Damn, was I wordy in last night’s post! A healthy glass of single-malt (Cragganmore, to be specific) while the wife is out of town, and I’m gone… Anyway, for the benefit of my attention-challenged readers, let me summarize:
- If John Kerry loses the election (heaven forbid!), it will be because he failed to motivate the 50% of the voting-age public who choose not to vote; because he failed to convince Republicans that Bush is not a Republican, but a radical; because he failed to convince the 20% of registered Democrats who voted for Bush the last time that the past four years have been a disaster. It will not be because of Ralph Nader’s 1-4% of the voters.
- I’ve come to like John Kerry, respect John Kerry, advocate for John Kerry, donate to John Kerry for many reasons, the main one being that I don’t have to spit when I say his name. He is the “least worst” candidate with the only chance of knocking off the “most worst ever” candidate. He is not my ideal, but he will do. (See below for some specifications on my ideal candidate.)
- Ralph Nader, when he is not whining about his mistreatment at the hands of the Democrats, or playing dumb when handed a wad of dirty Swift Boat money wrapped in thousands of fraudulent signatures, has a good point about the future of third-party politics in America: unless we actively challenge the entrenched and increasingly corporate-owned and -operated major parties at every chance we get, there is no future political spectrum beyond 2° either side of dead center. Either that or theocracy.
- (Warning: Fantasy ahead!) If Ralph Nader were to deliver his votes in swing states to John Kerry, in exchage for a shot at confirmation as Attorney General, I would cast my vote for him here in my safe state of Maryland, as would millions of others, providing a greater benefit for the cause of third parties than Nader’s focus-free campaign could ever achieve.
Was it worth saying twice?
Over at Lotus – Surviving a Dark Time, Larry is maintaining his lonely fight to ensure that if (heaven forbid!) Kerry loses the election on November 2, it is not blamed on Ralph Nader’s presidential bid. Unfortunately, as he details, it seems that the blame machinery is already gearing up.
He points out that according to a recent New York Times article, Nader’s candidacy is jeopardizing Kerry’s chances in nine battleground states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Wisconsin). But, this isn’t really the case, Larry says, telling us that
…that statement simply does not hold up. The chart with the article shows average poll figures for Bush, Kerry, and Nader in those nine states. We’re going to assume that the polls are accurate (that is, ignore margins of error, otherwise it becomes impossible to say the figures mean anything at all, which quite possibly they don’t) and to maximize Nader’s effect on Kerry, we’re also going to assume that every single vote for Nader is a vote that would go to Kerry if Nader was not on the ballot. They wouldn’t vote for Bush, they wouldn’t vote for David Cobb or Walt Brown or even Michael Badnarik or some other 3rd party, and they wouldn’t not vote. That is a clearly untenable assumption, but we’re going to make it anyway.
Even with those assumptions, this is what the chart shows: In three states (IA, ME, NH), Kerry is ahead. So Nader’s vote can’t “tip the balance” to Bush there. In four more (CO, FL, NV, WI), Bush is ahead by a margin greater than Nader’s vote, so even with those votes, Kerry would still lose the state. No “tipping” there, either. Only in two states (MN, NM) could Nader’s vote make a difference. Yes, that is two states. But it’s not nine.
Still, two states is enough to do serious damage, right? After all, didn’t Nader’s votes in Florida cost Al Gore the victory there in 2000? Not true, Larry has been saying since at least last December, calling the Nader-blame story a myth.
Most important is Fact One: Al Gore won the election. He won it fair and square and it was stolen from him. He won the popular vote by over a half-million and actually would have won Florida had a statewide recount been done, according to a post-election study by a group of newspapers. (Ironically, the Democrats wanted a more limited recount, under which Gore would have lost. It was the GOP pushing for a statewide recount, under which he would have won.) At that, it doesn’t allow for the infamous “butterfly ballot” business; even Pat Buchanan, the beneficiary of those misvotes, says most of them were intended for Gore. Nor does it take into account the (it seems all but forgotten) fact that at minimum 8,000 people, overwhelmingly minority, were improperly denied their right to vote because they’d been wrongfully purged from the Florida voter rolls – voters who everyone agrees would have been overwhelmingly Democratic. (For more on the GOP’s theft of the Florida election, check out Jews for Buchanan by John Nichols and David DesChamps.) None of that, of course, was Ralph Nader’s fault. But challenging it would mean taking on the GOP directly – and Nader was a much easier target.
