Why is it *my* #%^*ing fault?

[MannyGoldstein]

"Ooohh, if you Liberals encourage Bernie or Elizabeth to run, the Republicans will take the White House! Ralph Nader! Ralph Nader!"

#%^* you. I'm just trying to defend myself from more attacks on us little people.

Hey, how 'bout you guys telling the Third Way to get the #%^* out of the way so real Democrats can run without a bank-funded shitstorm coming down on their heads? It's *their* fault, not ours, talk to them, not us.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. The 3rd Way amounts to a death spiral.

The Republican path is more like Wile E. Coyote going off the cliff.

Either one ends up in a crash, but the Republicans will get us to Doomsday a little faster, while the if the 3W is in charge, at least the gays will get to marry before everything goes to hell and only the rich can afford canned air to breathe..

The only way to avoid (or at least minimize) the crunch is to drastically shift our policies in a humane, life-affirming and rational direction. That would be sharply leftward.

Why the hell Not give Bernie or Liz a shot at the primaries? That's where we're supposed to discover the will of the people, no?

[wildbilln864]

17. yes it is! thank you. n/t

[Scootaloo]

161. When you're only making right turns, down is the only way to go

[passiveporcupine]

222. you have a big eyeball in your sink

Sorry, not on topic...just can't stop seeing an eyeball.

[F4lconF16]

235. ...

...it took me way too long to figure out that wasn't an eyeball...

[winter is coming]

236. There's *one* eyeball in the sink.

Is the other one in the shower?

[winter is coming]

2. The "Ralph Nader! Ralph Nader!" parrots never seem to remember that Bushco cheated

or that Al Gore, as VP, carried a lot of baggage. There were people who simply didn't want another 8 years of the Clinton Administration, and Gore was perceived that way. Lieberman as a running mate was a drag on the ticket, too. Gore would have been a better president than Shrub, but that doesn't mean he was a strong candidate. But the "Nader as spoiler" meme is a convenient cudgel to discourage Dems from considering anyone not deemed "electable" by the party leadership, which is why some people trot it out at the drop of a hat.

[FoxNewsSucks]

21. That's right.

BushCo cheated. (SOP for republicons)

Nader may have made it closer, but the fact is that Gore won. A recount in Florida would have given it to Gore, so SCROTUS stepped in and appointed Bush.

I'm almost as sick of these corporate Dems as I am of teabag moron republicons. I want to vote FOR someone, not just AGAINST the next republicon. We need a good liberal. Not just in the WH, but more genuine liberals in the Senate and House.

[truebluegreen]

34. +1 for SCROTUS.

And a belated welcome to DU.

[Jim Lane]

71. The Nader loyalists never seem to remember that an event can have more than one cause.

Katherine Harris engineered the illegal disenfranchisement of some 50,000 voters, almost all of them likely Gore supporters. Yet I never hear the Nader cheerleaders dismissing her criminality by saying, "Well, Bush became President because of the Supreme Court. Or Lieberman. Or Gore lost Tennessee." Or whatever. No one thinks that those other factors retroactively exculpate Katherine Harris. No, that kind of twisted logic is used only when the purpose is to spring to the defense of Saint Ralph.

By the way, what's your basis for asserting that Lieberman was a drag on the ticket? Like any running mate, he repelled some voters but attracted others. My recollection is that he was popular in Florida. In the spring, the conventional wisdom was that the four largest states were all locks -- California and New York for the Democrat but Texas and Florida for the Republican. With Lieberman on the ticket, Florida was instead very close. If our ticket had been (for example) Gore-Kerry, I think Bush would've won Florida without help from the Supreme Court. (Of course, the Gore-Kerry ticket might have won New Hampshire, getting to 270 without Florida, but that's another issue.)

[winter is coming]

76. Nader loyalists??

I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm not a "Nader loyalist". I've never been even remotely interested in voting for him or in apologizing for him. I find it interesting that you appear to equate what Katherine Harris did -- which was definitely criminal -- with Nader's decision to run. I hadn't realized that it's illegal to have a third party candidacy.

As for Lieberman being a drag on the ticket, I think he repelled more voters than he attracted. Gore needed a "likeable" running mate, someone who would have appealed to the sort of people who thought Bush would be the sort of guy they'd like to have a beer with (shudder). Lieberman just wasn't that guy. And Gore's handlers really blew it. I think if he'd been more himself and less what his advisers told him he should be/do, he would have done better.

[hfojvt]

88. you've never been interested in apologizing for Nader

so I guess it was NOT you who wrote that post attacking some "Ralph Nader parrots"

Something that looks a little bit like defending the a$$hole Nader against his detractors.

[winter is coming]

95. I'm not defending Nader against his detractors. I've always thought he was a blowhard.

I'm pointing out how simplistic and incorrect it is to blame 2000 on Nader. A lot of things happened in 2000, and almost all of them had nothing to do with Nader, but people are still saying, "If Nader hadn't run..." as if that were the only thing that kept Gore from office. The idea that Gore didn't run an effective campaign or that NAFTA hurt him never seems to occur to them.

[hfojvt]

105. nobody EVER says it was the ONLY thing

but the FACT remains that it was ENOUGH. Without Nader's idiotic campaign Bush does not enter the White House except as a tourist.

That's a simple fact that some people just cannot stop trying to deny. "But what about this? But what about that?" "SCOTUS. Gore's campaign. Jeb Bush. The M$M." ANYTHING BUT NADER. He had NOTHING to do with it. He had every right to run. Blah, blah, blah.

Lots of people, including millions of voters making wrong choices, put Bush in the White House.

But one of those wrong choices was - NADER. And one of the KEY factors was - NADER.

And the absolutely galling thing is this - Nader is supposed to be on the side of the angels. After he helped elect Bush, Nader's "Public Citizen" used to send me these letters "Oh, the Bush administration is awful. You need to send us money so we can stop the Bush administration."

And I am thinking "YOU should have thought about THAT in November, ya jackweasel."

[winter is coming]

117. Actually, a lot of people on DU vilify Nader as if that were the only thing.

And very few of them ever mention anything else. There's a tendency to heap all the blame on a factor beyond Dem control -- Nader's candidacy -- and none on something Dems might have done better -- Gore's campaign.

I don't think Nader's been on the side of the angels since "Unsafe at Any Speed", and perhaps not even then.

[hfojvt]

126. spoken like somebody who is NOT a Dem

and control?

Well, what happened in 2004?

Nader ran again, but this time he could not con nearly as many gullible fools into voting for him.

They were not gonna be fooled twice - good for them.

But "fool me once" and shame on WHO?

[winter is coming]

134. Blaming someone else for your failure is a Republican trait.

And by "Dem control" I meant factors that the Party could influence. Whether or not a third party candidate runs isn't something Dems can control. Our messaging about why our candidate is better than a third party candidate is something we can do something about. It's foolhardy to rely on, "NO, don't look over there! That's a third party candidate! Bad! BAD!" We have to convince people that we're a better choice.

[sabrina 1]

220. Exactly, so Nader never was a factor, was he, as you pointed out. We lost that election also.

Regardless of someone doing something perfectly legal as opposed to outright TREASON, there was no way they were not going to install Bush/Cheney in the WH. Which is why the Nader obsessed have zero credibility, when they run around acting like HE was a serial killer and ignore the REAL CRIMINALS something is way off with that.

Anyone who focuses on something that was the equivalent of a knat on an elephant rather than the elephant, has extremely questionable motives. Granted it is a tiny minority, but relentless in their attempt to try to distract from the real crime.

Why would ANYONE try to distract from that crime?

Gore WON, the SC stole that election, PERIOD, no ifs, ands, or Nadir!

[hfojvt]

239. well if not for the a$$hat Nader

Gore would have won New Hampshire and the Supreme Court would have been moot.

[sabrina 1]

257. Gore DID win. And had it not been for the SC traitors, he would have taken his rightful

place in history.

Anyone running legally as an Independent, had every right to do so.

The SC HAD NO RIGHT TO OVERTURN AN ELECTION.

And in 2004, it happened again.

The ONLY reason why Gore did not become president and Kerry did not become president, was CHEATING in our electoral system.

Corruption and treason in our electoral system were the ONLY factors that caused both Gore and Kerry to be blocked from entering the WH.

If NO ONE had run other than Bush and Gore, the SC would have stolen the election.

Your odd obsession with something that has no significance whatsoever re the 2000 election while ignoring the major crime that occurred, is incomprehensible to me frankly.

But the Felonious Five no doubt appreciate ANY attempt to deflect from the crime they committed against this democracy.

[sabrina 1]

207. The SC stole the 2000 election, and yet, there are those who defend the SC felonious

five by trying to point away from them, towards someone who is irrelevant regarding that massive crime. Why do people feel the need to protect those criminals? Nothing was done about that assault on Democracy, which is why I have no time for those who ignore it and try to distract from it by attacking someone who committed no crime, while the crime of century doesn't seem to interest them at all.

[Jim Lane]

102. Yes, that is indeed what the Nader loyalists invariably say.

If you yourself are not a Nader loyalist, fine. Nevertheless, those Nader loyalists do exist and they do make illogical arguments.

Yes, Nader had a legal right to run on a third-party ticket. Gore had a legal right to pick Lieberman as his running mate. Neither of these truisms stops us from addressing the serious issue, namely, what was the consequence of that legally permissible decision. It's perfectly consistent to say "He had the right to choose this way or that way, he exercised that right by choosing this way, and his choice turned out to be one of the reasons Bush became President."

Was the Lieberman choice one such reason? We can never know for sure. One thing that jumps out at me, though, is that you're talking about popular votes while I was talking about electoral votes. Any Lieberman-based increase or decrease in Gore's winning margin in California was immaterial to the outcome.

As to those popular votes, though, there were factors on each side. You're absolutely right that one of Gore's problems was the likeability thing. Another of his problems, though, was some people's lingering distaste for Clinton's adultery. I think it was more important to the electorate as a whole than it was to the ideologically oriented progressives who would go on to sign up for DU. Lieberman had criticized Clinton and had an image of personal rectitude. Partly for that reason, he was also perceived as somewhat more conservative than other possible running mates (though his Senate voting record up to that point was less conservative than in his final term). I'm sure he helped the ticket appeal to some swing voters who felt themselves more conservative than Gore but more liberal than Bush.

As to likeability, I don't know how much any running mate could have helped. Whom was Gore supposed to pick, Clint Huxtable? I focused on Kerry, who was reported to be the other top contender and who might have delivered New Hampshire, but he's also not exactly a have-a-beer-with type, at least to most voters.

Finally, getting back to Nader: I said that we can't know for sure if a different VP pick would have made a difference. We can, however, know, with a very very high degree of confidence, that a Nader decision not to run in the general election would have prevented the Bush presidency. Without Nader on the ballot, his voters would have done all sorts of things (stay home, write him in, leave the line blank, vote for whatever lesser-known candidate carried the Green banner, etc.). The only ones who matter are those who would have voted for Gore or for Bush. Nader's own polling of his voters showed that those who would have voted for Gore minus those who would have voted for Bush would have been enough to deliver a Florida margin for Gore that all the cheating in the world couldn't undo.

There can't be any serious doubt that Nader's decision to exercise his Constitutional right to run was one of the factors that resulted in the Bush presidency.

[winter is coming]

112. Actually, you don't know that. It's possible that Nader would have been a factor, but not certain.

It's believed that voting machines were tampered with. If Nader hadn't been on the ballot, it's likely the totals would still have been slanted in Bush's favor. It's also possible that the Nader voters wouldn't have voted for Gore, anyway. Sure those voters knew they were casting a "protest" vote. Without Nader on the ballot, there's a good chance those voters would have written in a name or not voted at all.

[Jim Lane]

123. I didn't make the assumption you attribute to me.

Please reread my post. I expressly stated that not all Nader voters would have voted for Gore. Many of them would indeed have found some other dimwitted way to make themselves irrelevant. The only ones who matter are those who, without Nader on the ballot, would have voted for Bush or for Gore.

