NationStates Jolt Archive

Do you agree with this sentiment? I've seen people honestly blame the fact that people voted for Nader, for Bush getting elected. How does this work? Nader got 0.4% of the votes, Bush got 51%, let's see let me think, which is bigger.

I think this sentiment arises because of several psychological reasons.

1) Many people in the US have an "Us versus Them" mentality. It stems from childhood and high school, where competitive sports always have 2 teams. Thus the popular belief, "You're either with us, or against us."

2) Many people like to scapegoat a minority group.

3) Many people have no real concept of responsibility, or where responsibility lies.

Do you agree with this sentiment? I've seen people honestly blame the fact that people voted for Nader, for Bush getting elected. How does this work? Nader got 0.4% of the votes, Bush got 51%, let's see let me think, which is bigger.

I'm not going to discuss the sentiment here, just the formulation, because it's a little misleading. In 2000, which is the example used, Bush didn't get 51%--he actually lost the popular vote to Gore by half a million votes. But Bush "beat" Gore in Florida by 537 votes, and Nader got several thousand votes that would have ostensibly gone to Gore over Bush, assuming they'd have voted at all. The same thing happened in New Hampshire in the same year--Nader voters were far larger than the margin for Bush, which is why they're often blamed.

Do you agree with this sentiment? I've seen people honestly blame the fact that people voted for Nader, for Bush getting elected. How does this work? Nader got 0.4% of the votes, Bush got 51%, let's see let me think, which is bigger.

Are you really that ignorant as to how presidential elections work?

OK, let me break it down for you.

People who vote for Nader are far, FAR more inclined to vote for Gore than Bush. The margin of votes in Florida between Bush and Gore was far smaller than the number of votes Nader had received in Florida. Had the voters in Florida who voted for nader instead voted for Gore, Gore would have won the popular vote in Florida. Had Gore won the popular vote in Florida, he would have received all of florida's electoral votes, instead of bush. Had Gore won the electoral votes for Florida, he would have been president.

The people who voted for Nader in Florida instead of Gore (very VERY few people chose between Nader and Bush) caused Bush to win florida, and thus, the presidency. Those who vote for a third party generally end up helping the major party most opposed to their interests

By the way, in 2000 Bush received about 49% of the vote, not 51%, he received less votes than Gore.

first-past-the-post

Except the presidency is not, as 2000 demonstrated, a strict first-past-the-post system.

Close enough though.

Are you really that ignorant as to how presidential elections work?


Do you honestly think an ad hominem argument is going to be effective?

OK, let me break it down for you.

People who vote for Nader are far, FAR more inclined to vote for Gore than Bush.

The margin of votes in Florida between Bush and Gore was far smaller than the number of votes Nader had received in Florida.

Had the voters in Florida who voted for nader instead voted for Gore, Gore would have won the popular vote in Florida.

Had Gore won the popular vote in Florida, he would have received all of florida's electoral votes, instead of bush.

Had Gore won the electoral votes for Florida, he would have been president.

Big deal. I know the argument. Yadda yadda yadda.

One is supposed to vote for who one wants to vote for. One is responsible for one's own vote. If I vote for X and Y wins, I did not vote for Y. That's how responsibility works.

People like you just want a bipartisan world where everyone is safe and soundly on either the home team or the away team. I think you are ignorant about responsibility.

The people who voted for Nader in Florida instead of Gore (very VERY few people chose between Nader and Bush) caused Bush to win florida, and thus, the presidency.

Right. And the 51% who voted for Bush, they had nothing to do with it. Let's blame the third party. They're not with us, therefore they are against us.

In my country its usually a protest vote

How does this work?

first-past-the-post, single member districts. the dynamics at play mean that who ever forms the bigger of two coalitions in the district wins. a third group is effectively made up of people who one of the big two failed to bring into the coalition. and if that group is big enough, the coalition they are least like will win.

Except the presidency is not, as 2000 demonstrated, a strict first-past-the-post system.

Close enough though.

Among the many reasons I'd wished John Kerry would have won Ohio in 2004 is that it would have been the second time in as many presidential elections that the popular vote winner wouldn't have won the electoral college. Had that happened, we'd have aready passed the amendment getting rid of the electoral college.

Except the presidency is not, as 2000 demonstrated, a strict first-past-the-post system.

