I love your stuff, Todd. But your interest in Nader has me a bit confused.

Am I naive to think that Nader, now kind of known as a spoiler, just won't have that much impact if he does run? I feel like he only had the impact in 2000 because some people on the left were feeling comfortable enough to believe that pushing the party leftward was a more important mission than turning Bush back. These days, that comfort doesn't seem to exist.

In that sense, a Nader candidacy strikes me as harmless. Maybe I'm missing something?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

That should have been a reply to Destor, not Todd. Sorry.

Todd,
What other recourse do we have in a democracy than to support someone who represents our views? Hold-your-nose-voting doesn't appeal to me. You? What do you stand for? Voting for the lesser of two evils as the USA spirals downward?

from Arthur Silber:
"The Republicans proudly assert their support of our aggressively interventionist foreign policy -- a policy which includes "preemptive" war against nations that constitute no serious threat to us.

"Meanwhile, the Democrats say that they now oppose the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But they consistently and adamantly refuse to recognize the criminal nature of what the U.S. has done. The Democrats say they oppose an authoritarian executive branch, and that they oppose the incipient dictatorship at home. Despite these protestations, they permitted the Military Commissions Act to pass -- and they have provided no indication whatsoever that they propose to repeal it. The Democrats helped pass the FISA bill several months ago -- an act that significantly increases the government's surveillance powers. At every opportunity, the Democrats either fail to mount any serious opposition or they actively support the further means to a more oppressive government.

"The only fact that matters is that Republicans and Democrats -- two or three honorable exceptions aside -- all act to destroy liberty and to further criminal war abroad."
(Read the whole essay) http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

Nader was once famous for being the lone crusader. It seems to have gone to his head. He seems to be another public person who's ego has run amok. Nader may provide a place for the far left to go and thus help elect Republicans. However, if the Democrats pander to Nader voters Bush may allow a Democrat to win in '08 but in all likelihood it will be a temporary triumph not a trend.

Nader just shows the danger of being too enamored with any one political leader.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Nader's 2000 campaign is responsible for everything that has gone wrong in this country for the past 6 years. Maybe someone with similar views should run but he himself is radioactive.

I still don't buy the theory that Nader's candidacy pulled then or would pull now the Democratic candidate to the left. One might even think his perception that they've moved further right and thus need him again a disproof. Our guest 17-year-old was able to use falsifiable in a sentence. We grown-ups probably could learn how to as well. 

Arguably, they'd move right because they would lose people those unwilling to settle. More important, as I keep saying, if they lose to the GOP, and right-wing nuts run the country, then the whole debate is again moved to the right, along with the citizenry and the media. And then don't be surprised if the Democrats do, too, sad as it is to see it.

As I keep saying, Nader's candidacy may have certain very fine justifications, such as his platform. But it shouldn't ever be justified on political grounds. There it rested on assumptions that losing or the threat thereof pulls the debate to the left and that there is no difference between the parties. And those are just plain false.

Don's every right to say Nader should run because they think alike and because he should support someone he agrees with. But if we want a chance for a more liberal party and a less fascistic government, we don't want a third party candidate.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

"What other recourse do we have in a democracy than to support someone who represents our views? Hold-your-nose-voting doesn't appeal to me."

There are lots of tasks in life that may not appeal but are imperative.  Perform this thought experiment:  Ask whether democracy would have been strengthened if Nader voters had held their noses and voted for Gore rather than jumping from the top of Ralph Nader's ego. 

If you think that the consequences of "representing our views" are a matter of indifference--that all you are obliged to do is "vote your conscience"--and you act in such a way as to keep pure by rejecting big-tent politics, and the outcome, the election of George W. Bush, offends your conscience, as I assume it did, then perhaps you should reconsider the way your conscience sends its messages to you.

Sincerely. 

Todd Gitlin

Does Nader think his candidacy pulled the party to the left in 2000?? He is, in part, responsible for this ultra-right wing government we have now!!

Don't do us any more favors, Ralph.

The place for maverick candidates is the party primaries. I Kusinich cannot get the Democratic nomination, how could someone like him hope to win in a general election?

You have to suspect that your views are the ones that are outside the mainstream.

Well stated, Todd. Thanks for that.

On other threads I've read many arguments by Nader supporters who say that the outcome of the 2000 election is not Nader's fault, and (apparently) it does not weigh on their consciences. But I haven't heard any of them willing to defend the pre-election statement that "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between Bush and Gore. (Maybe now one could argue that it's not a dime, it's more like half a trillion dollars.)

I don't much care for Hillary. I'm supporting Dennis Kucinich in the primaries. I'll vote for him, and I'll send him money.