My recollection of Nader's polling is that the percentage of Nader voters who said they would have voted for Gore minus the percentage of Nader voters who said they would have voted for Bush was about 13%. I think in real life it would have been much higher. The polling was done around the time of the election, when the Naderites were ticked at the Democrats after months of hostility. If Nader had announced in 1999 that he wasn't running, the net gain to Gore would have been far more than 13% of Nader's actual total. Still, even at 13%, it would have been enough to swing Florida (because there were limits to how much vote-stealing even Florida Republicans can do). At a realistically higher percentage it would have been enough to swing New Hampshire, too. Either state would have given Gore the White House.

[hfojvt]

115. nice job

but I think it is wrong to make it all about Florida.

The argument goes that, even if you flip another 20,000 votes into Gores column, that Jeb and Harris and SCOTUS would STILL have stolen Florida.

That same argument does not work for New Hampshire, and if Gore had won New Hampshire, which he would have with a mere 33% of Nader voters, then say hello to President Gore.

And then too, what about the impact of Nader in Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin? Those thirty electoral votes were saved from Bush by a mere 16,983 votes while Nader's total there was 222,052.

Let 17,000 more voters make the wrong choice and vote for Nader and Gore could have won Florida and still lost the electoral college.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/118

[winter is coming]

118. Which begs the question of why so many voters made "the wrong choice".

What did Nader do that Gore didn't? Did Gore ever have a reasonable chance of getting those votes?

I guess the thing that bothers me most about the "It's all Nader's fault!" crowd is that there is often an implicit (and sometimes explicit) assumption that Nader "stole" votes that "belonged" to Gore. Absent actual vote-tampering, that's just bullshit. Nobody is ever "owed" a vote: they must be earned. It's easier to get someone's vote when they think you have a chance of actually being elected, which means that whoever chose to vote for Nader or Buchanan or whoever in 2000 really didn't want to vote for either of the mainstream candidates. Instead of thinking about that, and whether the Party could get those votes (or even wanted to), we got stuck at "It's Nader's fault!" and thus learned nothing in 2000 that might have helped us in 2004.

[hfojvt]

124. yeah "stole" is always the strawman

the Nader defenders love to erect.

I never said that, or implied it.

The fact of the matter is that I did NOT vote for Clinton in 1992.

But unlike the Nader-deniers, I did it with my eyes open. I knew that I might be helping Bush to get re-elected.

In October of 2000, I wrote a letter to the editor, that helped Gore to win Iowa. I said "quite frankly, I am scared by the thought of Bush winning the election". I was afraid that it would be very, very bad for this country, and absolutely did NOT want that to happen.

It turned out that I was right.

It was very bad for this country.

Nader was asked before the election "What if you candidacy helps Bush win?" Something ANYBODY with a fucking brain KNEW was a possibility. That a$$hole pissant moron piece of excrement said "I do NOT care."

Well I cared then and I care now and that dipwad and his defenders still can NOT ever face facts.

Play the game of "It's a wonderful life". What would the world be like if Ralph Nader had never been born?

One thing is certain. There would NOT ever have been a President George W. Bush.

THAT is his legacy.

[winter is coming]

133. "Stole" is a word I've actually heard people use, even if you haven't.

I very much didn't want Bush to win, either. Despite that, we failed to convince Dems that they shouldn't vote for Nader or Bush instead of Gore. Blaming Nader for his candidacy keeps us from facing the fact that we failed in 2000. We failed to convince enough voters that Gore was a good choice and Bush a very bad one, and that's what annoys me about the "Nader EVIL!!" crowd.

Okay, you want to blame Nader. Go to town. But that's going to accomplish nothing vis a vis understanding how/why we didn't convince people that Bush was an awful choice. There's no reason to believe that the people who went third party didn't understand math. It's far more likely that they felt no one represented their interests, and a voter who feels neither party represents them is a wild card. They might vote for either party, or a third party, or for no one at all. Our candidates need to do a better job of representing people and convincing them that we do.

[Jim Lane]

125. A couple million of them realized their error.

You write that we "learned nothing in 2000 that might have helped us in 2004." Wrong. Before the 2000 election, it was obvious to sensible people that the Nader candidacy might cause Bush to be elected. The actual results brought this point home to many people who should have known it before but who needed to have their noses rubbed in it.

By my count, more than two million people learned something in 2000 that they then applied in 2004.

Number of popular votes for Ralph Nader:
2000: 2,882,955 (2.74% of the national total)
2004: 465,151 (0.38% of the national total)

Unfortunately, there are other people who still haven't learned this lesson. That's why a focus on Nader is appropriate. The lesson of Nader's 2000 candidacy is that third-party politics is a disastrous tactic for the left. That lesson is still relevant today, far more so than your speculation about Joe Lieberman's likeability or my speculation about how Gore-Kerry would have fared in New Hampshire.

[winter is coming]

130. ... or people realized between 2000 and 2004 just how much Bush sucked, or they

thought Kerry was a better candidate than Gore, or they wanted the Iraq War to end, or they realized Nader was an opportunist who didn't represent them either, or they didn't vote all, or...

I don't think you can draw the conclusion you've stated from the available data. We know fewer people voted for Nader in 2004. We don't know why.

[nyquil_man]

94. They also forget that Al Gore

won more votes than any Democratic presidential candidate up to that time. Three million more people turned out to vote for Gore than had voted for Clinton in 1996.

What hurt Gore more than anything was all those Perot '96 voters returning to the GOP fold.

[Adrahil]

131. Yes he did. But would it have been possible without Nader? I don't think so. NT

[Gothmog]

210. The facts back you up

The polling from the 2000 race showed that Nader cost Gore two states http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/ralph-nader-was-indispens_b_4235065.html

All polling studies that were done, for both the 2000 and the 2004 U.S. Presidential elections, indicated that Nader drained at least 2 to 5 times as many voters from the Democratic candidate as he did from the Republican Bush. (This isn't even considering throw-away Nader voters who would have stayed home and not voted if Nader had not been in the race; they didn't count in these calculations at all.) Nader's 97,488 Florida votes contained vastly more than enough to have overcome the official Jeb Bush / Katherine Harris / count, of a 537-vote Florida "victory" for G.W. Bush. In their 24 April 2006 detailed statistical analysis of the 2000 Florida vote, "Did Ralph Nader Spoil a Gore Presidency?" (available on the internet), Michael C. Herron of Dartmouth and Jeffrey B. Lewis of UCLA stated flatly, "We find that ... Nader was a spoiler for Gore." David Paul Kuhn, CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer, headlined on 27 July 2004, "Nader to Crash Dems Party?" and he wrote: "In 2000, Voter News Service exit polling showed that 47 percent of Nader's Florida supporters would have voted for Gore, and 21 percent for Mr. Bush, easily covering the margin of Gore's loss." Nationwide, Harvard's Barry C. Burden, in his 2001 paper at the American Political Science Association, "Did Ralph Nader Elect George W. Bush?" (also on the internet) presented "Table 3: Self-Reported Effects of Removing Minor Party Candidates," showing that in the VNS exit polls, 47.7% of Nader's voters said they would have voted instead for Gore, 21.9% said they would have voted instead for Bush, and 30.5% said they wouldn't have voted in the Presidential race, if Nader were had not been on the ballot. (This same table also showed that the far tinier nationwide vote for Patrick Buchanan would have split almost evenly between Bush and Gore if Buchanan hadn't been in the race: Buchanan was not a decisive factor in the outcome.) The Florida sub-sample of Nader voters was actually too small to draw such precise figures, but Herron and Lewis concluded that approximately 60% of Florida's Nader voters would have been Gore voters if the 2000 race hadn't included Nader. Clearly, Ralph Nader drew far more votes from Gore than he did from Bush, and on this account alone was an enormous Republican asset in 2000.

[deutsey]

137. Then there's the voter purges in Florida done by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris

I put much more blame on them, all the shady dirty tricks going on in Florida leading up to and during the election, the undemocratic US Supreme Court decision, and a complicit corporate-owned news media than I do on Nader.

And I agree that Gore was rather lackluster as a candidate.

[Gothmog]

150. Nader did cost Gore the 2000 election

We are living with Citizens United and the gutting of the voting rights act due to Nader. If the GOP wins in 2016, we can kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye.

[winter is coming]

180. So, the Dems who voted for Bush don't matter??

Why is it that every time 2000 comes up, people spit on the ground and blame Nader and the Dems who voted for him, but the Dems who voted for Bush get a free pass?

[Gothmog]

184. Just look at the votes that Nader took from Gore

I deal with facts that can be documented. Nader cost Gore two states and as a result we were stuck with Citizens United and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. The math is clear here. Why do you think that the GOP funded Nader in both 2000?

Charlie Cook is an expert of polling and elections. Here is his analysis of the 2000 election http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/ralph-nader-was-indispens_b_4235065.html

Nader-voters who spurned Democrat Al Gore to vote for Nader ended up swinging both Florida and New Hampshire to Bush in 2000. Charlie Cook, the editor of the Cook Political Report and political analyst for National Journal, called "Florida and New Hampshire" simply "the two states that Mr. Nader handed to the Bush-Cheney ticket," when Cook was writing about "The Next Nader Effect," in The New York Times on 9 March 2004. Cook said, "Mr. Nader, running as the Green Party nominee, cost Al Gore two states, Florida and New Hampshire, either of which would have given the vice president [Gore] a victory in 2000. In Florida, which George W. Bush carried by 537 votes, Mr. Nader received nearly 100,000 votes [nearly 200 times the size of Bush's Florida 'win']. In New Hampshire, which Mr. Bush won by 7,211 votes, Mr. Nader pulled in more than 22,000 [three times the size of Bush's 'win' in that state]." If either of those two states had gone instead to Gore, then Bush would have lost the 2000 election; we would never have had a U.S. President George W. Bush, and so Nader managed to turn not just one but two key toss-up states for candidate Bush, and to become the indispensable person making G.W. Bush the President of the United States

On issues like this, I trust Charlie Cook. The facts are clear.

[NobodyHere]

187. Those aren't facts

That's speculation.

[Gothmog]

200. Look at the polling and the fact that Karl Rove funded Nader

I posted the actual polling data that shows that Nader took more votes from Gore than from Bush. The other key fact is that Karl Rove knew this and the GOP was funding Nader. From the same article

Furthermore, Karl Rove and the Republican Party knew this, and so they nurtured and crucially assisted Nader's campaigns, both in 2000 and in 2004. On 27 October 2000, the AP's Laura Meckler headlined "GOP Group To Air Pro-Nader TV Ads." She opened: "Hoping to boost Ralph Nader in states where he is threatening to hurt Al Gore, a Republican group is launching TV ads featuring Nader attacking the vice president [Mr. Gore]. ... 'Al Gore is suffering from election year delusion if he thinks his record on the environment is anything to be proud of,' Nader says [in the commercial]. An announcer interjects: 'What's Al Gore's real record?' Nader says: 'Eight years of principles betrayed and promises broken.'" Meckler's report continued: "A spokeswoman for the Green Party nominee said that his campaign had no control over what other organizations do with Nader's speeches." Bush's people - the group sponsoring this particular ad happened to be the Republican Leadership Council - knew exactly what they were doing, even though the liberal suckers who voted so carelessly for Ralph Nader obviously did not. Anyone who drives a car the way those liberal fools voted, faces charges of criminal negligence, at the very least. But this time, the entire nation crashed as a result; not merely a single car.

The GOP was funding Nader and running ads for him because they knew that these ads would hurt Gore. You may not like these facts but they are still facts.

[winter is coming]

189. Cook completely bypasses the issue of Dems voting for Bush.

He assumes that Bush would have gotten those Dem votes whether or not Nader was in the race, and then concludes that Gore lost because Nader siphoned off Dem votes. So the problem, according to Cook, is Nader's candidacy and not the much larger number of Dem votes we lost to Bush.

That's just .