Close enough though.

well, for the presidency it's more like 50 of them. and ultimately its really just 5 or 6 that matter

I don't agree with your reasons as much as that we've locked ourselves in a binary thought of politics, left and right, liberal and conserative.

We only think of it in only two directions, so we put third parties somewhere on that line and then they, by our binary political logic, that party 'takes' votes from the major party that it's closest to, and in our binary theory, gives the election to the other party.

The solution is to break this binary thought system, or to have a third and fourth party on either end of our binary spectrum that would divide all of the votes.

"Us and them" doesn't really work because while two teams meet on the field at a time (except racing), the leagues are filled with teams and fans divide their support throughout.

While your second is true to a degree, it is also true that not many conservatives or Republicans voted for Nader vs. liberals or Democrats and the inverse applies to Perot. (not absolute, but you get the idea). So there is demonstrable evidence of the effect of strong (for third parties) third party candidates.

The last is true, also to a degree, or as Nader says, why isn't Gore blamed for not being a better candidate to allow that many people to vote for Nader. But again, with our binary way of looking at things, the result is pretty predictable.

Now, plenty of other countries don't view things so simplistically and we have the capacity to join them, but the two big parties aren't about to help.

Now I may be isolated, because I'm not old enough to remember the Republican Party without GWB as it's mouthpiece, but I have to admit that I will never be able to see a vote for a third-party as anything other than unrealistic. Right now we have a real choice: the Republicans or the Democrats. A third-party isn't even relevant in the long run. Since that is the case, the question is really: which of the two candidates who have a chance to win do I want to win? Once I've established that: Will my voting or not voting for him or her make the difference in his or her victory? If the answer is no, then a vote for a third-party may be an effective statement. If the answer is yes, then voting for a third-party is allowing the other candidate to win.

Do I agree with the Dems on everything? Not only no, but in some cases, hell no. But I'm not gonna vote for any other party in a close election, because I think that anything is better than a Republican. That may seem partisan, but I cannot, in good conscience, return power to the Republican Party. They have misused and abused that power, and they have a lot of apologizing to do before I even consider supporting one of their candidates.

Big deal. I know the argument. Yadda yadda yadda.


If that's true then why did you post this bullshit?

Nader got 0.4% of the votes, Bush got 51%, let's see let me think, which is bigger.

Among the many reasons I'd wished John Kerry would have won Ohio in 2004 is that it would have been the second time in as many presidential elections that the popular vote winner wouldn't have won the electoral college. Had that happened, we'd have aready passed the amendment getting rid of the electoral college.

You mean the first in 16 years. Clinton never won the popular vote, but won for the same reason Bush did in '00, he won the electoral college. (Perot got about 17 million votes in '92)

I personally think that a direct election would work much better, as nowadays the only votes that really counted in the last two elections were in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, and New Hampshire. Just about every other state is already decided, so therefore only about 30 million people really have a say in the election. There is never any doubt that California will go Blue and that Texas will go Red, so all people in those States have no real say in the election.

You mean the first in 16 years. Clinton never won the popular vote, but won for the same reason Bush did in '00, he won the electoral college. (Perot got about 17 million votes in '92)

I personally think that a direct election would work much better, as nowadays the only votes that really counted in the last two elections were in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, and New Hampshire. Just about every other state is already decided, so therefore only about 30 million people really have a say in the election. There is never any doubt that California will go Blue and that Texas will go Red, so all people in those States have no real say in the election.

No--you misread my post. I didn't say "got a majority." I said "won the popular vote." There's a significant difference there.

Other than that, yes, I would like to see a direct election of the POTUS.

If you weren't going to vote anyways then it's certainly not true.

If you're a member of the party and you vote for a third party, it could be argued you have.

Gil Scott Heron rules:

Well, the first thing I want to say is. "Mandate my ass!"

Because it seems as though we've been convinced that 26% of the registered voters, not even 26% of the American people, but 26% of the registered voters form a mandate--or a landslide. 21% voted for Skippy and 4% voted for somebody else who might have been running.

....What has happened is that in the last 20 years, America has changed from a producer to a consumer. And all consumers know that when the producer names the tune. the consumer has got to dance. That's the way it is. We used to be a producer--very inflexible at that, and now we are consumers and, finding it difficult to understand. Natural resources and minerals will change your world. The Arabs used to be in the 3rd World. They have bought the 2nd World and put a firm down payment on the 1st one. Controlling your resources we'll control your world. This country has been surprised by the way the world looks now. They don't know if they want to be Matt Dillon or Bob Dylan. They don't know if they want to be diplomats or continue the same policy--of nuclear nightmare diplomacy. John Foster Dulles ain't nothing but the name of an airport now. ...