But a year from now, whomever the nominees are, I will cast the most effective vote I can AGAINST the Republican. While I'd much rather cast a vote FOR somebody I like, I'll do what I think is best for the country.

-- ARG

This conversation continues to be painful and sad as a good and decent man is so caustically attacked. Ralph Nader did not lose Gore the 2000 election, the election was stolen by the Republican Party. It is true that Nader's votes in Florida tightened the race, but the GOP was determined and would have found a way, and the Democrats would have rolled over. What Nader's candidacy provided, was a convenient cover for Democrats too cowardly to face their real adversary. This same fear of the Right leads Democrats to disavow Moveon.org, CodePink and Kucinich's impeachment efforts.

Professor Gitlin in a later post refers to Nader's ego. The Presidency is an expression of our national narcissism. To say that a person is running for President is to say that she is an egotist. Gitlin points out that we would rather lobby the Demos than the GOP, but consider this:
Clinton promised us any number of things from Health Care to Gay and Lesbian Marines to climate change and some how, though he tried, the big bad republicans stood their ground and he failed. There was no such failure in his promise to centrists on welfare and crime. I assume I would prefer Hillary Clinton to any Republican, but not if she sees me and people like me as lumpen activists with no other options. I respect all those who have posted here the strong evidence that Nader did not pull the democratic party to the left, perhaps he is the wrong person to accomplish this task. But I believe it is essential that those of us on the left raise some element of fear in Democratic hearts.
In 2000 Republican congressional staff members threatened Vote counters in Florida. I think if the Democrats had not alienated the Labor and Activist wings of the party, wouldn't lose street fights.

I doubt this time Nader could take enough votes away from a Democrat to tip the election. But he could easily make the Democrat play so far to the left to protect her-- I mean, his or her-- base that she loses enough of the middle to lose the race. For all the apparent advantages of the Democratic side at the moment, it's still a fact that they haven't broken 50% of the vote in 30 years. (Of course, in 2000 they would have...) To do that in 2008, the nominee will have to run right. A significant figure on the left makes that nearly impossible.

ARG,
Using the 'lesser of evils' argument, looking at the long run, which is the way that I look (even though I'm no spring chicken), I feel that the tiny bit better that Kerry MAY have been (not certain) compared to Bush is out-weighed by the prospect of casting a vote for someone who doesn't come close to representing my views, thus endorsing his views.

The USA is supposed to be a democracy, a nation of laws, with the Congress passing laws and the President executing them. In this sense a much larger factor than any individual president's views is supposed to be the people working their will through their elected representatives. I believe that fora such as TPMCafe give us a new opportunity to shape and motivate public opinion. I know that it's helped me and educated me on the issues.

Thus my long-term goal is to work toward a 'corporate takeover'--to take our country back from the liars,cheaters and crooks. And in that effort I don't want to sacrifice my values. What else do we have that we can call our own? Creditors own the house and car . . .I jest.

Next year? I'll probably do something that again won't make sense to a lot of people.

"I know my own nation best. That's why I despise it the most. And know and love my own people, too, the swine. I'm a patriot. A dangerous man." --Edward Abbey

Don

To do that in 2008, the nominee will have to run right.

As the country is trending left, this makes no sense at all. We've got a significant majority in opposition to war (a favorite of the right), against discriminating against gays, for so-called socialized medicine, with more and more progressive candidates winning all over the country, and you say run right?

That's lovely conventional wisdom - from the year 2000, and it didn't work then, either. Gore ran right and lost. Democrats ran right and lost in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Even in 2006, when the wave of Democrats taking the Senate and House, Democrats like Harold Ford Jr who ran right lost.

Nader made it close enough to steal.

As for raising fear in Democratic hearts, there's only one way to do that and that is to first provide and then withhold money. Not votes or time or support or even street fighting. It's money. And before you can threaten them with it, first you have to make them dependent on it.

We can't skip ahead 10 years and start withholding the money before they've ever grown addicted to it. The first step is to work for them and get them elected. Win for them.

Then remind them how they got there.

All the Dems had to do in 2000 was to represent a few voters on the left. They'll make the same mistake in 2008.

I campaigned for and voted for Kerry but I won't vote for Clinton. Four years on, still in Iraq, and Hillary voting for Kyl-Lieberman. No way.

I can never understand the logic here that a) lefties are too out there to be represented by a major party and b)lefties alone have the power to determine the fate of America.

Which is it? Are we insignificant or are we a constituency the party can't afford to lose? You know if you can't afford to lose us, maybe you ought to represent us.

