% representation in parlament. In order to lead parlament, you need a majority. If no party has a majority, they need to get other parties to sign on with them. My 5% now comes in handy: I tell the Christian Democrat party that I'll support them for Prime Minister if they let me be the head of a committee of if they help to pass legislation that I support but that they are ambivelant about.
/.ers felt that each cadidate should be his own man, and fight for his own beliefs, etc. But if I and 20 other candidates do that but one of our opponents gathers many constituents together and represents them, he will win, unless we counter with our own block.
In the US, the President and Congress get elected by a winner-take-all system. This might be becuse the US was the first country to experiment with how to make elections work -- this method seemed reasonable and there were no experiments to study which election method best acheived good results in terms of the Founding Fathers' values.
In the US way, it is natural for a 2 party system to evolve. That way, any given consituent maximizes his chances of getting power. If you start your own party and get only 5% of the vote, you get nothing, exept the ability to bargin with your opponents -- to tell them you won't run again if you make room in your party for me and my ideas; they're worth 5%. The system encourages parties to disolve themselves to join forces early to win a majority.
G Washington saw that two parties were natually forming and this bugged him -- he, like may
It is in this sense that Nader is a spoiler -- not because he doesn't have good ideas or because people shouldn't fight or vote for what they believe in, but becasue he is not acting in the interests of his constuents. If he were to bargin with his 5%, he'd get something done -- he could try to get Kerry to promise him Labor Secretary or to put some Nader issue on his agenda.
As it is now, he will get nothing -- no proportional representation, no Democratic appeasment, no favors. And since he isn't even acting within a party anymore, he'll get no future bargining power for the 3% he may get this time.
I don't understand what the big fuss is. He jumped throught the hoops and played by the rules and he's a candidate. He doesn't claim to be a different kind of democrat.
BTW, the argument could just as easily be made that the libertarians "steal" conservative votes. I've just never heard it.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
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.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
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.
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).
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.
Digital Citizen
The lesser of two evils is still a corprate whore who's policies will take money out of middle america and use it to enrich upper crust america.
Look at the percentage tax that the Kerry family pays... A full 10% less than mine - if he believes in his cause so much, why isn't he writing an extra payment for the taxes he THINKS he should pay to the government instead of paying accountants to shield his Income from taxes
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
and yet
Are you sure about that? Apparently voters like you are willing to give away your vote to an "ethically, progressively" "bankrupt" political party. So long as that is true, why shouldn't the Democrats continue to run to the Right and take their Progressive base for granted? You're not alone: lots of Progressive organizations (NOW, environmental organizations, educational organizations, and others) are willing to unconditionally endorse Kerry. What is the Progressive breaking point?
Digital Citizen
This time around the Greens are trying very hard to avoid being called spoilers by endorsing Kerry in contested states. This, despite how the Democrat platform has more in common with the Republican platform than the Green platform. This had little to do with avoiding a one-candidate party but real differences of opinion on when the Greens were deciding to run anyone for president and whether to run a 50-state campaign.
Part of the support the Greens got in 1996 and 2000 came from the awareness raised by Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns--campaigns that were endorsed by the Green Party.
Politics doesn't work according to the sequencing you're mentioning. Working together on specific issues is a great way to get things done, but first local, then national simply isn't how the Greens got the attention they now have.
Digital Citizen
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.
Perhaps we're risking another Leftists-asleep-at-the-wheel under Kerry:
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.
Digital Citizen
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...
Logic, macros, and more
There is more to the world than Kerry==white && Bush==black
Quite true...Kerry has looked rather orange lately.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
The United States is not a democracy, it is a Republic. Unfortunately, we have been slipping towards a Democracy for nearly 100 years now.
I guess that means Nader himself is pro-Bush- that he thinks 4 more years of W is better than Kerry. He's lost all of my respect at this point.
Your logic is so simplistic, that if it weren't so pervasive and common, would be truly laughable. Unfortunately, you are in good company.
So, if Nader thinks that Kerry would not make a good president, this somehow makes him pro-Bush. Fascinating... Logic dictates that the statement is fairly self-explanatory... "Nader thinks Kerry would make a bad president." Thank [deity] we have people like you to reach between/beyond the words, to extract meaning that escapes the rest of us!
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
Some could argue that Kerry is stealing votes away from Nader, not the other way around. That if the Democratic Party stopped participating in Presidential elections, Nader would win.
It's nice to hear someone make that concession to reality. Kerry's not my dream candidate, but then who is? And could my Dream Candidate even get elected? My Dream Candidate would have the balls to stand up and say all kinds of honest and controversial things... which would then cause people to vote against him.
And I think pandering is underrated. Bush is principled, sure. But his principles represent a small, very conservative subset of the nation. From a practical standpoint, I'd rather have someone like Clinton who tests the political wind and then goes whichever way it's blowing. OK, maybe he's not being true to his values. But if he's being true to the values of the electorate, that's more important. Hell, isn't that why we elect them: to promote our values, not their own?
