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.

Re:Betraying what he ran for last time

[DShard]

The Greens are winning some local elections and with time might become a viable national party by working from the ground floor on up.

Which is the only way you'll get an alternative party. You can't win at the national level unless you have enough local support to mean something. I think there is plenty of room for a third party if enough groundswell can be had.

That being said, while I appreciate the greens view of how to form a proper party, the greens are running with associating themselves with a narrow issue. I think a party who spoke to a sweeping view of individual empowerment, pro-democracy and government ethics would do well in on both sides of the aisle, namely a party of the middle, without the rhetoric or corporate sponsership.

Re:Betraying what he ran for last time

[chandoni]

I agree with you there. I think Nader was influenced by Camejo to use a "attack the Democrats to try to move them to the left" strategy. This would have been complementary to David Cobb and the Greens' "build the party by focusing on local candidates" strategy (not to be confused with Cobb's earlier "safe states" strategy, which he abandoned after talking to Greens who supported him).

What I blame Nader for in this election is that his campaign has treated the Green Party almost as badly as Democrats have treated Greens (and Nader): his supporters knocked Cobb off the ballot in Utah and Vermont, and tried unsuccessfully to do so in California. That won't help either campaign, or the Greens in the long run. Some of Nader's supporters seem more interested in tearing down the Green Party and trying to "start over" with a new party, or just fighting over the little power the Left has these days. This infighting pretty much destroyed the Socialists, and many of the same people are now attacking the Greens through Nader's campaign.

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.

30 whole states????

[ArsonSmith]

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.

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: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.

Re:Wasted Vote

[The Ogre]

> 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.

Give me a break here...

[quantax]

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.

why 3rd parties are bad

[jamienk]

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.

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 /.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.

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.

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.

Sequencing is not how people work politically.

[jbn-o]

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.

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.

Re:Its the fault of the electoral system

[peter hoffman]

The United States is not a democracy, it is a Republic. Unfortunately, we have been slipping towards a Democracy for nearly 100 years now.

• Democracy, n.: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct expression." Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic -- negating property rights. Attitude of the law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.(U.S. War Department's Training Manual No. 2000-25 of 1928)
• Virginia's Edmund Randolph participated in the 1787 convention. Demonstrating a clear grasp of democracy's inherent dangers, he reminded his colleagues during the early weeks of the Constitutional Convention that the purpose for which they had gathered was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy...."
• Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, championed the new Constitution in his state precisely because it would not create a democracy. "Democracy never lasts long," he noted. "It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself." He insisted, "There was never a democracy that 'did not commit suicide.'"
• New York's Alexander Hamilton, in a June 21, 1788 speech urging ratification of the Constitution in his state, thundered: "It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." Earlier, at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton stated: "We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy."
• Welch understood that democracy is not an end in itself but a means to an end. Eighteenth century historian Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, it is thought, argued that, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." And as British writer G.K. Chesterton put it in the 20th century: "You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution."
• Another champion of democracy was Communist Mao Tse-tung, who proclaimed in 1939 (a decade before consolidating control on the Chinese mainland): "Taken as a whole, the Chinese revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party embraces the two stages, i.e., the democratic and the socialist revolutions, which are essentially different revolutionary processes, and the second process can be carried through only after the first has been completed. The democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable sequel to the democratic revolution. The ultimate aim for which all communists strive is to bring about a socialist and communist society."

Re:Nader has lost it

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

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!

The spoiler effect

[Antony-Kyre]

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.

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

[flyingsquid]

My question to you, and every other Nader supporter: are you on crack?

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.

As Green I wouldn't vote for Nader if you paid me:

[Cappadonna]

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

Re:Calling all Ye Liberals!!!!

[An Onerous Coward]

I think the "lesser of two evils" folks really do have a point. Say you're presented with the following ballot:

[ ][ ] Satan (expected 47% of vote)
[ ][ ] GW Bush (expected 46% of vote)
[ ][ ] Gandhi (expected 3% of vote)

Now, let's assume that a Bush administration is undoubtedly evil, but would be very much less evil than a Satan administration. Let us further assume that Gandhi (despite being, in the most technical sense, dead) would do the best job of the three.

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).