Unencumbered by relevant facts or logic of any sort, Todd Gitlin again reprises the tired canard that Ralph Nader "cost" Democrat Al Gore the 2000 presidential election. This tired, tendentious tripe illustrates nothing so much as George Orwell's famous dictum that enforced factional allegiance, "like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one's conduct." The Democratic Party elite desires entrance to electoral paradise but doesn't want to stop sinning against its own core constituency in order to get there.

Orwell also noted that "the whole argument that one musn't speak plainly [or campaign for election] because it 'plays into the hands of' this or that sinister influence is dishonest in the sense that people only use it when it suits them." Hence, Mr. Gitlin doesn't give Ross Perot his just credit, because doing so would effectively refute the canard Mr. Gitlin continually wishes to level at Ralph Nader. For without Ross Perot and his reactionary third-party candidacy splitting the Republican ticket in 1992, America would have had four additional years of the responsible but unpopular Republican President George H. W. Bush followed by an innocuous "time for a change" Democrat not named Bubba or Dubya. See how anyone can play this game of "what would have happened if only ..."?

Third-party candidates can indeed move a "major" party's position in a desired direction at the cost of only one or two election cycles out of office. That Ralph Nader failed to move enough terrified and easily browbeaten Democrats in the proper leftward direction says nothing of significance at all about him and his authentic anti-crony-corporate program. It does, however, speak volumes about the Republican Party's responsiveness to its core constituencies. Unlike the Republicans, though, the Democratic Party establishment simply takes its core constituencies and potential working-class voters for granted as "owned" and therefore of no importance. Understanding this disdain correctly but resentfully, most Americans don't vote at all because no Republican represents their interests and no Democrat wants their vote badly enough to earn it. Somewhere in that vast, untapped ocean of potential American voters, Ralph Nader earned a few that would otherwise never have voted at all.

Ralph Nader never got anywhere near as many votes as Ross Perot; but nonetheless, he earned every one of them. This requirement that political candidates have to "earn" the votes they get -- by actively espousing the programs and policies that voters want rather than demand to have them delivered up under threat of scapegoating by Stockholm Syndrome Democrats -- separates Mr. Gitlin's views from mine. As well, I never respond to cheap threats: especially by confirmed invertebrates who negotiate with their own fears first, then take their best cards off the table, then announce that they intend to lose anyway, and then attack anyone else who challenges them for their craven capitulation. And I would never, ever, ever, ever vote for any ticket that contains a Zionist Likudnik Neoconservative Moralizer like Senator/Vice Presidential candidate Holy Joe Lieberman. If Mr. Gitlin really wants to bloviate about third-party tickets and what cost Al Gore the 2000 Presidential election, I submit that 2000 confused members of "Blind Florida Jews for Pat Buchanan" did the trick as well as any other of all the eight candidates on the Florida ballot that got more than 526 votes -- including "other" who scored 3,000. Floridians don't take their elections seriously or honestly enough to even have them -- and no one can blame Ralph Nader for that, nor for the even more brutal truth that Al Gore's own "home state" of Tennessee rejected him. Et cetera, ad infinitum.

I understand that Mr. Gitlin wishes to intimidate the typically fearful and conformist Democrat into rejecting Ralph Nader's critique and slavishly following the Democratic Party line -- even when the Democratic Party hasn't got one. I understand the appeal of this time-dishonored gambit, since it has proven all too easy -- indeed child's play, really -- since the Democratic Party appears more attuned to Republican Party slander and libel than to any demands by its own constituents for a government that represents them.

Not for nothing did Gore Vidal call Americans "among the most easily frightened people on earth." This certainly holds true for Americans in the currently hapless Democratic Party. And worst of all: just look at who did the frightening, and how effortlessly a little primitive word magic did it for them.

Mr. Gitlin should not talk of reasoning, in brief or otherwise, for he gives no sign that he has engaged in any. Dialectical sophistry, on the other hand, would probably serve as a more honest characterization of what he has to offer. Thin and shabby, certainly, but usually good enough to cow Democrats into lining up behind another triangulating loser because "only he or she can win" what Republicans want won.

Why shouldn't I whine when my candidate loses elections? That word "whining", of course, is meant to be dismissive. If I think the mainstream is wrong, then it's my civic duty to point out that people are voting for the wrong candidates. You, I take it, would call that "whining".

Two things: the country can trend left of where it's been (call that a move from 8 to 6 on a scale), and candidates coming out of the Democratic primary can still be further left than that (call it 3), and need to move back toward that point (at least 4 or 5), despite someone running as a 1 or 2.