No--you misread my post. I didn't say "got a majority." I said "won the popular vote." There's a significant difference there.

Other than that, yes, I would like to see a direct election of the POTUS.

Oh, sorry about that. As for the electoral college, it is actually reasonably balanced currently, but it still provides a system where 75 million people can elect the President over 225 million, assuming they are smart enough to accurately position their votes. The reason that it is reasonably balanced is because the minorities in decided states are fairly equal in numbers, but that will probably be ruined by the 2010 census if current population trends continue.

If that's true then why did you post this bullshit?

Nader got 0.4% of the votes, Bush got 51%, let's see let me think, which is bigger.

That's not bullshit. You're trying to put the blame - thus the responsibility - of a majority vote, on a minority. It just doesn't work. What YOU are doing is bullshit.

That's not bullshit. You're trying to put the blame - thus the responsibility - of a majority vote, on a minority. It just doesn't work. What YOU are doing is bullshit.
It is bullshit in the sense that you got your numbers wrong. The only time Nader voters could have swung the election was in 2000, but Bush didn't get 51% of the vote in 2000. He got 48-49% and lost the overall popular vote to Gore.

I know I'm going way off the OP but still, Gil said it right

"The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can – even if it's only as far as last week. Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards. And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes riding to the rescue at the last possible moment. The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse - or the man who always came to save America at the last moment – someone always came to save America at the last moment – especially in “B” movies. And when America found itself having a hard time facing the future, they looked for people like John Wayne. But since John Wayne was no longer available, they settled for George Bush (originally Ronald Reagan) – and it has placed us in a situation that we can only look at – like a “B” movie."

To the point of the OP - Gore lost an election he should have won and blaming Nader is pointless. If Democrats cared so much they would have come out in greater numbers, that applies to Republicans - the fact is we don't care for actually taking part in politics anymore so few have a right to complain about the result

I am in favor of more parties. Specifically, those involving alcohol and partially or fully unclothed women.

One is supposed to vote for who one wants to vote for. One is responsible for one's own vote. If I vote for X and Y wins, I did not vote for Y. That's how responsibility works.

Not if you used a preferential voting system. In Australia there is no need to vote strategically, voting for a minor party won't disadvantage your preferred major party.

I'm probably going to vote for a sixth party or something.

So No.

The people who tell me that a vote for a third party is a vote for the Democrats/Republicans are always arrogant assholes who assume that if I weren't voting for a third party, I'd be voting for their party instead.

Do you agree with this sentiment? I've seen people honestly blame the fact that people voted for Nader, for Bush getting elected. How does this work? Nader got 0.4% of the votes, Bush got 51%, let's see let me think, which is bigger.

I think this sentiment arises because of several psychological reasons.

1) Many people in the US have an "Us versus Them" mentality. It stems from childhood and high school, where competitive sports always have 2 teams. Thus the popular belief, "You're either with us, or against us."

2) Many people like to scapegoat a minority group.

3) Many people have no real concept of responsibility, or where responsibility lies.

Actually, Bush didn't get 51% of the vote. Al Gore got more. And Nader got enough votes that otherwise would have gone to Gore in a few precincts for Bush to pull off his Florida heist.

1) And you're telling me that other countries wouldn't have this? Dude, where were you when the world cup was going on last year?

2) Again, how is this a problem specific to the US?

3) Yet once more, this is a fact about humans, not specifically Americans.

Personally, I think the way things are set up is lame, we should have proportional representation in congress. And runoffs for president in a case like this.

2) Many people like to scapegoat a minority group.


Here in Italy we're having a huge debate about the new electoral law.
DL (a catholic liberal party) and the DS (social-democratic party), the two main centre-left parties, are seeking to form a new big "Democratic Party". This new party is supposed to scoop about 30% of the ballots. This will leave the Green Party and the two communist parties (PdCI and Rifondazione Comunista), generally known as the "shrubs" because together they get about 11% of the ballots, in a perilous situation, expecially in the perspective of the two models of electoral law that are constantly suggested both by the "Democratic Party" and by the leader of centre-right alliance Berlusconi. Also some centre parties (like Antonio Di Pietro's IdV, or Clemente Mastella's UDEur) and right-wings (like Umberto Bossi's Northern League) risk to disappear. Often the "shrubs" are seen as an annoyance by major parties, and are blamed to work "intrinsically" for the adverse coalition.