If we're going to look at the number of "Dem" votes that a Democratic candidate lost to other candidates, we should be looking at why all of those votes were "lost", and not singling out a small portion of them. If we don't, then how can we realistically expect to recapture all of those votes in a subsequent election?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/06/1260721/-The-Nader-Myth

[Gothmog]

194. The polling at the time showed that Nader took 2 to 5 times the number of votes from Gore vs Bush

This is from the article that I posted above

All polling studies that were done, for both the 2000 and the 2004 U.S. Presidential elections, indicated that Nader drained at least 2 to 5 times as many voters from the Democratic candidate as he did from the Republican Bush. (This isn't even considering throw-away Nader voters who would have stayed home and not voted if Nader had not been in the race; they didn't count in these calculations at all.) Nader's 97,488 Florida votes contained vastly more than enough to have overcome the official Jeb Bush / Katherine Harris / count, of a 537-vote Florida "victory" for G.W. Bush. In their 24 April 2006 detailed statistical analysis of the 2000 Florida vote, "Did Ralph Nader Spoil a Gore Presidency?" (available on the internet), Michael C. Herron of Dartmouth and Jeffrey B. Lewis of UCLA stated flatly, "We find that ... Nader was a spoiler for Gore." David Paul Kuhn, CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer, headlined on 27 July 2004, "Nader to Crash Dems Party?" and he wrote: "In 2000, Voter News Service exit polling showed that 47 percent of Nader's Florida supporters would have voted for Gore, and 21 percent for Mr. Bush, easily covering the margin of Gore's loss." Nationwide, Harvard's Barry C. Burden, in his 2001 paper at the American Political Science Association, "Did Ralph Nader Elect George W. Bush?" (also on the internet) presented "Table 3: Self-Reported Effects of Removing Minor Party Candidates," showing that in the VNS exit polls, 47.7% of Nader's voters said they would have voted instead for Gore, 21.9% said they would have voted instead for Bush, and 30.5% said they wouldn't have voted in the Presidential race, if Nader were had not been on the ballot. (This same table also showed that the far tinier nationwide vote for Patrick Buchanan would have split almost evenly between Bush and Gore if Buchanan hadn't been in the race: Buchanan was not a decisive factor in the outcome.) The Florida sub-sample of Nader voters was actually too small to draw such precise figures, but Herron and Lewis concluded that approximately 60% of Florida's Nader voters would have been Gore voters if the 2000 race hadn't included Nader. Clearly, Ralph Nader drew far more votes from Gore than he did from Bush, and on this account alone was an enormous Republican asset in 2000.

In this type of polling is considered to be facts and show that Nader cost Gore the 2000 election

[winter is coming]

208. I read the article. Like Cook, you're ignoring the fact that we lost far more votes to Bush

than we did to Nader. We should have paid attention to that and worked to recapture those votes. Instead, we took the lazy approach.

Any "Dem" vote we lose to another candidate is a lost vote. We should remember all of them, and try to improve our performance.

[Gothmog]

215. The votes lost to Nader would have elected Al Gore

The polling is clear. Nader cost Gore more than enough votes to swing the races in Florida and New Hampshire. If Nader was not in the race or if Nader had not been determined to be an ass, we would not have bush in the office. This is a simple case of "but for" causation (or proximate cause to use the legal concept). But for Nader's stupidity and arrogance, Al Gore would have won both Florida and New Hampshire. The fact that other factors could have caused Gore to win is meaningless in that the only factor that matters is the fact that Nader cost Gore the election. Your analysis is based on speculation and the facts that in the real world the proximate cause of Gore's defeat was Nader's stupidity and arrogance.

I am serious when I keep repeating that due to Nader, we are stuck with Citizen's United and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. I am scrambling to try to organize voter id clinics in Texas to attempt to undo the damage done by Nader. If a GOP candidate wins in 2016, we can kiss Roe v. Wade and the right to privacy goodbye.

[winter is coming]

216. And a *fraction* of the votes lost to Bush would have also elected Gore.

We are stuck with Citizens United because Gore didn't get enough votes. It is absurd to decide that the only "lost" votes that matter are the ones that went to Nader.

[Gothmog]

219. The votes lost to Nader are the votes that could be documented and accounted for

Proximate causation and causal effect are important concepts in my world. The fact that other factors could have helped Gore win does not negate or change the facts here that the votes lost to Nader gave us bush as president and Citizens United. The polling is clear that Nader cost Gore more than sufficient real votes to win both New Hampshire and Florida. This means that proximate cause of Gore's defeats in New Hampshire and Florida was Nader's arrogance and stupidity. The facts that I have cited back my position up and I am sorry that you do not like these facts.

[maddiemom]

231. Ah, but Gore DID get enough votes when all was said and done. We're stuck

with Citizens United thanks to the same five people who gave Bush the presidency. Yes, it certainly was the Crime of the Century (so far). Dems accepting it was the crime that followed. Republicans would never have taken that decision lying down.

[Gothmog]

240. The SCOTUS only had the opportunity to rule in Bush v. Gore due to bush's lead

If Gore had been ahead either before or during the recount, the SCOTUS could not have stepped in. The only way that the SCOTUS had the ability to rule in this case was the fact that bush had a lead in the vote at the time of the decision. If Nader had not focused on Florida in the closing days of the 2000 election in a deliberate attempt to give bush the election, the SCOTUS would not have been able to make the ruling in Bush v. Gore

[Gothmog]

225. Here is a fact that I found to be both troubling and conclusive

There is substantial evidence that Nader designed his campaign in a manner to hurt Al Gore and to cost Democrats the 2000 election. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/ralph-nader-was-indispens_b_4235065.html

There even exists strong evidence that Nader's chief purpose in his 2000 campaign was to help Bush defeat Gore. On 4 February 2001, columnist Marianne Means perceptively observed: "Nader is desperately trying to rewrite history to clean up his own role, claiming he did not intend to defeat Gore. The claim ignores the crucial fact that in the three days before the election he concentrated his campaign on Florida, where he knew Gore needed every single liberal vote he could scrape up." That's proof that Nader was aiming to elect Bush, rather than to be elected himself. Matt Welch, in the May 2002 Reason, bannered "Speaking Lies to Power," and ripped to shreds Nader's lies about the 2000 Presidential contest, and Nader's exquisitely selective citation of the least reliable data to support the conclusion that he hadn't caused Bush's "election."

And why is it that during the closing days of the 2000 political contest, Ralph Nader was choosing to campaign not in states where polls showed that he had a chance to win (which were non-existent), but instead in precisely those states where Gore and Bush were virtually tied and Nader's constant appeals to "the left" would be the likeliest to throw those states into Bush's column? That behavior by Nader makes no sense at all unless Nader was trying to ditch Gore's campaign and "elect" Bush - which he did....

In fact, Harry G. Levine, in his "Ralph Nader as Mad Bomber," reported a personal incident, when, "I was introduced to Tarek Milleron, Ralph Nader's nephew, the single person closest to him in the whole campaign." Levine told Milleron, "'If Gore lost, Nader would have substantial credibility and power within the Democratic party. By holding back in a handful of states now, he could demonstrate his capacity to cause real damage in the future, and gain much in the short and the long run.' Tarek did not disagree with that at all. Instead, leaning toward me, with a bit of extra steel in his voice and body, but without changing his cool tone and demeanor, he simply said: 'We are not going to do that.' 'Why not?' I said. With just a flicker of smile, Tarek said: 'Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them.'" Levine went on: "In Tarek's unforgettable phrase, Ralph Nader wanted to hurt, wound and punish the Democrats. This was much more than indifference. Nader was not simply opposed to helping the Democrats, he actually wanted Gore to lose. ... But his supporters were not being told this."

After Nader's victory in 2000, however, Nader became bolder about letting the public know his true motivation. On 4 March 2001, Dick Polman headlined in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "An Unrepentant Nader Sticks To His Plan He Wants The Green Party To Run Up To 80 Congressional Candidates. That Could Drain Votes From Democrats." Polman described his interview of Nader:

"In a long conversation at his office the other day, he said: 'I'm just amazed that people think I should be concerned about this stuff. It's absolutely amazing. Not a minute's sleep do I lose, about something like this - because I feel sorry for them. It's just so foolish, the way they have been behaving. Why should I worry?' ... Nader is mapping new mischief with the potential to gladden the hearts of Republicans everywhere. He is working with the Greens to run as many as 80 candidates in the 2002 congressional elections - twice the number that ran in 2000. If he succeeds, Nader could drain liberal votes from Democrats in tight races, and severely impede the Democratic effort to wrest the House of Representatives away from the GOP. He is not coy about his motives. ... As he put it, 'The Democrats are going to have to lose more elections. They didn't get the message last time.'"

Nader repeated his strategy (to "wound and punish the Democrats," as Tarek had put it, much more clearly) during the 2004 contest. On 9 September 2004, some prominent members of the Green Party went public sharing the conclusion that he was out to damage the Democratic Party and to help the Republican Party, and they issued a group press release, which opened: "Greens for Impact, a committee of elected officials and Green Party leaders, is dismayed to see that Ralph Nader's campaign schedule for September consists almost completely of battleground states, where his presence could aid in re-electing George W. Bush." They detailed six separate points of Nader's "Rhetoric" on this that were at odds with the clear "Reality," and concluded: "Taking all of these inconsistencies and hypocrisies together, one can only conclude that Nader's commitment to defeating Bush is a ruse." Finally, these suckers recognized the fact.

I remember at the time that it was obvious that Nader was not interested in being elected (or getting the Green Party 5% of the vote) but was interested in punishing the Democrats and Al Gore. Nader focused on the swing states where he could give the election to Bush and Nader was successful in these efforts in New Hampshire and Florida.

Nader accomplished his goal of hurting the Democrats and election Bush. I was not a fan of Nader at the time and once it became clear that Nader intended to hurt and punish the Democrats, I have had no respect for Nader.

[winter is coming]

226. That speaks to Nader's motives. It still doesn't make him the sole villain.

You want to demonize, go right ahead; he's a jerk. But putting all of 2000 on Nader's shoulders is still simplistic and erroneous.

[Gothmog]

229. I disagree

I do not think relying on polling data and facts is simplistic or erroneous. I am using the same type of causation standard that is used in the real or legal world, i.e., but for causation. But for Nader's desire to punish the Democratic Party for his own ends, we would not have seen bush being elected, the Iraq war or the Citizen's United.

I note that you do not want to discuss the fact that Karl Rove and the GOP was funding Nader. From the article posted above:

On July 9th, the San Francisco Chronicle headlined "GOP Doners Funding Nader: Bush Supporters Give Independent's Bid a Financial Lift," and reported that the Nader campaign "has received a recent windfall of contributions from deep-pocketed Republicans with a history of big contributions to the party," according to "an analysis of federal records." Perhaps these contributors were Ambassador Egan's other friends. Mr. Egan's wife was now listed among the Nader contributors. Another listed was "Nijad Fares, a Houston businessman, who donated $200,000 to the Bush inaugural committee and who donated $2,000 each to the Nader effort and the Bush campaign this year." Furthermore, Ari Berman reported 7 October 2004 at the Nation, under "Swift Boat Veterans for Nader," that some major right-wing funders of a Republican smear campaign against Senator John Kerry's Vietnam service contributed also $13,500 to the Nader campaign, and that "the Republican Party of Michigan gathered ninety percent of Nader's signatures in their state" (90%!) to place Nader on the ballot so Bush could win that swing state's 17 electoral votes. Clearly, the word had gone out to Bush's big contributors: Help Ralphie boy! In fact, on 15 September 2005, John DiStaso of the Manchester Union-Leader, reported that, "A year ago, as the Presidential general election campaign raged in battleground state New Hampshire, consumer advocate Ralph Nader found his way onto the ballot, with the help of veteran Republican strategist David Carney and the Carney-owned Norway Hill Associates consulting firm."...

Indeed, the Bush strategists would need to have been stupid not to have thought this idea up, especially because the Republican Party has routinely funded, and otherwise helped, in Democratic primaries, the weak political candidate to win the Democratic nomination, in order to enhance the chances for the Republican candidate to beat his ultimate Democratic opponent. This has been one of the Republican Party's most effective tactics.

Liberal suckers might not have known that Nader was working for the Republicans, but the Republican Party's leadership certainly did - and they acted accordingly. The only people who didn't were Nader's own voters.

Most of Nader's funding came from the GOP. The GOP knew that Nader would hurt Gore and help Bush. The GOP big donors are smart and know how to get the most for their money. In this case, they knew that funding Nader was a great investment because they knew that Nader would hurt Al Gore. This is exactly what happened.

We can agree to disagree but I really do believe that Nader's arrogance and stupidity gave us Citizens United and was responsible for the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. I have a party meeting tomorrow night and then I have to continue planning to see if I can organize a voter id clinic in my county to try to undo some of the damage inflicted by Nader.