Secondly, despite my use of a single numerical scale, that's not how the world really works. Some issues are pretty simple left and right, but we already have a Republican (Paul) who's more antiwar than the leading Democrat seems to be, and immigration is the issue with pitfalls in it for everyone-- I know Democrats like to think of it in simplistic xenophobic rightwingers vs. compassionate liberals terms, but what if a union came out against immigration putting downward wage pressure on its members? What if blacks decide that they're getting sold out for Latinos? Which side exactly is left and which is right if a union is anti-immigration and a big corporation is all for it? This election will have more than a few surprises like that in it before it's over.

I think people want reform. If Ralph wants to
throw his hat into the ring he's more than welcome to, anyone that can piss off Detroit
like he did has something good to say, you wonder
if we'd have airbags etc. today if it wasn't for
Nader harping on safety all those years ago,
I'm trying to read a lot about Ron Paul these
days, though, I think he's got some good messages
about things like the border, Constitution, basic
principles, that kind of stuff.

I would take Nader seriously if he ever deigned to run for something like county commissioner or school board.

It's hard to credit someone who only ever runs for President.

Or even in their first term in the Senate.

Kevin, you write: "There are those here who feel their vote is an exercise in conscience. Your vote is only good for what you can get with it. Better to use it to relieve the smallest amount of pain than it is to believe it is a demonstration of character, or worse, that your protest vote will cause an adjustment, a change of course."

In what you wrote, I see the subtle beginnings of the reasoning underlying the blinders/compromising of the very slippery slope that has lead to America 'doing' torture. In fact, it is precisely the message delivered to the victims of torture [just substitute 'honesty' for 'vote']: "There are those here who feel their honesty is an exercise in conscience. Your honesty is only good for what you can get with it. Better to forgo it to relieve the smallest amount of pain than....to believe it is a demonstration of character, or worse, that your protestation of honesty will cause an adjustment, a change of course........"

Funny how those who chunk off their integrity bit by bit in a process of 'ends justify the means' find themselves exhorting others to do the same, as though increasing the ranks of the 'lesser of evils' party will magically provide that mass with the requisite constitutional spine to undo the Military Commissions Act.

A lot of what you wrote made excellent over-view sense, but, er, not that paragraph. I do so agree with you that there is a lot that can be done besides casting a vote.

It is sadly comic that even now Gitlin's scapegoating of open democracy in the person of Ralph Nader continues to take up bandwidth here. Capt. Ahab couldn't be more obsessed and reminds me why I can't be fully convinced to register as a Democrat. Nader is no saint, but it seems his biggest crime around here is exposing the weaknesses of the Democratic platform which, to read most of these posts, congeals around the "We're not Bush" principle.

You'd think after losing 2004, Gitlin and his ilk would concede that "Not Bush" is not a strong enough selling point. It wasn't strong enough after Iraq started faltering, what makes you think it was all that convincing before the GWOT was even a blip on the map? The scandal isn't the candidacy of Nader that propped the door open for Bush incompetence; it's the incompetence that had him on the ropes in early 2004 and yet still failed to unseat him.

Move on, Todd. Bush isn't running in 2008 and if Clinton becomes the candidate and loses this time around no one is going to buy this hedge that Nader's finger is in the pie again. Her negatives are much too high for that. Try expending some positive energy to build up your candidate of choice rather than chasing your own Moby Dick.

Pop psychoaalysis? It seems to be applying facts to the situation. Bush and other ideologues don't like doing that.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Well, the whole discussion of Nader's position in leftist politics really shows the moral gutlessness of most Democrats, who like to style themselves as "progressives," but who pull the lever on anyone with a "D" after their names in the ballot.

A libertarian candidate once remarked, "If you keep voting for the 'lesser of two evils,' why are you surprised when the outcome of the election is more evil?"

Indeed.

A vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election will be a vote to continue the war in Iraq indefinitely, and everyone here knows it. And pretty nearly everyone here will vote for her, anyway.

Thanks.

mp

With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America’s exalted purpose and inspiring way of life? -- Adlai Stevenson

"Thus my long-term goal is to work toward a 'corporate takeover'--to take our country back from the liars,cheaters and crooks."

Don, I'm with you 100% on that, but I'm not sure how we go about it. I read TPM, in part, for ideas.

"And in that effort I don't want to sacrifice my values. What else do we have that we can call our own?"

I get this part, too, but here's where the conflict lies for me. I value idealism *and* pragmatism. And, frankly, I vacillate between the two when it comes to voting.

The primaries are a no-brainer -- idealism always guides my vote.

But when it comes to the general election for president, which is a winner-take-all electoral college game, I tend to be more pragmatic, especially lately.

I've voted 3rd-party in the past, twice -- once for John Anderson (anybody remember him, 1980?), and once for Ross Perot (1992). But apparently the messages I was trying to send to the two major parties didn't really get through.