One model that is being discussed is the "german model": that is, proportional law with a 5% threshold: that is, a party that gets less than 5% of the ballots (in Italy, this means 2 million votes) gets no representatives in the Parliament. The other is the "french model": majoritarian law, with two rounds.

Both models seek to create a two-party system (like in the US and in the UK), with no space for non-mainstream parties: the votes for the smaller parties will become useless, and, in the hopes of Berlusconi, Prodi and D'Alema this will lead the voters to go for the largest parties. This is for the sake of the simplicity in creating a new executive and for the stability thereof, they claim.

I think that this is utter nonsense. As example I quote the Czech Republic, which has adopted the "german" model. The 5% threshold has led to heavy problems in the formation of a new executive (the Topolonek cabinet has been voted in by the Parliament about 9 months after the ballots), and, more alarmingly, 25% of the ballots expressed by czech voters has been "lost" by going to parties that didn't reach the threshold. That is, the political opinion of 25% of the citizens is regarded as "useless".

I support the pure proportional law: if a party has enough votes to elect a single representative, it should be represented in the Parliament.
In Italy we have 630 representatives in the lower house and 315 elective representatives in the upper house. With about 45 million voters, this means that, in a pure porportional law, you need more than 70000 ballots to elect a single representative in the lower house, and the double for the upper house.

I think that 70000 citizens are a strenght to be reckoned with. Thumbs up for "third party", "fourth party".... "n-th party"!

if everyone who didn't vote because they didn't think their vote would be counted, were to vote for one of a very small number of 'third parties', we'd have third party elected officials, as indeed, in some states we actualy have.

nader is a spoiler and an unfortunate mistake for the greens. nothing against him personaly, but i do believe he's kind of their/our (i'm registered green myself) albatross.

whether or not the economic kingmakers would allow this to happen is another question. outfits like rand and heritage to play a disproportionate roll in deciding who gets their party's nod for the republicans and to an only slightly lesser degree for the democrats.

i don't know if this is why we're saddled with nader though, but it wouldn't surprise me any if it were.

there are some good democrats who would make great greens and i'd vote for them against nader. but i'd vote for them or some of our own much stronger advocates if they were greenees too.

we do have peter camejo, who'd make one hell of a president. more people outside of california need to hear of him.

the next president, if there is an election in 2008, will probably be a democrat. will probably be somone like either hillary or obama. someone the rand and their economic interests believe they can keep in their pocket while convincing the public at large they are not.

if we're really lucky, whoever it is, will turn out like carter, whome they thought they had in their pocket until he got into office where he then, at least attempted for the most part, to do a conscientious job instead.

and the kingmakers ARE going to have to take the chance of that if they want us to continue to believe we still have any sort of voice in the proccess.

i don't expect to see a third party candidate elected in 2008, but if neither party give us anyone i can feel happy voting for, i will express my "no confidence" by voting, as i am registered, green. i just hope by then we will have woken up and nominated someone like camejo instead of nader.

=^^=
.../\...

I disagree with the idea that a vote for a third party is a vote for the opposition. It's awfully presumptuous to assume that if the person wasn't voting for the third party, that they'd have voted for one of the two major parties.

And Nader got enough votes that otherwise would have gone to Gore in a few precincts for Bush to pull off his Florida heist.How do you know?

I'm not going to discuss the sentiment here, just the formulation, because it's a little misleading. In 2000, which is the example used, Bush didn't get 51%--he actually lost the popular vote to Gore by half a million votes. But Bush "beat" Gore in Florida by 537 votes, and Nader got several thousand votes that would have ostensibly gone to Gore over Bush, assuming they'd have voted at all. The same thing happened in New Hampshire in the same year--Nader voters were far larger than the margin for Bush, which is why they're often blamed.

Instead of blaming the Nader folks, maybe you should ask them why they voted for Nader, and address those issues.

After three election cycles of voting libertarian I gave up, precisely because neither Democrats nor Republicans can tolerate the idea that a third party exists. Both put major roadblocks in the election process at every step of the way, including suing the third party at every turn to keep them off the ballots.