[G_j]

156. there was a major civil rights issue also, which never seems to garner much concern

that is all those African American voters being disenfranchised, and the Congressional Black Caucus being hung out to dry by the rest of the Democrats.

[winter is coming]

181. Yes. And the disenfranchisement goes on and on. n/t

[Bonobo]

3. They should start a Narcissists Party!

Those damned narcissists!

[adirondacker]

20. DARN!

Democrats Acting Republican Narcissistically

[Pholus]

127. Awesome! :)

Without narcissism as a requirement, I would have chosen DORK!

Democrats appropriating Republican karma.

[blue neen]

4. It's not your fault.

It's just not real productive when we should actually be discussing the 2014 mid-terms.

Oh, and the "#%^* you" wasn't necessary.

[MannyGoldstein]

28. "Hey Liberals! Look over there!"

While the Third Way focuses squarely on 2016.

[blue neen]

44. To be quite honest, I don't even know what the Third Way is.

Last edited Wed Mar 12, 2014, 12:08 AM - Edit history (1)

This much I know: I want to get rid of this idiotic, good-for-nothing, so-called "less government" tea-bagger (he, the wifey, and 6 kids have been living off the taxpayers at least 10 years) we have for a House Rep.

I don't want to see him vote for the 51st time to repeal the ACA. We're stinking sick of him voting to take away women's control over their own bodies. Every time his office calls for a "telephone town hall meeting" we're subjected to a mewling 25 minute dissertation on why he's the next incarnation of Grover Nordquist. When we get the mail, it's enough to make one puke, because it's a freaking push poll disguised as a "survey" (that way the "government" will pay for it)----that's just touting rabid, right wing talking points.

Don't even get me started on the dire need to oust Tom Corbett, because this post would never end.

There are probably millions of Americans who feel the same way about their Rep and their Governors. We need to get these tea-idiot, Koch-funded, ALEC monsters OUT.

So, forgive me if some people are really not interested in 2016 right now....and it has nothing to do with diversion.

[JDPriestly]

52. I agree that we need to work on 2014, but my democratic congressman has a very, very secure

seat. I can't give much help to other districts although I will do everything I am capable of to see that Democrats outside my district are also elected.

I live in Los Angeles along with lots of other Democrats. We may have a chance in San Bernardino and Riverside counties here. But that is a long way from my home. Still, I will help as I can.

If we don't start talking about supporting a truly liberal candidate like Warren or Sanders now, it will be too late after this year's election.

[blue neen]

53. Thank you.

With all due respect, though, if we don't get these teabaggers out it's too late NOW.

[JDPriestly]

60. Getting the teabaggers out is primarily the job of Democrats living in the teabaggers' districts.

There isn't much the rest of us who are represented by liberal Democrats can do. A few phone calls, donations and advice and that is about it. Talk to your neighbors. Get together with some Democrats in your area and table, that is put up a table in a public place (watch the ordinances or laws on time, place and manner, how many people can be at one table and where you can put your tabel) on which you put information about your Democratic candidate. Inform yourself thoroughly about the issues and then just talk to voters.

Do it once or twice every week and not always in the same place. Get teams of people doing that.

[blue neen]

69. Well, let's see...

because Democrats didn't get out and vote in 2010, the gerrymandering in PA was done by the rabid Republicans. You know how that works...."let's make these new districts practically unwinnable and uninhabited by Democrats".

The people in charge of getting out the vote in this county for Democrats in 2008 actually had to sell their house and move away (because of threats and harassment). That's what this area is like, and it's even worse since the redistricting. There aren't a whole lot of people volunteering for that job now. Believe me, though, we'll try as hard as we can.

The voter suppression tactics and attacks on voting rights coincided with the 2010 election of ALEC Republican Governors and the gerrymandered state Houses. You remember this guy, don't you?:

Do you really think those Republicans care WHAT Democratic candidate they're suppressing the turnout for? They won't care if it's Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or whomever you can name, as long as there's a D beside their name. We need to get these Republican crooks out NOW.

2014 matters.

[winter is coming]

80. It's the independents who didn't turn out in 2010.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010-midterms-political-price-economic-pain/story?id=12041739&singlePage=true

Swing-voting independents who, as usual, made the difference, favored Republicans for House by a thumping 16 points, 55-39 percent. Compare that to Obama's 8-point win among independents in 2008.

[blue neen]

85. From the same article:

"Democrats and Republicans were at parity in self-identification nationally, 36-36 percent, a return to the close division seen in years before 2008, when it broke dramatically in the Democrats' favor, 40-33 percent."

Democrats lost 4% of their voters. Republicans gained 3%. That difference hurt. For instance, if 4% more Democrats had shown up in 2010, Pennsylvania would now have Senator Sestak rather then Heritage Foundation darling Pat Toomey.

2014.

Off to bed......

[winter is coming]

99. Which makes 2008 the outlier, not 2010.

Yes, we should do our best to GOTV, but it's not realistic to expect that we'll get all the casual voters to turn out this year. We should certainly try, but we won't get all of them.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

243. http://www.thirdway.org/

[GoneFishin]

5. My goal is to vote for someone who seems to represent my interests. Screw the "lesser of two evils",

the "inevitable candidate", or the "only anointed ones allowed" positions. If I vote for a candidate I like based on their actions (not the propaganda) then I have done my best.

[Ed Suspicious]

13. Got that right. If the party wants to win it better put up a populist candidate because I'm done

compromising my principles away. We rule the party, they party doesn't rule us.

[wildbilln864]

18. a fuckin men! n/t

[840high]

14. Good.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

33. So, you will feel sufficiently represented by a contributor on MSNBC?

[Maedhros]

147. If the Democrats want my vote, they need to EARN it,

not just tell me they're ENTITLED to it.

[beerandjesus]

152. ...and THAT is why Al Gore lost.

There were good reasons to vote FOR Nader.

There was precious little reason to vote FOR Gore.

* * *


Not campaigning in the South was pretty stupid too.

[Autumn]

6. The only voice we have is our vote. I will do with my

voice what I chose. I owe nothing to any politician.

[Scuba]

7. This is fucked up.

I can only rec this post once.

[Fumesucker]

8. Because you are the designated scapegoat

You Naderite Putinista you.

The left has been the cultural scapegoat since at least 1968.

Now why don't you go sit in a nice drum circle somewheres and let the Very Serious People be serious and seriously run things? They've done such a bang up job for the last forty years.

[sibelian]

128. SO MUCH CYNICISM.

I BEAM INDIGO CRYSTAL CHAKRA TRANSDIMENSIONAL META-HEALING ENERGY AT YOU!

nnnnn!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAM!

I'm gonna beam the shit out of you, you fuck.

[Agony]

9. Because you are an imprinted baby duck hater...

[winter is coming]

12. So, does that mean he's an imprinted baby duck who hates?

Or someone who hates imprinted baby ducks? And what's his position on adult ducks?

[Aerows]

10. If a third way Democrat wins

it is in spite of the "left" wing of the party. If a third way Democrat loses, it is because of the "left" wing of the party.

[winter is coming]

15. I'm always entertained by the paradoxically elastic size of "the left".

When we campaign to have our interests represented, we're sneeringly told that we represent an insignificant portion of the Party. When the Dems lose, suddenly we're large enough to be single-handedly responsible for that loss.

Gosh, if we're truly big enough to cost Dems an election, maybe the Party should treat us like it?

[Aerows]

30. The "left" only matters

when they pull the lever for the third way candidate and clap when the candidate, during an election season, makes pretty speeches that appeal to the "left". Once the candidate gets elected, under the bus the "left" goes.

I agree - we get blamed for everything and our interests ignored when the polls close (except for a very few that actually practice what they preach).

[LiberalLovinLug]

31. Great point!

[beerandjesus]

155. Post of the day!

+

[DeSwiss]

11. Because.

- K&R

[madinmaryland]

16. Are you FUCKING series???? Neither "Bernie nor Elizabeth" EVER FUCKING ran against

a DEMOCRATIC candidate in a general election.

What a silly fucking post.

Un-rec.

[Autumn]

29. Neither did Obama, until he did.

[PhilSays]

19. Real Democrats are supported by a majority of the party.

Right now that person is Hillary Clinton.

Warren is not ready to be President and Bernie never will be presidential material.

Fantasies are fun, though. Keep thinking creatively.

[truebluegreen]

36. Enjoy your stay. nt

[lostincalifornia]

57. One thing is true, who ever wins the Democratic nomination, will run against the rethug. If Bernie,

Elizabeth, Hillary, or someone else run as a third party, that person will not win. However, whoever wins the Democratic nomination, be it Bernie, Elizabeth, Hillary, or someone else, that person has a very good chance to win.

That is the way the system is setup today

[Beacool]

179. Actually, he's just stating facts.

[Auntie Bush]

238. WHY?

Is this site so far left a leading Democrat that can win the White house should be pushed off this site.

[WinkyDink]

250. What?? Never mind; just post it when Bernie joins our Party.

[passiveporcupine]

224. Hillary never met a war she didn't like

Time for change. No more neocons.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

22. The Ralph Nader idiocy will be hard to live down, won't it? nt

[KoKo]

23. Chuckle...So True!

[pragmatic_dem]

24. But wait- Pres. Obama announced that income disparity is a problem...

which he intends to solve by putting Microsoft's Bill Gates and GE's Jeff (The Knife) Immelt on a task force.

So why would you change horses mid-stream?

[JDPriestly]

54. +1000.

[ProSense]

25. I'd like to accept this award for everyone who ever said

Fuck Nader: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024629502

Thank you! Thank you!

[Gothmog]

206. Sen. Sanders did a great job of responding to Nader

I admire Senator Sanders as a person and thought that he dealt with Nader in a very appropriate manner.

[TomClash]

26. I propose a new third way

Start from the First Way.

[longship]

27. Manny's gone bye-bye. Whatta ya got, Egon?

[rhett o rick]

32. Can you explain if the Third Way really want Republicans to win? They offer nothing that the Republ

Republicans dont offer. They disparage the Left. When you look at it, there are really only two sides. The Left and the Right. Seems to me that the Third Way accepts the Right. They openly accept fracking, NSA spying, major pipelines across our country, crippling trade agreements, torture, indefinite detention, illegal drone killings, etc. They march with the Republicans.

Blaming Ralph Nader reminds me of the school yard. They refuse to take responsibility and look for a scape goat.

Here's a warning to them. If you want the Republicans to win, NOMINATE H. CLINTON-SACHS, but dont blame Nader it you lose. If you run Clinton-Sachs and lose, it's all on you.

[pragmatic_dem]

35. In Florida 24,000 Democrats voted for Nader, 308,000 Democrats voted for Bush.

You know the kind of liberal who would vote for Bush, right? The so called "independent" conservative/centrist who is comfortable with the status quo.

It's the kind of person who doesn't want change, is fiscally conservative, socially liberal (which just means they oppose abortion but might support gay marriage as long as it is a civil ceremony and their kid doesn't bring one home, etc etc).

It's the 3rd way advocate who believes corporations should be chartered by government to solve difficult problems like pollution, income disparity. You know, in olden times they were called Chartered Monopolies and it's why the constitution is filled with anti-trust law and regulations on banking etc. Well used to be, until Washington decided to subsidize mortgage fraud.

Oh, and you can be sure, the Dems who voted for Bush are fine and dandy with spying.

That's the kind of Democrat who blames Nader.

------

There are plenty of other points that can be made about Gore’s loss, including the fact that if he’d carried his own state of Tennessee (where Nader was not a factor), all of this would be moot.

Jim Hightower

On edit -

The conservatives will blame Nader, selectively filtering out that Clinton was banging Monica with cigars in the Oval office while not understanding the meaning of the word "is". I'm pretty sure that also had something to do with Gore's loss.

[Autumn]

37. pragmatic_dem Welcome to DU.

You are wonderful.

[Marr]

38. EXCELLENT point. /nt

[JI7]

45. that's because those Dems wanted someone who was more right wing

[kcr]

46. Gore didn't cary his own state of Tennessee

Because he wasn't nearly conservative enough for that very red state. He would have had to have run farther to the right. I don't get why this is an indictment on Gore. Your assessment of the Dems who voted for Bush is spot on. But the Democrats that voted for Nader in Florida made a mistake. As did Nader when he chose to run as a 3rd party spoiling the race. And I'm no conservative Dem and never have been.