-- ARG

Good points. Gore was the model of a conservative, hawkish Dem until the day after the 2000 election was finally settled.

That's certainly why I voted for him (and gave him money).

Thanks for addressing the "not a dime's worth of difference" argument, naugiedoggie.

Just to be clear, my vote for Gore in 2000 was much more a vote AGAINST Bush, rather than a vote FOR Gore. I was not all that enthused by Mr. Gore, quite frankly.

But certainly a vote for anybody is not my personal endorsement, saying that I agree 100% with every position that candidate has taken. That's just a silly argument. (If that were the standard, then we'd need 50 million candidates on the ballot. We'd all have to run, and receive one vote each -- from ourselves!)

At the time (2000) I was mainly worried about the fiscal health of the country (not returning to massive deficit spending), and continuing the period of relative peace and prosperity we had enjoyed in the 1990s. By no means did I agree 100% with what Clinton had done, but it wasn't so bad, I thought. I could live with 4 more years of the same.

And I wanted a president who was smart, not dumb as a post. One who, say, could read a CIA brief and actually understand what the words meant. (I remember having a discussion with a co-worker at lunch one day in 2000. He was mostly just taking a position, for the sake of the argument. But he said maybe we didn't need a smart president. Maybe the guy just had to be a good manager, a good judge of people, someone who surrounds himself with good advisers. Then he used the Reagan analogy. I had indigestion that afternoon.)

So you are right to say that "Gore's remarkable 'rehabilitation' should not be allowed to mask the fundamental positions he was taking during the 2000 campaign."

But do you believe we would be in the same spot as we are today, had Gore won?

And please understand that I'm not "...whining about Nader seven years after the election." (I also don't consider myself "pathetic", nor do I feel I'm demonstrating a "lack of emotional maturity.")

My real focus is on the next election. I take voting seriously, and I feel as though it is a moral decision. Looking back may inform our thinking going forward.

So, what if it's Hillary vs. Rudy? What then?

I don't like Hillary. She's probably my last choice on the Democratic side. But Rudy is like Bush on steroids! Talk about your criminal cabals.

-- ARG

You make a good point, DonnaG. In the sense of comparing the two major parties (e.g. in Congress), there may not be "a dime's worth of difference". I think Nader was and is right about that.

So why, then, doesn't Nader run for Congress?

Surely he could find a winnable district, given the support and dollars he could raise with the whole national Green party behind him.

There have been some very close votes in the House recently. Both sides would have to work for his support once in a while, and he could gradually gain leverage. From his position as an incumbent, and by setting an example, standing on principle, etc., he could support other Green party candidates, and perhaps, over time, build a small voting block that would have some real influence.

Or would that just be too much work for Mr. Nader?

It's not quite as exciting as running for president, is it? Perhaps it is beneath him.

-- ARG

This is not the morning after, so not the speech refrenced. But this is an interview on election night 2000, from CNN:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aILa6JmGAiU

-- ARG

ARG,
Well, it's a personal thing. Everybody's different, thank God. A lot of people pull the curtain and faithfully pull the 'D' lever every time. Others the 'R' lever. Some waver depending on the candidates. A few are dis-satisfied with either party and look for someone that better represents their interests. In many other countries there are many other parties. I was in the Republic of Ireland in May where there were eight or so parties with candidates for Prime Minister. Very colorful and interesting. They were all covered by the media. Here in the US we're still a year away from the election and it seems like it's almost over. None of the candidates, as usual, are awe-inspiring. Why? Stuff like this:

On the nomination of Michael Mukasey [who favors executive privilege] to be Attorney General of the United States:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY: did not vote.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill: did not vote.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn: did not vote.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-RI: did not vote.

There is a celebration of the "first principle" argument that's quite evident in this thread. Problem is, while some things may come close to being first principles, there are no such things as true first principles.

And, when bad things happen as a result of clinging to first principles, those who exercise poor judgment while depending on the infallibility of their chosen maxim, well, they simple cannot accept that their choice had anything at all to do with the outcome. (How can doing the right thing have anything to do with producing something that's wrong?) This is not a problem that is stuck exclusively in our past. And, most often, this not a matter of who's at fault, or of who is the bad person. It is a matter of sound judgement.

In political America where are the absolutists found in greatest abundance?

Kevin Russell Cook

A fine argument against points no one here is making.

The answers to tough questions are not found in "The Easy Guide to Good Judgement".

In political America where are the absolutists found in greatest abundance?

Kevin Russell Cook

Sounds to me like you just debunked your own statement that Democrats will have to run right to win, since, as you say, where is right and where is left?