Kerry and Bush came down on different sides of virtually every single issue in the debates. Taxes. Abortion. Foreign policy. Health care. Iraq. The environment.
But other than that, yeah. Both parties are the same.
I'm sorry, but I cannot respect your viewpoint. The Bush administration is simply a catastrophe. First of all, they fucked up on 9/11. They were warned about al Qaeda, instead Bush chose to antagonize North Korea and China and spend billions on National Missile Defense. The Afghanistan invasion was the right move, but since then the nation has fallen into the hands of warlords and drug lords. The invasion of Iraq has been a massive catastrophe. We've managed to kill thousands of civilians, destroyed our image abroad with Abu Graib, and given new motivation to anti-US terrorists worldwide. Plus, Bush has ruined the country financially by spending massive amounts on Iraq while cutting taxes on the richest of the rich. Oh, and let's not forget that this president who promised to be a "uniter, not a divider" has pandered to the radical fundamentalist Christians and Neocons and left the nation more polarized than it has been in a generation. By any objective standard, the Bush administration is a massive, catastrophic failure and he's one of the worst presidents in a century.
Maybe Kerry ain't perfect, but he's better. A lobotomized chimp would be better than Bush (and smarter). We've got to make realistic choices. Between bad and worse, I'll take bad. That's life. You have to make tough choices- it's part of being grown up and mature. Don't like it? Tough shit, that's life. Suck it up and deal.
"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.
Bush is going to steal votes from Kerry.
And Kerry is going to steal votes from Bush.
Oviously Saddam Hussein got it right, since nobody could steal votes from him.
I have only one further comment. Duh.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's hard not to be slightly biased to the democrats. As a european I find it mind boggling that a guy like Bush can become president, basically do everything his opponents feared he would do (and much worse) and still convince about half of the electorate that he's doing an ok job. Clinton lied about a woman, Bush lied about a lot more.
Personally I think America really deserves another four years of Bush (and the associated prolonged economical problems). They've been arrogant, dominant and foolish. Four years ought to be enough to at least double the deficit, kill what's left of US industry and alienate the rest of the world insofar that has not been accomplished yet. Unfortunately, that would likely affect other countries (such as my own) so it would be better for me and my fellow non US world citizens if Kerry were to win.
If you are planning to vote Nader, just remember that neither Bush nor Nader needs your vote. Nader doesn't expect to win and Bush will cheer you as a disgruntled democrat that won't put any votes in Kerry's pocket. It's as simple as that.
This election is about selecting the next US president. You have four options: not voting at all, voting Nader, voting Bush and voting Kerry. Three of those options will help Bush more than Kerry, so really there's only two choices: Bush or Kerry. You can support Bush by not voting, by voting for Nader (which is essentially the same thing) or by voting for Bush directly. You can only support Kerry by voting for him. If enough people get off their ass to vote (whatever they want to vote) on the election day, Kerry will easily win this election. All the current polls take into account a siginificant number of mostly poorly educated americans not voting. Bush depends on those people staying at home because these are mostly potential democratic votes.
Jilles
cheers mate, you live in one of the more sane countries on this clump of rock. Cherish it.
ex-NZ slashdotter
This sig is intentionally left blank
I support third parties and fully believe that the only way to take out the two headed hydra that dominates DC is to run non-conventional candidates against them. However, Nader is just as scary, if not scarier than wack jobs like Buchannan and Perot. Nader has alot of ideas that I agree with. But honestly, he has the kind divine authoratian streak that make many slashdotters question our current pResident's sanity. My problem with Nader's run isn't that he'll take votes from Kerry, actually. Its the fact that Nader and his followers are puritanical ideologues convinced wholeheartedly of their own greatness. The fact that Smirk getting back into office doesn't scare them should send chills up the spine of any sane or rational progressive. The scarier problem would be if these freaks ever came to power. One of my biggest fears with Nader is not whether or not Bush wins...its the eerie notion of Nader a president. It would the bizarre bastard child of force-fed political correctness, 1950's style social graces and left-wing Fascism that will define a Nader presidency. Remember that crap ass movie "Demolition Man"? Remember the vegan, androgynous wimp world that they future was? There was no meat, rock music or profanity or sex. Im a vegan and I would cringe at the type of world. This is the kind of whacked out world would be a political wet dream from people like Nader. Talking to a lot of Naderites, there's an eerie dictatorial streak within them. They think just because they may be right, they can shoehorn and ram their ideas down peoples throats. Seeing as many of these guys think Communist Russia wasn't that bad doesn't surprise me. I asked a fellow Green and ardent Naderite how does Nader expect to pass all of his more whacked out notions (like banning video games) without the support of Congress. He said without blinking an eye that Ralph could just pass everything as an executive order. Isn't that the kind of tyrannical bullshit that they get all pissed about with Bush? Its fine for Nader to rule by fiat because "he fights for the people"? Come on guys, lay off the weed! We agree on one point, if Bush gets elected, no Republican would be able to seek office for next 20-30 years, if the nation survives that long afterward. If Nader, or anyone like him, were to get into the drivers seat, he'll set our agenda back twice as far. Even the national Green Parties (they are technically two) told Nader to take a hike. Why? Because Nader basically felt that somehow the GP needed him, He calls us political immature because we as a party had the audacity to nominate an actual Green for president. He didn't notice that Greens are officially the nation's third largest political party and are growing in spite of him. I'm a Green and will continue to be one. But my biggest pet peeves in politics are stubbornness and arrogance. Nader's a threat because he would put Bush back into office. But I would argue Ralph Nader would be just as scary, if not scarier, if he were in power A REAL Green
If everyone who would have voted for Gandhi instead votes for Bush, it's very likely that Bush will win, making the world less evil than had Satan himself been elected. In that case, swallowing one's pride and voting for the lesser of two evils rather than the best candidate overall would make the world less evil, and hence be a good thing.