[pragmatic_dem]

49. The Worker's World Party got more than 1000 votes

and that would have been enough for Gore to win. !0 candidates got more votes than the necessary margin. Democrats lost the election by sheer incompetence. Nader didn't. Why not blame the Workers World Party? Those voters wouldn't vote for Bush i bet.

And I'm pretty sure even Monica Lewinsky would have gotten more votes than Nader. Conservative democrats need to take responsibility for their own mistakes. After Democratic leadership bumbling, it was their election to lose.

Democrats keep pushing hard right, anyone in their way gets blamed. But its right wing leadership that is making distinctions between the two parties less and less clear.

[kcr]

51. Okay, we can blame them, too.

I have no problem with that. And blame I will. It is extremely frustrating to see other people who are ideologically just like myself throw away their votes because they think that will solve the problems our two party election system causes. I know i'm only wasting my time. It's a shame.

[pragmatic_dem]

56. So you believe that a political monopoly is best for all, unlike corporate monopolies? I don't...

When you punish people for their ideas and punish them for applying principals , you have a system that will never change and likely be happy with an authoritarian leadership that pronounces spying is ok for everyone.

Unless there is pressure from political competition, Democratic party will keep moving hard right in the shadow of the Republicans.

Let's not forget Obama has credited Obamacare to Mitt Romney.

Bill Clinton damaged the party. Democratic leadership damaged the party. You should be thankful it wasn't worse.

[kcr]

61. No, I don't believe that at all

I just don't believe the way to do that is to punish the country by helping Republicans to get elected. I'm not punishing anyone by stating hat votes have consequences. This country voted for Bush. That was the punishment. Yep, we will indeed keep moving right in the shadow of Republicans. That's why it's so important they never get into office in the first place. Never, ever. Because the policies they enact have long lasting consequences long after they're in office. The damage they've done to our media for example? Is a big reason why even when we win, the victory is flat. Clinton wasn't all that hot as a president. Coming after Reagan and Bush I? Is it all that surprising? Yes, we should be thankful it wasn't worse. And we should have done everything possible to make sure we didn't get yet another one. I surely did my part and voted for Gore. I do not understand how anyone could have done otherwise. The damage another Bush did wasn't worth it.

[pragmatic_dem]

68. Bush, won twice. Is that Nader's fault? Democratic leadership is responsible. It's their job.

The Democratic Party is trying to look like a kinder gentler Republican Party. I don't agree with that strategy at all. It is hurting the nation even if it is keeping political hacks employed (god help them if they ever have to find a real job).

When you play in the margins like that you better be sure you can win. We have two very conservative political parties trying to win the independent vote. It really is the lesser of two evils.

Democratic Party has become just another soulless too big to fail enterprise, filled with marketing slogans about jobs and economy, while quietly pushing trade agreements that will send another million jobs to Asia.

Actually listening to Democrats complain about Nader is sickening. If the complaints are correct, that makes Nader and his modest campaign much more powerful than the entire the Democratic Party.

Democratic Leadership blew it. It's their own fault. They need to get over it and correct the HUGE and BLUNDERING mistakes.

Oh, nevermind, it's too easy to blame Nader or Snowden or the boogie man.

[kcr]

72. Nader is partly to blame

He was a spoiler in the race. With our two party political system, 3rd parties are spoilers. They siphon off votes from the two major parties. When the races are close, they have the potential to effect the outcome. If Nader hadn't have run, we very likely would have had President Gore in 2000.

I don't agree with the Dem strategy either. But our staying home or voting 3rd party isn't changing anything. All it does is put Republicans in power. Dem politicans don't look at that and think they have to move to the left. They go home and lick their wounds, look at the Republicans who've won, and think they have to be more like them. That's what they've done in the past and that's what they do now. That's why the Dems who do occasionally manage to win are more conservative. See Clinton. See Obama. This strategy isn't working for us, is it? The Dems are essentially bashing their heads against the wall with this awful strategy, and you're essentially doing the same thing, too. We have to change the party. We don't do that by taking our ball and going home.

[pragmatic_dem]

79. But 300,000 Democrats in Florida voted for Bush, not Nader. Why not blame them? Or Dem leadeship or

Al Gore's wife for pissing off the youth vote by labeling 10,000 Maniacs a dangerous rock band for children to listen to???

or the 10s of millions of Democrats who stayed home.

Nader didn't lose. It took far more courage to do what he did than it did for Bill Clinton to try to BS his way out of a sex scandal.

[kcr]

81. Hmm

You're starting to remind me of my ultra right wing parents in your fixation on Clinton and his sex scandal It's interesting.

Why not blame them? Well, okay, but those are people who voted for Bush, and likely would have voted for bush whether Nader ran or not. I don't think they would have switched to Gore had Nader not run.

I do blame the Dems who stayed home. But if Nader hadn't run, we'd probably have president Gore. I guess Nader can point the finger at them, too, and say it's their fault it was so close and he'd have a point as well. But that's why you don't spoil races.

Like I just said in another post, I don't recall Tipper Gore specifically targeting 10,000 Maniacs. Whatever your opinion is with her cause, it has stuck. Music is still labeled with parental advisories. Nader is a consumer advocate. I wonder what his take on that would be? I bet you'd be surprised.

[pragmatic_dem]

86. And you seem to be deflecting blame for failure away from Democratic leadership

who, in fact, lost the election. Not Ralph Nader.

I wouldn't be surprised by anything. I didn't vote for Nader, but I'm glad he ran. I wish we had more pressure like that from 3rd party forcing Democratic leadership to respond left of center instead of pushing right.

If you are going to bring up Nader, I am going to bring up Clinton. Clinton did far more damage than Nader.

You could say that Clinton was unsafe at any speed. What a jerk, had it all and threw it away with arrogance.

He could have been humble, but no - had to drag it out into a circus.

He wrecked the party for a decade.

[kcr]

101. Not at all

I just think that kind of pressure and the damage 3rd party spoiling does is more harm than good, especially when the spoiling is sucessful. It's not worth the risk. I think of where we could be right now if we'd elected Gore. Instead we got eight years of Bush followed by a wishy washy Dem. Who knows what would have happened otherwise?

Bring up Clinton. He came after Reagan, who defeated Carter, who was utterly abandoned and challenged by liberals. Talk about a mistake!

[Maedhros]

148. Here's the thing: Nader ran to the left of Gore, and Gore did not respond.

He stuck with the DLC campaign plan the whole way through.

If he wanted those Nader votes in Florida, then he should have campaigned for them.

[Beacool]

191. Clinton left office with the highest approval ratings of any president in years.

Higher even than St. Ronnie.

Gore never utilized Clinton, he offered to campaign from Gore, but Gore hardly used him at all. I noticed that Obama didn't make that same mistake.

As for the RW witch hunt that ended in an impeachment over lying about oral sex, you sound like a Right winger on that one. They also can't seem to let it go.

[pragmatic_dem]

244. Clinton's approval was so high, 300,000 FL democrats voted for Bush. That's why Gore lost. Blame

democratic leadership. Their job is to win elections, but they only seem capable of deflection and defensive posturing.

[beerandjesus]

154. Amen to your PMRC point!

The PMRC cost Gore far more votes than Nader possibly could have, guaranteed!

[pragmatic_dem]

245. Possible - PMRC was a cluster-fk, unwelcome invasion of hard right wing into democratic party

that continues today.

[Beartracks]

157. "10s of millions of Democrats who stayed home"

That right there is a problem each individual Democrat can actually do something about.

We can't keep scandals from happening.

We can't keep spoiler candidates from running.

We can't keep big money out of campaigns.

But we CAN vote, and thus we CAN keep Republicans out of office.

Honestly, Dems who are disgusted or discouraged by crap like Clinton's affairs in the Oval Office, who then stay away from the voting booth as a result, need to remember each Election Day how much more disgusting and discouraging -- and DAMAGING -- Republican administrations and Republican Congresses are.

=====================

[winter is coming]

185. ^^ This.

And I'll add: And the Democratic Party needs to remember that every time they move to the right, they lessen the difference between Democratic and Republican positions, and that hurts us. Every time we chase after the votes in the middle that might be ours in one election and someone else's the next, we run the risk of alienating people who will reliably vote Dem if they can be persuaded to turn out.

[kcr]

186. All true

The Dems who think the answer is to chase votes to the right aren't doing any favors. But neither are the people who stay home or vote 3rd party. The argument that this will move the party back to the left is bogus. The advantage the right has over us is a solid and reliable voting base, and they've certainly haven't suffered for it or moved to the left when turnout was high regardless of who was running. They don't have to "earn votes", and their platform is as right wing as ever. They can stay comfortably right wing and keep humming along, getting their candidates elected while we struggle with our petty infighting. Staying home, folding our arms and saying, "Well, you should have run a better campaign!" while the Repubs take office doesn't help.

[winter is coming]

190. The people who feel disenfranchised by their own party don't seem to feel that

it's a matter of "petty infighting". How many times have you heard the phrase, "I didn't leave the Party; the Party left me"? We are members, not captives, of the Democratic Party. People who don't feel represented by the party aren't likely to support it indefinitely. The Republicans rely on fear, hate, and lies, of which they seem to have an inexhaustible supply. That's not how our party works, so comparing us to them isn't that useful.

[kcr]

192. I don't know what to tell them. They can't see the results? What's happened to this country?

The demise of our unions and our middle class? It is petty because we are captives and that is the truth. We are captives of the political system. When you give up on that system, the results are disastrous. For some reason, Republican voters seem to understand this. I would give anything if it were true for our side. If it were so? We'd have a strong middle class. We'd have thriving unions. Because Reagan never would have happened. 8 years of Bush II wouldn't have happened. I want to clarify, I'm not calling anyone's concerns petty. I'm calling the actions petty. Giving up and not voting and allowing the Republicans to gain control is a petty action. Votes have consequences. Republican voters, at least on some level, understand this better and their turn out is much better. Our country suffers because of it.

[winter is coming]

195. The Republicans didn't do it all by their lonesome.

We shot ourselves in the foot with "pragmatism" and "bipartisanship". We decided that it was okay to be an economic conservative if you were kind of a social liberal. IMO, blue dogs have really hurt us.

[kcr]

199. But it wouldn't have happened had the repubs not been elected in the first place

Things like pragmatism and bipartisanship come about because of that weak turn out. Politicians act the way they do because they are reactionary. People think they are punishing politicians and sending them a message. The opposite is true. This pragamatism and bipartisanship you're talking about is a result of the lopsided turn out.

[winter is coming]

202. That's a result of the party not looking at why they lost.

The things that hurt us most in 1980 were the Iran hostage crisis and the recession. So instead of working on strategies to counteract ratfucking and better simplify/explain economic issues, we decided we needed our policies should be closer to Reagan's.

[kcr]

209. That's right. Because they don't do that

They're reactionary. So the strategy of a liberal, progressive voter shouldn't be "I'm going to send them a message and not vote! That will show them!" because it doesn't work. That's my point. They don't look at things that way. So when you stay home or vote 3rd party, because we have a two party system, all that does is get Republicans elected. And when Republicans are elected it damages our country. The damage is cumulative and long lasting and some of it is permanent. Some of that damage makes it even harder for us to get candidates elected. Like the damage done to our media.

[winter is coming]

212. So... vote for them and they assume we approve of their behavior.

Don't vote for them and they decide to be more like the winning guy instead of wondering why the base didn't turn out.

Sounds like a no-win scenario.

[kcr]

214. In part, yes.

If we'd adopted that strategy from the beginning, however, we likely wouldn't have the Dems we have now to pick from. There is unfortunately damage from years of a weak voting base. It's not no win. Beating Republicans isn't a losing proposition. And a a strong Dem party that can effectively beat Repubs and has a strong voting base it can rely on will very different than the one we have now. Not the no win scenario you're envisioning. I'm not arguing that it isn't up to the Dems to realize this and energize their base. But I'm not a Dem party strategist. I'm just down here in the muck with the dem voters as a dem voter myself, talking to other dem voters. And telling them they shouldn't stay home, and here's why. I'm not arguing that the Dems shouldn't stop being idiots and get their act together, or that they have no blame. But we as voters need to vote no matter what.

[pragmatic_dem]

249. Agree +1 for standing up for traditional Democratic values and not this watered

down, trickle-down policy shit that passed off as "change".