I think if Democrats want to win, they have to run on Leadership. So far, they haven't been exactly Leading on this issue. First you have to Lead before you can run on Leadership.

I think I understand the points I argue against above quite well. I understand that side logically and emotionally. I'm deeply disappointed in my party too.

Sometimes I will continue to vote that way. Sometimes I will not. I simply will not let an attachment to some overriding moral principle be my sole guiding light. One person above said he wanted to be proud of his vote.

Frankly, I don't give a damn as to whether I can be proud in that way. Whether, as one individual, I am consistent with some moral maxims will matter. But, they will not elbow out every other consideration.

Should you have tactical reasons why I should think otherwise, many of us would like to see them in print.

Kevin Russell Cook

From Josh's own ElectionCentral:

=== So why weren't they on hand for the vote? The answer is pretty straightforward -- but it also deepens the mystery of what really went down here.
.
According to Senate sources, as the Dem Senate leadership remained in closed-door negotiations with their GOP counterparts over whether to hold the vote, Senators were getting mixed signals throughout the day as to whether the vote would happen by the end of yesterday. The actual notification that there would be a vote didn't come from leadership until at least 6:30 or 7 PM last night -- catching aides on the staffs of the presidential campaigns and on the staffs of other senators off guard.
.
"I had my coat on and was walking out the door when I first heard about the vote," one staffer said.
.
The senators were notified that there would be five hours of debate, and that a vote would be happening at midnight, or possibly before, sources said.
.
Aides to one of the senators running for President said they were surprised at how adamant the leadership was that a vote would be coming so quickly -- with or without them present. One aide to this senator said that his staff told leadership that they couldn't get back for a vote until later in the night.
.
But, this source says, the leadership told this Senator's staff that they could not promise to hold the vote for his return. Leadership said that the vote would happen at the end of debate whether or not this senator got back in time for it, this source tells us. So this senator gave up the effort to return for the vote.
.
So basically what happened here is that leadership was adamant that the vote take place by midnight last night.===

Re: did not vote on AG

What the hell difference does it make? The judge got 53 Senators to bob their heads up and down.

Kevin Russell Cook

Seems like every day I have a new reason for trying to find a third party candidate in 2008.

My reason for today:

On the vote to confirm the Attorney General, Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama voted......???

Well, gee, they didn't bother to vote at all!

So remind me again, why you expect little old me to save truth, justice and the American way by voting for one of these worthless wimps?

Not only do I remember Chicago 1968. However, I also remember that lots of McCarthy supporters had a temper tantrum, under the rubric there was no difference between Nixon and Humphrey, and stayed home. The result was a narrow Nixon victory. What followed wasn't just years more of Vietnam and Watergate but almost 40 years of William Renquist on the Supreme Court.

The other thing that Chicago did was make sure that since then the only Democrats who can get elected President are Southern and relatively conservative and the word liberal being smeared a leftist has become a dirty word.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

How is voting for someone you don't want to vote for having a voice?

What difference does it make?  It shows a lack of courage to show how they really think; how they would act if they get elected.  They can say anything (or nothing) during the "debates" and during speeches.  The fact that they won't stand up to be counted says bucketfuls about their lame backbones.  They are terrified to vote on ANYTHING that might come back to bite them.  Heaven forbid they would actually have to defend their own thinking!

"Well, if I had known then what I know now,,,," [Never mind they didn't even read what was out there -- they voted for the Iraq war because they were afraid not to.]

  Their solution now?  Don't vote,  That may be mine as well.

Jan

If memory serves, Hillary campaigned for Lieberman.  You can't get much more republican than that!

Jan

Mr. Gitlin's attempt to flog a bogus syllogism (or medieval schoolman dialectic) reveals a rather poor understanding of logical reasoning, if not honest language. In essence, he doesn't argue a point at all but sets up a phony straw-man "argument" that he falsely claims represents Ralph Nader's position vis-a-vis the once-influential Democratic Party. Untrue and unfair, I protest.

Mr. Gitlin's straw-man dialectic goes as follows. (a) Ralph Nader ran for election to pull the Democratic Party to the "left" but since (b) the Democratic Party keeps lurching to the "right" in spite of Ralph Nader then ergo (c) Ralph Nader should not have run previously nor should he run in the future. One could hardly find a more glaring example of not just the straw-man debating-school gambit, but classic question-begging, red-herrings, and non-sequiturs all rolled into one as well.