Here's how I think people should make their decisions: First, evaluate all the candidates, and rank them in the order of quality. Then check the polls and see who the two most electable candidates are.
If you don't see a compelling difference between the two leading candidates, vote third party. But take into account that, the closer the race, the less compelling the difference has to be. For example, if you end up casting *the* tiebreaking vote, even a 1% evil differential should be enough to make you choose the lesser evil rather than the best good.
If the race isn't even close in your state, feel free to vote for the best candidate running. I'm in Utah, where GW leads JFK 64% to 27%. In that case, why not vote Nader? A lot of people here are thinking that way, and it looks like he'll get about 4% of the vote.
I'm not following my own advice, in that I'm actually pretty comfortable with the idea that Kerry would do a better job than Nader. I'm also a little miffed about how he screwed up Florida in 2000. But I'm also in favor of third parties, and figure that a strong third party presence on the Left would force Dems to take interest in things like runoff ballots and splitting electoral votes (as is done in Maine, and as is being proposed for Colorado).
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
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.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
There are other things that are probably more polarizing than either of those. I suspect that except for a few other types of single-issue voters, the election will be decided mostly on whether one thought Bush's foreign policy was reasonable - in the sense of trumping up justification for overthrowing the government of some country that was no particular threat to us.
Gee, you're letting your bias seep through huh?
Seriously, I understand the point of view that says this election will hinge on the Iraq war. I disagree.
With the exception of people who have children in the Persian Gulf, that war isn't a huge concern.
Both major parties are made up of big block of single issue voters.
Abortion voters. The democrats have to take a stance against any restriction of the practice. Republicans have to pass any restrictions they can.
Everyone realizes that the only way the landscape can possibly change with regard to this issue is a change in the balance of power in the Supreme Court. Justices will most likely remain on the bench until a President who is in line with their politics is in office. The way the balance of power will change is if a justice dies while an opposition President is in office.
This issue is so explosive because the people who vote on it WILL leave a party if they feel betrayed.
Gun control voters. This is more of a volitile issue for Republicans than Democrats because once again. The Republicans have to worry about 3-4 million members of their base getting up and leaving the table if they vote wrong in Congress. The Democrats' only real peril with regard to this issue is pissing off too much of the opposition base, like they did in 1994.
Greenies. These are the people who only vote Democrat if there is no other choice. These are the people that the Democrats are trying to steal away from Nader.
Tax Cuts. This is more of an 'icing on the cake' issue than anything else. People aren't going to switch their vote just based on the minor details of a tax cut. Republicans want to cut everyone's taxes. Democrats want to cut taxes for people making under $200k annually. I suppose that only time will tell who's right, but this isn't really anyone's primary issue.
Foreign Policy voters are only slightly more of a factor than Tax Cut voters. It's another 'icing on the cake' issue. People who were leaning away from Bush anyway may use it for the last piece of justification that they need.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If a candidate from any party cannot convince people to vote for him, then that's just tough. In the case of the Democratic party there are just so many people working round the clock on this convincing that Kerry gets no sympathy if he can't win by a wide enough margin to withstand Ralph Nader.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
http://www.votepair.org/
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
Ready? Ok, basically it's this. Germany doesnt give a DAMN what you "colonists" think. This is about GERMANY voting for a GERMAN president who is sworn in by oath to protect the citizens of Germany. If Germans want to debate who should and should not be president, I'm cool with that. But for a bunch of "colonists" to start telling us German citizens that Hitler is evil is insulting. It doesn't matter who is the president. But when you insult our elected officials, you are also insulting the majority of the German public who voted them into office in the first place.