And if that doesn't work, then whoever loses blames "third party traitors".

Thanks for addressing the issues of people who actually have an issue besides "we've got to win this fucking election at all costs, even though our candidate has boilerplate issues and the personality of a popsicle stick..."

Gee, that sounds like Democrats AND Republicans nowadays...

Instead of blaming the Nader folks, maybe you should ask them why they voted for Nader, and address those issues.
I don't blame Nader voters. Jeb! and Katherine Harris had far more to do with the outcome of Florida 2000 than Nader did, and I'm not even talking about the recount. Gore lost Florida because Jeb! and Harris disenfranchised tens of thousands of African-American voters. Bush v. Gore was just the final blow.

When you think about it, it was a choice between two popsicle sticks.

Nice try, but no. It was a choice between slightly boring competence and a village idiot. The media sold Bush as a guy you could have a beer with and devastated Gore and even then Gore still won the popular vote and only lost Florida because of the machinations of Jeb!, Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court. All you have to do is look at the last six years to know that it was more than a choice between two popsicle sticks.

I don't blame Nader voters. Jeb! and Katherine Harris had far more to do with the outcome of Florida 2000 than Nader did, and I'm not even talking about the recount. Gore lost Florida because Jeb! and Harris disenfranchised tens of thousands of African-American voters. Bush v. Gore was just the final blow.

When you think about it, it was a choice between two popsicle sticks.

Nice try, but no. It was a choice between slightly boring competence and a village idiot. The media sold Bush as a guy you could have a beer with and devastated Gore and even then Gore still won the popular vote and only lost Florida because of the machinations of Jeb!, Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court. All you have to do is look at the last six years to know that it was more than a choice between two popsicle sticks.

I, for one, don't find that much of a difference between parties. And if you figure that either party is willing to sell its constituency down the river, they overlap completely.

With a Republican controlled legislature at the time, Gore would have been hamstrung from day one.

Gore lost because of Nader
Gore lost because of Florida
Gore lost because of the media

How about he lost cos his campaign sucked

Gore lost because of Nader
Gore lost because of Florida
Gore lost because of the media

How about he lost cos his campaign sucked

Except that if you're talking about total votes, Gore didn't lose. That's the problem with this whole discussion. In spite of it all, Gore won that election.

Except that if you're talking about total votes, Gore didn't lose. That's the problem with this whole discussion. In spite of it all, Gore won that election.

Total votes in Florida? The umpire disagrees.

Total US popular vote? Yes - but we have an electoral college.

No, he won more votes, he lost the election.

Personally I'd prefer Gore to have won, though I think Bush is unfairly maligned without thought, but Gore lost that election having had a good lead. Bush rightly attacked on 'morality', and by ducking the issue, Gore lost it.

Total votes in Florida? The umpire disagrees.

Total US popular vote? Yes - but we have an electoral college.

If by the umpire you mean SCOTUS, you're absolutely right. Gore lost the election 5-4.

If by the umpire you mean SCOTUS, you're absolutely right. Gore lost the election 5-4.

In overtime, no less. About as exciting as the Final Four.

That's the problem with a one-round election. You should learn from us and have two-round elections. It solves the problem quite neatly.

It also enables politics not to be quite so polarised. For example, right now here there's a right-of-centre party rising in the polls and upsetting the two "major" parties (right-wing and left of centre).

That's the problem with a one-round election. You should learn from us and have two-round elections. It solves the problem quite neatly.

It also enables politics not to be quite so polarised. For example, right now here there's a right-of-centre party rising in the polls and upsetting the two "major" parties (right-wing and left of centre).

Except our Federal system makes electing a President rather more complicated than it is in France. As Free Soviets correctly observed earlier, it's not one election, it's 50.

And I will admit I'm enjoying seeing Sarko and Ségo scrambling around trying to contain Bayrou.

Except our Federal system makes electing a President rather more complicated than it is in France. As Free Soviets correctly observed earlier, it's not one election, it's 50.


Yes, that's true. Although it could be doable.


And I will admit I'm enjoying seeing Sarko and Ségo scrambling around trying to contain Bayrou.

Amusing, isn't it? :D

"If only less people had voted for [Candidate X] and more people had voted for [Candidate Y], [Candidate Y] would have won!"

Yes, that is usually how elections work........