In the first place, the foundation premise (a) requires a linguistically honest restating to avoid unnecessary verbal dispute. Ralph Nader only ran for President -- and might run again I hope -- because he correctly thinks that the Democratic Party needs to eschew corrupt Clintonian corporatism and return to its FDR working-class roots. Mr. Gitlin's illegitimate argumentation comes in precisely here, where he carries water for American reactionaries by plastering their pejorative label "left" on what Nader knows as the Democratic Party's working-class roots. The soul of the Democratic Party used to lie not in any phony "left-ism" but in its genuine concerns for the plight of real American working people and not the corporate fiction of "the legal person" from the bowels of which trojan horse all manner of reactionary Republican Party abuse ensues.

Restated in linguistically honest if not literary terms, the sloppy syllogism becomes: (a) Ralph Nader ran (and runs) to entice the Democratic Party back to its working-class roots, but since (b) the Democratic Party keeps thowing open the city gates of Troy to the corporate Greeks bearing their Trojan Horse gifts, then (c) the city will fall to sack and pillage anyway, so the Democrats might just as well turn on their own prophet Laocoon and strangle him themselves so that the corporate Republican sea snakes don't have to crawl out of their own polluted ocean to do the dirty deed themselves.

Translation for those who don't know Homer's Illiad all that well: The corporate reactionary Republicans have gotten inside the bewildered and co-opted Democratic Party leadership's heads (if not their nice, new McMansions) and have them taking their cards off the table and forecasting surrender before the game that they don't undestand even begins.

Ralph Nader -- refreshingly -- doesn't need hired-gun focus-group word magicians to formulate cheap TV-dinner commercial slogans for him because he inhabits his own head and understands the English language well enough to say for himself what he means in his own words and not the insidious lizard language that Frank Luntz in his Republican-funded Word Lab has so effortlessly gotten Bob Shrum and the Democatic "leadership" claque to mouth against the interests of the Democratic Party whose very soul they have betrayed.

Meaningless jargon like "left" and "right" have nothing to do with Ralph Nader or any other person who just wants the Democratic Party to return to its working-class roots and away from corrupt Clintonian attempts to appease the rapacious Republicans who only respond by moving the goalposts further towards corporate oligarchic fascism with each bite they entice the Democrats to take out of their own asses.

Ralph Nader simply wants the Democrats to start taking bites out of Republican asses instead of their own. If the corporate-co-opted Democrats find that message irritating, then they can simply adopt it as their own, act on it, and the irritation will go away. If America actually had a Democratic Party, it would contain so many Ralph Naders that any one of them could easily become President of the United States -- and do something useful with the office.

Mr. Gitlin needs to study up on Charles Sanders Peirce and real modern logic (dating from about 1877) as well as Alfred Korzybski's general semantics (dating from 1933) instead of inflicting even more slippery theological disputation on an already sub-educated American populace whose idea of "reasoning" rarely coincides with the cognitive.

"Yeah, Korzybski. And maybe Blavatsky, and Edgar Cayce, too!" - Professor Erwin Corey

Kevin Russell Cook

Mr. Gitlin lives here in reality.

I'm a results kind of person, you could come up with a million idealistic reasons to vote for Nader in 2000. None of them would overshadow the reality of Bush.

YOU "need to study" the history of third parties in this country, your long whine was, for the most part, not relevant to the facts on the ground. It wasn't too difficult to see that the race was 50/50 OR that Bush was a radical dunghead. If you missed that, I can't say I think too much of your "reasoning."

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

I'm not trying to be cute. I honestly don't know which argument I'm avoiding. The "Democrats do bad things" argument? Look, All my life I've been hearing people say, wouldn't it be nice if we had a candidate to vote for instead of just having to vote against someone?

Yes, it would be nice. But, from where I sit, that doesn't seem to happen much. When faced with a choice between the horrible and the miserable, I have no trouble deciding.

I genuinely hope I haven't sidestepped making response to your points. It seems to me a lot of points I've made in this thread have gone unanswered. Though we may be on different sides in this debate, it gives me no joy to learn you feel similarly treated.

Kevin Russell Cook

~

This poor charade of a democratic elected representative republic has sunk to the depths where there is no such thing per se as Democratic or Republican parties. The two so-called parties are in reality nothing more, nor less, than multiple political coalitions within a belt-way political coalition. Joined at the hip like Siamese twins.

BTW -- Has anyone on either side of the so-called divide mentioned during a debate anything whatsoever about the 68 cent US dollar?

Ho hum ... life goes on ...

~OGD~

Congress and the President are two different animals.

Congress includes 535 people. Ralph Nader could be one of those, if he wished (see my post upthread). He could run as a Green, be that party's first and only national representative (as far as I know), work to effect change from the trenches, stand up and be heard on any/all issues of import (as Dennis Kucinich did this past week), and probably actually MOVE the Democratic party to the left, over time. (Perhaps with a few more Greens joining him to form a small but important voting block.)