[Beartracks]

230. Like Truman said: "Given the choice between a Republican...

... and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time."

Dems need to stop acting like Republicans. Period.

====================

[pragmatic_dem]

248. I assure you the self-proclaimed liberal who didn't vote for anyone did FAR

more damage than Nader. We need political competition that embraces the working class to keep democrats from moving any faster to the far right wing.

You know the "fiscally conservative" liberal who thinks Trans-pacific partnership is a good way to help Asia since the middle class don't work hard enough for wages that haven't budged for nearly 40 years.

[JI7]

58. WWP supports the North Korean Govt, Gore would have lost badly nationally if he tried

to appeal to those types.

[pragmatic_dem]

73. right, however, you can blame them just as much as Nader, but not as much as Democrats themselves...

who voted for Bush in large numbers across the country. Hell, half the vote stayed home - about 100,000,000 people, which means 10s of millions of Democrats didn't vote at all - many of them in Florida.

However, none of this was as bad as Clinton's behavior after getting caught with his pants down. He didn't handle it right. And the party was set back for years.

Also, Gore is wooden and quite conservative while his wife attacking harmless musical groups like 10,000 Maniacs as dangerous for children.

Way to win over the youth vote.

[JI7]

75. Dems who voted for Bush wanted someone right wing, just like WWP wanted someone who supports North

Korea.

Nader is the one who went around claiming there was no difference.

it wasn't just about him getting into th erace and running for Pres. he purposely wanted Gore to lose and Bush to win .

[JI7]

77. "Clinton's behavior after getting caught with his pants down" "Gore is wooden"

that's a lot of right wing shit

[kcr]

82. Yep.

It's starting to become clear, isn't it?

[JI7]

91. very clear , i have seen it over the years and recognize what is being done

[pragmatic_dem]

98. then you need to get your eyes checked - nt

[pragmatic_dem]

93. No it isnt, clinton made a circus of it all, cost a lot of votes

just as bad as Romney's video. Bad behavior has consequences.

And Gore was, in fact, a lousy candidate who looked about as comfortable around people as Romney.

Nader didn't cause Democrats to lose, Democrats caused Democrats to lose.

[JI7]

97. Nader is stiff and wooden, Gore has a sense of humor and is very affectionate with people

[pragmatic_dem]

100. I remember that campaign very well and was in panic mode because Gore

was so stiff and the bad blood between him and clinton was palpable.

It wrecked the party and lost the election.

[JI7]

104. it was the right wing that kept going on about Gore being stiff and wooden and you are

repeating it as fact.

[pragmatic_dem]

109. lol- whatever, i give up. You win.

[winter is coming]

103. Gore is now, but he wasn't in 2000. I think he had bad handlers.

I wish he'd ignored them and simply been himself.

[JI7]

107. no, Gore always had a sense of Humor, it was the right wing and media whores who kept

attacking Gore for things like being wooden, earth tones and other shit.

after the Bush failure the media and right wing started attacking Gore as being fat and having a beard.

[winter is coming]

114. I saw the 2000 debates. He didn't comes across as personable and relaxed, which was a shame. n/t

[JI7]

116. he beat Bush in the debate so the media and right wing started going on about how mean he was

contrast that with how they tried to make Obama out to be weak after the first debate against romney .

if it was a republican who was like gore in that debate the media would have said he was tough , strong etc while a Dem who acted as Bush would be said to be weak.

[kcr]

119. Exactly. He won that debate

Which is why the talking point by Nader supporters that he was a lousy candidate and lost that election himself is nonsense. No matter how well a campaign is run, our media had already become janked up by that point because of cable and consolidation that it was going to be close no matter what. Every vote counts.

[pragmatic_dem]

251. Gore was so effective, 10s of millions of democrats didn't vote at all

and you are whining about a couple of people who voted for Nader.

I remember that campaign very well. It was fucked up. Gore WAS wooden.

And that is from someone who had goddamn Al Gore campaign stickers and fliers on the fridge until Obama ran.

It was a lousy campaign, his wife fucked things up with PMRC, Clinton fucked things up by being arrogant.

Amazing that you refuse to acknowledge that it was a shitty campaign, that cowardly democrats stayed home by tens of millions, including 50% of youth vote and plan a few thousand Nader votes.

Democratic Leadership was so cocky they thought Gore was going to win by default.

Monopolies don't work in commerce, and they don't work in politics. If there is no threat from the a more energetic voice that resonates with people, Democrats will continue to ignore the people who put them into office every fucking year.

Bad enough that they are bought and paid for by wall street, party apologists pretend the party bears no responsibility for shitty performance.

[kcr]

252. And nothing frustrates me more when Dems screw it up

I don't know why people don't bother to read what other people actually post. My point isn't that Dems don't screw up. I am not a party apologist. You know what? Gore could have stood there and done nothing but sing, If I only had a brain! Over and over. And I would still stand by every frigging word. I sure as shit still would have voted for him. And anyone who was politically savvy enough to know who Nader was and vote for him should have known better. I'm sorry, but it's no comfort to me that Dems ran a bad campaign I don't think all the republicans who turn out reliably in droves every single time no matter what worry about shit like that. Somehow, they know that it's important to turn out and vote and vote for their guy no matter what. Dems run bad campaigns? The solution isn't to punish them and make the whole country suffer.

[pragmatic_dem]

254. If Gore only sang "If I only had a brain" over & over, I wouldn't have voted for him

- and the problem is that the Democratic leadership assumes you will vote for him, so they have no fear, nor motivation or incentive to govern based on core principals. They take votes for granted. Exactly what happens in a corrupt one-party system.

Washington is getting more corrupt every passing day as people vote out of sentimental attachment or a false sense of patriotism, meanwhile they have no expectations that anything will ever change.

Just like old Soviet Union.

[kcr]

256. No. That's where you're wrong.

Are Republican voters disappointed by showing up consistently no matter what? Have Republicans moved to the left? Of course not. In fact, they've moved more to the right if anything else. Has the strategy of weak turn out helped move our party to the left? I don't know. Doesn't seem to be working so far.

[kcr]

78. When did she attack 10,000 Maniacs?

I don't recall that at all.

[pragmatic_dem]

84. they were called out by pmrc during congressional hearing

At time I recall fuss about it because either the band or rep release press note saying the band's song 'what's the matter here' was about child abuse. Frank Zappa might have pointed out how stupid it was as well.

I did some searches but kept getting cheesy mp3 d/l sites. I know it's out there and someone will remember the details.

Anyway, point is Nader is just a deflection away from real problems with Dem leadership and responsibility for losing elections lies with them, not Ralph Nader.

[kcr]

87. I recall the fuss being distorted by assholes like Frank Zappa

His claims that it was censorship were ridiculous. How are parental advisories on music any different than ratings on movies? Tipper Gore wasn't calling for banning of the music. She just wanted consumers to be able to be better informed. It's no different than any other labeing that advises consumers. It's consumer advocacy. It didn't censor the material itself in any way.

It isn't' a deflection because votes matter and votes have consequences. Dealing with the problems with Dem leadership by cutting off our noses by getting Republicans elected instead is a serious problem.

[pragmatic_dem]

90. That's a very conservative view you have. Having a committee decide what is safe

for children to listen to is very right wing.

[kcr]

108. Distorting is very right wing

The committe doesn't decide what is safe. The parents do. Again, no one was calling for censorship. But the consumers can't make that decision if they don't know what is in the product. It's no different than food safety labels. Consumers should be able to make informed choices. There's nothing right wing about that. Are you against ratings for movies as well? What is the difference?

[pragmatic_dem]

110. certainly the ratings today favor violence over sex, and pmrc was a commitee

by a conservative known as Tipper Gore. Many people on the right wing consider Zappa and asshole, so you are not alone. I just don't share your conservative views.

So, no with internet and independent ratings and word of mouth, I don't think we are being well served by the rating systems in place and think it is bullshit. Just like PMRC was Bullshit.

[kcr]

113. I think he was an asshole for distorting Tipper Gore's position, yes.

I think people who distort other's opinions are acting like assholes. Consumer advocacy is not convservatism. Nader is a consumer advocate. And internet wasn't nearly as widely used at the time Tipper was advocating for label warnings.

[JoeyT]

129. LOL "We decide what you can listen to, peasants!" is consumer advocacy.

We're all the way down the rabbit hole now.

So in your defense of the PMRC, are you just happening to not remember that "Anti-Christian" was one of their biggest gripes? Did you forget that one of the things they wanted labeled was "Occult"? Of their top 15 worst albums, two were on there for "Occult".

Did you forget this line from one of their main witnesses: "Much has changed since Elvis' seemingly innocent times. Subtleties, suggestions, and innuendo have given way to overt expressions and descriptions of often violent sexual acts, drug taking, and flirtations with the occult."?

So did you forget all that, or are you ok with religions Christians don't like having a label stuck on them to shove them as far away from the mainstream as possible? Because that was one of the PMRC's goals.

A movement that the nastiest of theocratic Republicans could gleefully get behind and "liberals" defend it. Jesus fucking Christ, are you kidding me?

[kcr]

140. Tipper Gore wasn't telling anyone what they could listen to.

Nor am I. I'm talking about Tipper Gore. And my point is warning labels aren't censorship. Jesus fucking christ I'm not kidding you. Do you know what has done far more damage than those horrible stickers? The consolidation of our media! Talk about jesus mother fucking damage to our country! I'd have much rather not had the God damned mother fucking Republicans in office and the rape and pillage they've done to our country! 8 years of Dubya. All the radio stations and local stations we've lost since then. That was worth it. Are you mother fucking kidding me? You're worried about mother fucking stickers on CDs?

[Fumesucker]

132. "Assholes like Frank Zappa"?

OK, I know where you are coming from now.

[kcr]

141. Yep.

Clearly, worrying about stickers on CDs was the biggest worry above all else. How wrong I am. The treatment I'm getting over this is clearly warrented. What is wrong with me. Our country going down the shithole is worth it. Warning labels was the hill to die on.

[Fumesucker]

158. You're mad because he didn't promote *your* issues

And the video I linked didn't say "vote for Democrats"...

[kcr]

160. They're not my issues

I didn't want to put warning labels on music. This is exactly what I'm talking about, the twsiting and distorting of what people say. I don't and have never cared two shits about warning labels on music. I didn't care then and I don't care mow. I just think it's absolutely beyond stupid to buy the spin that it's censorship and stay home or vote for Nader over it, and then we all got to suffer for 8 years of Bush and the resulting damage to our country that it's caused. Stupid shit like that is the reason why Republicans have taken over this country and destroyed it. They can count on their base to stick together and vote for them. Our side? Fights over stupid shit like warning label stickers.

[Fumesucker]

162. Your mad because Zappa didn't promote *your* issues

It takes two sides to fight, if someone hadn't been promoting warning stickers then no one would have been moved to fight it.

If the idea is stupid, those promoting it have the responsibility of that issue being distracting from issues that are more important.

[kcr]

164. It's like you didn't even read what I said

Again. It's not my issue. Did not care about warning stickers. Not even a tiny little bit.

[Fumesucker]

166. It's like you didn't even read what I said

Again, it takes two to fight, Tipper cared about warning labels as much as Zappa did.

[kcr]

168. Okay

Two people fighting over the level of regulation of an industry is basically what that boiled down to. So tell me who's interests it served blowing it out of proportion, twisting it into a censorship issue and convincing people it was worth staying home or voting 3rd party for? If that indeed was the case, as is being asserted here? Because if anyone based their decision on that? They're a flipping idiot, I'm sorry.

[Fumesucker]

170. So you admit Tipper was an asshole for fighting on an unimportant issue too?

[kcr]

172. Did she distort someone else's opinion and claim it was censorship?

That's why I called Zappa an asshole. Not for fighting an unimportant issue.

[Fumesucker]

173. Tipper was the one who made it an issue in the first place

That you thought it was unimportant does not mean it was unimportant to everyone.

[kcr]

174. More twisting

Is saying an issue isn't worth spoiling an election and giving it to the Republicans saying an issue is just generally unimportant? I think it's fine if someone wants to fight the stickers. I can especially understand if someone makes their living selling the things the stickers go on and the think that somehow the stickers will cut into that profit margin. Like Zappa. More power to them fighting those stickers. But see, I do happen to think that there are more pressing issues. Sorry.

[Fumesucker]

175. Zappa would probably have sold more rather than less with the stickers...

I don't think there's any way to prove either way though.

But it's quite clear you want to blame Zappa rather than Tipper for a distraction Tipper started and fought to keep in the limelight.

[kcr]

176. Look, I'm not even the one who brought it up in the first place

And no, actually, it isn't Zappa I want to blame. He's defending his personal interests. Tipper's distraction? Right, how dare she try to call for regulation of an industry. The music industry of all things. Pretty ironic considering who Nader is. I think the fact that it's so often this "distraction" of hers that gets brought up is a perfect example of how weak the defense of Nader voters is. It's pretty much every time I have this discussion it seems. It's this? Really? And I think about all the problems this country has faced and I shake my head.

[Fumesucker]

177. You didn't call Zappa "an asshole"?

That's what this entire subthread has been about..

With all the problems this country has to face, Tipper thought the government getting involved in music lyrics was an important hill to die on.

[kcr]

178. This about me callling Zappa an asshole?

That's all? I had no idea calling Zappa an asshole was verboten.

Why on earth would she be expected to think that that in the future people might throw the country dowm the crapper for that? See, that's my point. People who do that? Are flipping morons.

[beerandjesus]

258. KCR, you're assuming that all 2000 voters were as well-informed as you are.

I'm 41 years old, which means I was just the right age to feel that it was MY music being targeted by the PMRC. I was already a fanatical record collector by then (yes, at age 15), and I resented the hell out of what they were doing. So did a lot of my peers--a hell of a lot--and in our young minds, "Tipper Gore" became synonymous with government meddling and overreach.

Now, I started subscribing to The Nation when I was 17, but not a lot of people I knew did. But a lot of people my age--who were much less politically engaged--had a big problem with Gore being on Clinton's ticket in 1994, and an even bigger one when he ran in 2000.

Frankly, your central assertion (to me, anyway) is obviously true: It totally wasn't worth sending the whole country to hell over stickers on records. But for many, many, many people of my generation, the PMRC was an indelible stain on the Gore name; and even if the business about Bush II "being the guy you'd want to have a beer with" was bullshit, when you contrast that with the guy who helped his wife "try to censor records", well.....

Finally, don't forget that young voters are precisely one of the demographics Democrats rely on. in 2000, I was 28. I was also a political junkie. But a hell of a lot of my non-political junkie peers were absolutely NOT going to vote for the guy who had tried to take away their AC/DC records 12 years earlier, and were sure as hell not going to put Tipper Gore in the White House. Unfair? To a certain degree, for sure. But that's the way it goes. If only highly-informed people voted, Nader probably would have won in 2000!

This is why I assert that the PMRC cost Gore more votes than Nader possibly could have.

[kcr]

260. How well informed do you have to be

to know that a sticker doesn't render a CD non playable or change the contents? I'm exactly the same age you are, 41 years old. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. This is why I referred to Frank Zappa as an asshole. Convincing people that their own best interests more closely matched his to the point that they were better off trashing the entire country over stickers. The record industry didn't want to have to put stickers on their product because no industry likes being regulated. Every single one will fight any kind of regulation like this. Every time.

[zappaman]

163. Wow.

You really have no clue what you are talking about, do you?
The difference is that movies are self-regulated and Tipper wanted the government involved in regulating music.

Unfuckingreal.

[kcr]

167. Government regulation. OMGZ!!!!

Regulation. Not censorship. That's the difference. And don't think for two seconds that if the movie industry didn't regulate itself that the government wouldn't step in and have a say there.

[zappaman]

169. Duh.

That's why the movie industry regulates itself.
Again, Tipper was calling for government regulation of music. In truth, censorship.
Did you ever read the bill?
Do you not understand the difference between self regulation and government regulation?
It was indeed censorship.

[kcr]

171. Yep. Because that's what I just said.

So clearly that would mean I understand the difference. Let me know when government is making laws restricting the content and violating the 1st ammendment. Then I'll join you in the outrage, because that's censorship. Until then, no thanks. Government regulation of industry is fine in my book.

[leftstreet]

165. +1

[treestar]

39. the real Democrats are the ones that are there

and get votes.

Encourage them all you want. I encouraged Kucinich. By all means run.

Is it always going to be primary season here? Before the midterms, can't primary season be called off? Especially when no one has declared yet? People need to grow up and quit leaning so hard on the presidency. If the Rs get to keep Congress 2015-2017, they may well get the Precious Presidency too.

[MannyGoldstein]

40. We are eager to have a functioning government

That functions for the 99%

Forgive us.

[JohnnyRingo]

41. Although I understand where you're coming from...

I have to be realistic.

It seems just a few years ago the argument was how more than half the country would gladly show up and vote Dennis Kucinich for president. I live near Cleveland, and I know what he did for that city. I absolutely love DK, but he would have ceded the election to John McCain well before all the precincts had reported. In a contest where a Dean Scream or Mondale as tank commander can sink a campaign, "Dept Of Peace" would have taken him down like a lead sailboat.

I don't know for sure what the chances are for Clinton, Warren, or Sanders, but I understand how Bernie's constituents are committed to him. That's in Vermont where the electorate is decidedly better educated than average, but if you poll the democrats in Indiana or Ohio whether they want a self professed socialist in office, too many would either stay home that day or opt to give Ted Cruz a chance at one term. The older Boomers would just hear that a communist is running for president. I'm sure Elizabeth and Hillary have similar stigmas that could easily be exploited through the million watt megaphone of Fox News, but I don't have a "mainstream" candidate to compare them to yet, so I'll not rule either out.

You can tell me all you want how the American people are smarter than that, but I saw the dismal ratings for Cosmos vs Dancing With the Stars Sunday night, and in our hearts, we all know better. Granting control of the White House toa republican just so I can feel I did the right thing for the liberal cause, isn't something I'd consider.

[jtuck004]

42. Because if the Third Way loses they have to look for a job in the economy they created by policy.

I think that just scares the living shit out of them that they might have to live like the little people.

As now, it's easier to try to avoid responsibility by any means necessary, and always at another's expense.

[pragmatic_dem]

47. You never know, they could learn to love the slums of India... nt

[jtuck004]

55. Heck, another 10 or 20 years of this and we could rename Texas Maharashtra

and California Uttar Prades.

Save a lot of travel money, which people won't have anyway

[pragmatic_dem]

59. You are right about that... nt

[Cali_Democrat]

43. I'm of the firm belief......

...that people should support and vote for the candidate of their choice.

[dionysus]

48. hey everybody, look at meeeeeeeee!!!!111!!!!!!11!!

[bluestate10]

218. That is about how I read it. If some people could stake themselves to a cross, they would. nt

[RoccoR5955]

50. And here I thought it was "Turd Way."

Because it smells just like a turd!
Yes, they should get the hell out of the way!
These folks don't have brown noses, they have brown NECKS when it comes to their corporate keepers!

[jsr]

83. Some are like telemarketers

working hard to put food on their families

[secondwind]

62. TELL IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

63. Nader? Is he still alive?

[winter is coming]

64. He's kind of like the Cryptkeeper.

Pops up every now and then to tell a scary story that nobody cares about.

[adirondacker]

111. Only in our Common Dreams...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/09-0

[Crunchy Frog]

65. You're single handedly responsible for losing us the next election

by getting Bernie the nomination. I don't know how the hell you pull it off, but I checked it out with my time machine, and that's definitely what happens.

Nice work.

[Warren DeMontague]

66. There is a primary process, as much as some people may wish for an automatic coronation.

No one is entitled to the nomination, nor is anyone, dare I say it, inevitable.

Anyone who wants the Democratic Nomination should make his or her case to the voters. That's how it works. Then we see who the nominee is.

Once we have a nominee, then it's legitimate to ask questions about dividing support. Not before.

With that in mind, at this point no one should be discouraging anyone from running. A vigorous primary contest is good for all of us.


IMHO.

[brooklynite]

67. SO, I'm not a REAL Democrat.....

Any other fake Democrats on this Board?

Mind you, I don't take it personally, since I do my political activities in the real world, with real candidates and real campaigns. I'm happy to let the "real Democrats" spend all the time they want blogging.

[Beacool]

188. Touché.......

[beerandjesus]

259. Hahahahaha!!

Brooklynite, that post RULED!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

70. If the Democratic Party wants the votes of the left, it has to run leftist candidates.

And, they sure as hell shouldn't whine if they don't get the votes of the left when they run 3rd Way, Centrist, Moderate, candidates.

[brooklynite]

135. By that logic, if they want the votes of centrist voters they should run centrist candidates...

...and since there are more centrists (Democrats and Independents) than leftists, that seems like a good idea.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

143. Which is what they've been doing.

And, yet, when they lose elections, they blame the left.

[MisterP]

74. as we can see from the responses ("participating in democracy just sabotages it!" "I don't CARE

what Time/Newsweek, Gore, and independent investigators say--Jeb! and Harris WEREN'T THE RELEVANT FACTOR&quot

Nader is just the 2000-12 Snowden of yesteryear

[pragmatic_dem]

138. Everyone knows a monopoly of power best serves the majority of citizens, just ask China

or any other police state.

[Rex]

203. True, funny how the usual suspects ALWAYS forget to mention the SCOTUS

or the 100k dems that voted for Bush in Florida OR the wholesale cheating done on Diebold machines. It is ALWAYS Nader's fault and no other. Almost like they want us to forget about EVERYTHING else involved in the theft.

And I think that is their agenda...their Third Way agenda.

[Dragonfli]

89. #%^*ing spliter!

[hrmjustin]

92. While I disagree with you on Hillary I think you should say how you feel on Warren and

Sanders. I doubt Sanders would run on any other line than Democrat so I doubt the Nader fhing is applicable.

[hfojvt]

96. What's Nader got to do with it?

the cry would be
George McGovern
Walter Mondale
Michael Dukakis

Remember them? Presumably from the liberal side of the aisle. Pretty much demolished at the polls.

It's a curious paradox. I hope that Hillary does NOT run, because I despise her AND I also think she cannot be beaten.

And yet, if some progressive candidate - Warren, O'Malley, Dayton, Sanders cannot defeat the Clinton/DLC money machine in the primaries, then, logically, what chance does that candidate have November against the much bigger and more powerful RWNM?

[winter is coming]

120. McGovern and Mondale ran against incumbents. Not really surprising they lost.

Dukakis was probably the weakest candidate we've run in the last 50 years, and that really didn't have much to do with his political orientation. He came across as a guy who wanted to be anywhere other than in front of a camera, and that's a campaign-killer.

[JI7]

121. Dukakis was leading until that debate question on death penalty, and Clinton ran against an

incumbant in 1992.

[winter is coming]

122. Clinton ran against someone who had broken his "no new taxes" promise.

And then there's the first Gulf War, and Dems who were very motivated to get a Dem in the WH after being shut out for 12 years.

[pragmatic_dem]

106. Clinton is heir apparent, it has been written by tribal elders...

maybe she'll run against Jeb Bush or Lynn Cheney.

As a nation maybe we don't handle change very well.

[Enthusiast]

136. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch.

[MineralMan]

139. I think they should run in the primaries and see if they

can attract enough voters to win. So, I'd encourage them to do so. My opinion, based on my own observation of Presidential elections over the years is that they will not get enough support to be serious contenders in winning the nomination. But they should definitely run, if they want to. That's how our presidential election system works.

I didn't give President Obama much of a chance, either, back in 2006, to win the nomination, but he did. So, if there is sufficient support out there for Warren or Sanders or whoever else chooses to put their name in the hat, then I encourage them to do that. The people who turn out to vote in the primaries will decide, as they always do, and then the Democratic Convention will choose a candidate to run in the general election.

Your thinly disguised "fucks" in this OP are misplaced. If Sanders and/or Warren decide to attempt a presidential run, then they'll have my encouragement. If they succeed, they'll get my vote in November of 2016. If they do not succeed, the Democratic nominee will get my vote anyhow. Your attack on other DUers is way premature. Wait until the primary season is over and front-runners emerge. Then, if your candidate of preference isn't among them, you can bemoan that. It's too early to start the bemoaning. They should run and test the waters.