But the election of the President is a single seat, and a series of 50 winner-take-all contests. So, in that game, a spoiler is a spoiler. (It seems fair to posit that taking 1% or 2% of the vote away from the Democrat really ends up helping the Republican, and hasn't influenced the policy positions of the Democratic candidates.)

I'm not going to argue with you that the Democratic majority in Congress deserves your hard work and support. They deserve to be kicked out on their ears, at least most of them. But Nader and the Democratic Congress have never crossed paths.

-- ARG

Oh God. OhMFG. Please, not another Democrats whining about Nader thread. I can't take it anymore. I'm reminded of years ago when I did group therapy, there was this one woman in the group who was completely hung up over how her sister was ruining her whole life. Every week it was like "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha" with her. Oh my freaking Christ. Finally near the end of the session (I think it was like 8 months of this crap we had to put up with) I remember everyone in the group, after months of forbearance, suddenly lost it. We all, almost on cue, told her to STFU already. Not in so many words, of course. That's kind of how I feel when bitter Democrats, weary of being ass-f***ed by their own party, start grumbling about Nader. And about how he threw the 2000 election, and how he ruined your sex life, and how he caused your hairline to recede, and how he gives you gas, and ...

Please. Stop it. Just stop it.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Nader supporter. Never voted for him. I'm a faithful nose-holder, just like most of the rest of you chumps. I've got to be honest, though, after this year with this Democrat Congress (yes, that's meant as a slur) I may be ready to give Nader another look. I'm only half joking.

Normally, I'd start in with explaining that most Nader voters never in a million years would've voted for Gore anyway, regardless of whether Nader was on the ballot. Judging from the Nader supporters in this thread, I see no reason to change that view. But, you know what? Since that fact seems to just bounce right off most Nader Haters noggins, I'll change my tack this time. I'll stipulate that Nader caused Gore to lose. Yes, that's right, I'll go along with y'all's delusion that Nader somehow reached into Gore's pocket and Stole His Votes. Yes, you're right. Those votes belonged to Gore. He had them in the bank. They were his. And Nader came along and stole them. I'll forget for a moment that we live in a democracy and people can vote for whomever they goddamn choose. No, those votes belonged to Gore, and Nader came along and stole them.

Get over it. It happened. You're just going to have to deal with the fact that your sister doesn't treat you the way you like, and move on with your life ... oh, wait a minute ... sorry, I was having flashbacks to therapy again. We were talking about Nader. Nader, Nader, Nader. Not "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha". Pardon my confusion.

Look. Here in America, anyone can run for President. There are typically a couple dozen names on the ballot. Oh my. Does that makes things more difficult for your candidate? Tough s***. That's how the game is played here, and if you can't win an election under those conditions, then Try Harder! Or STFU. Or here's another idea for any of you Democrat (yes, slur) candidates that are worried about the Naders of the world stealing your votes:

Have you tried stealing them back?

The trick is, they're not votes. They're voters. They're people, yes actual people, with opinions, and desires. Make Them Want To Vote For You. Otherwise, they'll vote for Nader, or someone else, and leave you to whine pathetically about it for another 7 years.

Progressivepunch.com has a measure of how often a Senator votes with the majority of Senators deemed more progressive in the Senate when a measure is narrowly won or lost -- that is, when it was more likely that the vote could make a difference.

1. Clinton cast her vote with the majority of the more progressive Senators 87.28 percent of the time when the margin was narrow.

Obama cast his vote with the majority of the more progressive Senators 76.97 percent of the time when the margin was narrow.

Joe Lieberman cast his vote with the majority of the more progressive Senators 76.14 of the time when the margin was narrow.

Why didn't Ross Perot run for the Senate? Why doesn't Wesley Clark?

Why not blame all the press commentators who trashed and lied about him for the fact of his failure to win by a wider margin in 2000? (I won't even mention Lieberman or Gore/Clinton's policies of GOP lite) Maureen Dowd? Chris Matthews? Rush Limbaugh?

Millions, including my own inlaws voted for Bush because of these jokers.

What about the Supreme Court (whose unqualified appointees Gore & Kerry irresponsibly voted to confirm)? The Brooks brothers rioters, now enjoying lucrative positions in the administration?

Why not blame these, who really are to blame, rather than the democratic process that gives Nader or anyone else the right to run?

There is something very disturbing about Gitlin and other operatives's untiring pushing of the propaganda point (lie) that Nader was somehow to blame for it all. He and they cannot be that stupid or lacking in pride as to publicly make fools of themselves time after time without some motive. What could it be?

Cui bono?