I don't see anyone here saying that they should make a primary run. Why would anyone say that? I do see people saying that they don't think their candidacies will be successful. I'm one of those. But to run in the primary? Hell, yes. Anyone who wants to run should run. Let the voters decide. Isn't that how it works? Why would anyone be opposed to that?

[JoePhilly]

142. Still fighting (and losing) the last war.

[whatthehey]

144. Because what is true and what you want to be true are different

One of two people will be the next President.

Whoever is the Dem nominee and whoever is the Rep nominee.

It's perfectly ok to complain that that's suboptimal and unfair, even perfectly accurate. It's also irrelevant. A half dozen or so states are close enough to make the difference in who wins. Doing anything to reduce the vote for the Dem nominee in those states is not implicitly or figuratively helping to elect the Republican, it is explicitly and directly helping to do so.

Whining about the lesser of two evils and wanting to vote for someone not against someone implies luxuries we do not have. Lessening evil is the only sane choice even if we take it as gospel that both nominees are evil. Waiting for somebody to vote for, applied with reasonable frequency even to the laughable point of yes Nader, makes the one you should have voted against the next President.

Be angry if you like at the system that makes it so, but the people who say it is so are not to blame for that. If anyone doubts my basic claim, feel free to suggest a wager that the next President will not be one of the two people I suggested. When you have a choice between A and B, pining for C is useless self-flagellation akin to a convicted capital murderer in the sentence phase of the trial hoping he is set free rather than being given the needle or LWP. No matter how bad you think any Dem may be, corporo or third way or DLC or DINO or whatever label you choose, they are massively better than the only alternative you have in reality.

[sibelian]

146. My goodness.

A PRAGMATIST.

Let us gather in the Great Circle of Weepy Political Pragmatism and stroke our beards, or each other's beards, possibly.

"Twas EVER THUS, Manny, ever thus... woe, fie and rue and lachrymations. Republican voters vote for republicans and the centre... HAS NO MIND!!!!!!! aiiiieeee"

[winter is coming]

183. I have yet to discover what's pragmatic about continually favoring corporations over people.

Or what's "pragmatic" about supporting a candidate who's still willing to let me starve, albeit a little more slowly.

[sibelian]

232. Well, the answer to that, winter...

Is that it's very pragmatic for the corporations. And the candidates.

[Maedhros]

149. Indeed. But what we want to be true will only happen if we take steps to make it so.

We've got to start somewhere. Might as well be with me.

Eventually enough people will join in and things will change.

[Beacool]

182. This.......

[sibelian]

233. Only an adolescent fool

would mistake cynicism for wisdom.

[MineralMan]

145. Who said it was your #%^*ing fault, Manny?

Not me. I think everyone who wants to run should run and that you should support whomever you want to support. I may disagree with your choice, but not until 2016. There's a big congressional election this year. I don't have time to worry about 2016 just now.

Nobody cares who you #%^*ing support, Manny. You're just one voter. Vote for whomever you wish in 2016. We don't mind. None of us mind. We may think someone else is more likely to win, but we don't care who you support in the primaries. Truly we don't.

[tea and oranges]

151. While We're Time Traveling Into the Past

I just want to point out that Clinton was very popular when he left office. The R's knew that & W ran as Clinton (compassionate conservatism & all that crap), while Gore was desperate to separate himself from Clinton & wouldn't even allow Big Dog to campaign for him.

I'm reminded, however, each time I buckle up that seatbelt, that it's that A-hole Nader who we should blame.

[Beacool]

196. That was Gore's mistake.

Clinton said in more than one interview that he would campaign for Gore if asked. Gore made a miscalculation because he was personally offended, he assumed voters would be too. They weren't, they recognized a witch hunt when they saw one. So, what happened? Bill campaigned for Hillary and other Democrats. Gore lost, Hillary won and Bill left office with the highest approval rating of any president in many years.

[tea and oranges]

213. 'Zactly! Incredibly Stupid on Gore's Part

What I'm sayin is that there's plenty of blame to go around for that selection. Let's concentrate on what we can control. Third party candidates, no control there. (Besides didn't that funny Rumpelstiltskin fella, Perot, split the vote, helping Clinton win the first time?)

We can control how we as Dems campaign & try to limit the cheating from the R's that we know full well is going to happen. Beating up on Nader is sort of hilariously impotent.

Not entirely related, but we need to focus on people we want as leaders, not people we think can win. Those latter people are somehow always the same people the CEO's & other wealthy thugs prefer.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

153. Is someone calling for a 3rd party candidate? an independent?

Or just a calm Democratic primary process, haha.

[FiveGoodMen]

159. A-#%^*ing-MEN!!!

[Beacool]

193. Manny, as much as it may pain you, the world does not revolve around you.

No one is blaming you for anything because no one cares.

The only thing that some sensible folks pointed out was that Sanders can choose to run all he wants, but that he has zero chance of becoming president.

No one has ever said that there should only be one candidate in this race (particularly when that candidate hasn't even announced whether she'll run). What people are saying is that the Left should come up with some viable choices, not pipe dreams.

[Fearless]

198. Wow, that wasn't condescening or anything?

I mean seriously, he's welcome to his opinion as much as you are. No need trying to put someone down just because you disagree.

[Beacool]

201. He writes attention seeking threads on an almost daily basis.

No one is blaming him for anything. If this is not an attention grab, what is? Is it OK for him to tell others to go eff themselves?

Civil discourse works both ways.

[Fearless]

204. A person can stand around and shout for attention til the cows come home

But unless you have something people want to hear, that attention will quickly wane. So, either people want to hear what he has to say, or fear not, he will be soon gone. I'm guessing, based on his continued support and popularity on DU, that people actually do want to hear what he has to say.

Also there's nothing wrong with wanting to grab people's attention. It is the reason for which someone grabs your attention that is important. Evidently you disagree with why he has grabbed people's attention, but no one has the right to say he doesn't have the right to do so.

[Beacool]

211. He writes stuff that grabs their attention.

Since this is not a Clinton friendly site, they eat it with a spoon. Never mind that most of it is not based on the real world where actual voters decide who they want to see win. In the DU parallel world certain people are considered viable that in real life wouldn't even get 1% of the vote.

[Fearless]

217. What is right is not always easy and what is easy is not always right.

President Obama was thought to be a long shot candidate before the campaign. That's why we have campaigns. They decide who will be our nominee and weed out those who won't. Let the system do it's job. There's nothing wrong with that. If Clinton wants to win, her team should focus on fixing those things that people don't like about her rather than suggesting that others just shouldn't run. Everyone eligible is welcome to run. Freedom of speech and whatnot.

Back in 2004, LGBT Democrats were told to shut up and sit down when we vocalized our desire for equality. We were told it wasn't possible, it was asking for too much, and it would cause Republicans to win. So we don't push the issue nationally. Republicans overrun Democrats. Why? Because we compromised away our position. After that, we stood up for ourselves nationally, and that's working pretty damn well right now. The same is true for other "wedge" issues.

[Union Scribe]

234. ...apparently grabs yours as well. nt

[Beacool]

253. Meh, his posts are like summer flies.

Annoying, but of no consequence.

[Fearless]

197. +1,000,000!

[Rex]

205. K&R for pissing off all the RIGHT people!

Also -

[sabrina 1]

221. It isn't your fault. Relax, Manny, most Democrats agree with YOU!

[winter is coming]

223. I don't really care why it's your fault, as long as I can blame you.

[H2O Man]

227. Recommended.

I can't really understand how any good registered Democrat would not be thinking about a non-corporate option. And I know that virtually everyone on the Democratic Left considers it necessary.

In my humble opinion, if the Democratic Party wants the support of People of Conscience, they must nominate candidates who do more -- much more -- than give flowery speeches and impassioned presentations about democracy and social justice. And I'm not open to hearing the scare tactics. Fuck that.

[functioning_cog]

228. this sounds like an attack on fellow Democrats

and possibly fellow DU'ers.

[fleabiscuit]

237. Wow MannyGoldstein you sure know how to bring the “neo” out of the liberals.

Thank you, I’m rather enjoying all this.
BTW, you catch this one, should have been an op by someone IMHO (hint, hint).

Noam Chomsky: ‘How to ruin an economy’ in three simple steps
By Scott Kaufman
Friday, February 21, 2014 9:44 EDT
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/21/noam-chomsky-how-to-ruin-an-economy-in-three-simple-steps/

“In a February 14, 2014 lecture captured by progressive videographer Leigha Cohen, Noam Chomsky gave some ‘simple” advice about “how to ruin an economy and a society....’”

k&r

[blkmusclmachine]

241. Third Way is the Enemy. Don't listen to their LIES.

[obxhead]

242. OMG NO, We must support HILLARY!

Only she can DO IT!

Yep, she sure can. She can continue the pattern of the last 30 years..... cuts to the poor and gains for the filthy rich.

[PATRICK]

246. Common sense, common good

Frustration on those looking from the outside in leads to the conclusion that opposition often leads to the "other side" winning. New tactics are adopted or grimly preparing for "the next time".

Unfortunately when the two main sparring partners are corrupt they adopt the dirtiest most corrupt tactics to win, all the while feeling entitled to keeping their worst faults, weaknesses. In particular the pushed aside progressive left eschews the dirty corrupting tactics and can't abide the results of screwing the present for the future. Even if, like the center-right, they become comfortable with letting Joe Rightwingnut have a turn, they do not profit much politically from the interregnum of darkness. Rational people, whether it concerns the German socialists of postwar Germany or the Naderites cruelly vent the earned blame their way. Nor does that solve any problem either. Todays Dem party leadership seems absolutely determined- as on no other issue whatsoever- to preserve some illusory GOP (even if a dangerous fraud).

Frustration. Even if you help some DINOs win and cement further their own worst illusions with the gift of power.

The DLC is so comfortable with the other side winning, that whether they believe they will "win" or not with their lesser passion and somewhat lesser corruption(must be an equation their somewhere), they find it easier to live with the results. They even blend more to the viictor to share the wonders of our "system that works" no matter how stupid or insane everything is becoming. In history, real passion against one's enemy is granted against those nearest and most threatening, namely one's own people whatever barbarians laughingly come storming in over these divisions.

Needless to say more and more sane and moral citizens simply become alienated. Those with rage and guns are on the "winning side" anyway and if THEY feel frustrated, they are trained like puppies to take it out on the "weak", aka decent rational losers.

It is bad enough where the majority and reality are equally totally obliterated from national campaigns. To capitalize against the media money mad Goliath needs a few things: a galvanizing event that the establishment cannot simply spin and ignore, a rotten economy that hurts most, candidates we need, getting all the message out to all the people, more disaffection with the entire pants down corporate media and other unlikely things- to even have hard chance. Playing inside the game has a better chance and some real defenders, but then there is another fear besides losing an election, another swallowing up of good people into the rot.

And it is easier and more productive to do the groaning groundwork of smaller posts instead of gambling on the third party presidential messiah which has not had a good track record- so far- in this country and where winning might only delay the return of the Twins. Instead of building third party deals with the current seat holders will compromise and destroy the interloper's chances to replace them. Dean's fifty state strategy had begun to develop the internal grass roots to do the unkingly democracy building. Where did it go? There was no practical answer easier than that for putting more democracy into the Democratic party. I suppose a lot of it still exists, for now, which is maybe the DLC would be subconsciously(?) happy to weakly let them get washed away.

Frustration. Like being a Cubs fan, we don't get to pick the team nor make the extra painful sacrifices to feed effort and money upward to those who do. If we get our own team together the results seem pretty foreordained even with one heavy hitter.

Despite the real political scene being ripe with abandoned issues and limited tripe failing in its power, just not letting things slide to the worse is incredibly hard.

[bobduca]

247. K&R

[mvd]

255. The Third Way really does need to get out of the way.

The way they criticized Warren for suggesting that SS benefits should be increased made me as mad as I get at the Repukes. The ideas of Sanders, Warren, Kucinich, etc. would be popular whether they are the candidates to run or not. The Third Way actually discourages good progressives from running. And they don't want our ideas to get out. Big money interest should be lessened in our party as well. That would be a first step.

I think Obama's Presidency would have had more potential without the Third Way guiding him once he got in office. He may be more liberal than he shows but never was willing to challenge the Third Way. He got slightly better lately. Where I disagree with some progressives is I sure am happy Obama is President rather than Romney.