Fact Two: It was not Ralph Nader’s fault that Al Gore ran an astonishingly incompetent campaign in which, as even his supporters admit, he never really defined himself or what he stood for, a campaign in which he deliberately rejected the support of perhaps the most effective campaigner of the last few decades (Bill Clinton) – which also made it nearly impossible for him to run on a claimed record of “peace, prosperity, government reform, and budget surpluses.”
Fact Three: It was not Ralph Nader’s fault that the “devastating” debater Al Gore blew three chances at a basically unarmed opponent.
Fact Four: It was not Ralph Nader’s fault that Gore couldn’t even carry his own home state of Tennessee, which would have made Florida irrelevant. (Even with Florida but without Tennessee, Bush could not have gotten more than 267 electoral votes of the 270 needed.)
Fact Five: It was not Ralph Nader’s fault that even after Gore knew the press would target him for “exaggerating,” he continued to do it – nor was it Nader’s fault that Gore seemed unable to respond when the claims of exaggerations were themselves exaggerations, as they often were.
And Fact Six: It definitely was not Ralph Nader’s fault that the Democrats treated Nader voters as naughty children to be scolded rather than as adults to be engaged and acted as if those votes were Gore’s by divine right instead of something to be earned.
I’m not so sure I agree with points 3 and 5, since I thought that Gore easily won all three debates, and, as far as exaggerating goes, I didn’t see that as something Gore was doing, rather it was part of the media’s storyline which would be enforced and the facts be damned! Still, Larry’s remaining 4 points are indisputable. The election was Gore’s to lose, and despite his many errors, missteps and bad judgments, Gore still won it and saw it stolen. Besides, at the time, we didn’t know that George W. Bush would be the radical president he has turned out to be. Running on a platform of “compassionate conservatism” and claiming to be a “uniter, not a divider”, the consequences of the wrong choice didn’t seem so dire.
This time, though, the choice is clear: returning Bush to office will be a disaster which is certain to haunt us for generations to come. So, a vote for anyone but John Kerry — the only candidate with a chance to defeat Bush — is a vote for Bush, right? Well… maybe…
Here’s the problem: John Kerry is not my dream candidate. He is, what Nader in a recent interview with Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! called the “least worst” candidate. The candidate I want to win has much more liberal — perhaps impractically liberal — positions.
- I want a candidate who believes that gays and lesbians should have every right held by heterosexuals.
- I want a candidate who believes that corporations — legal constructs, licensed to exist at the will of government — have no part in elections and no First Amendment rights to express themselves. (I wouldn’t mind a death penalty for criminal corporations, either.)
- I want a candidate who believes that the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” enshrined in our founding documents means that good health — an essential part of two-thirds of those fundamental rights — should not be available only to those with wads of cash; my candidate finds it unconscionable and embarrassing that we are the only major Western democracy without a national healthcare plan. (And please save any bullshit about how its too expensive and it will bankrupt us and how our medical system is the best in the world, blah blah blah. Meanwhile, Canada, our neighbor to the north with a wonderful national health service just posted a 9 billion dollar budget surplus, reduced its public debt, and still manages to have a life-expectancy 2.5 years longer than the US, an infant mortality rate 1/3 lower than ours, and an HIV/AIDS infection rate half ours.)
- I want a candidate who is willing to challenge American ingenuity, as John F. Kennedy did with the space program, to end our dependence on fossil fuels before this decade is out.
- I want a candidate who will state categorically that without the right to determine what happens to her own body, a woman can never be anything but a slave to the state and a second- or third-class citizen.
- I want a candidate who will set an example for the rest of the world by beginning to destroy our nuclear arsenal, and challenge other nations to do the same for the good of all humanity.
- I want a candidate who will work with the world community to get us the hell out of Iraq and keep us the hell out of unnecessary foreign adventures. (Notice, I didn’t say “get us out of Afghanistan.” We have a job to finish there, finding and bringing to justice Osama bin Laden. Once that’s done, then we should get the hell out of there.)
- I want a candidate who respects the sacrifices of the men and women who have served their country, suffered for their country, lost limbs and suffer horrible sicknesses because of their service to their country. Respect for veterans includes fully funding VA hospitals, providing a new GI Bill, and promising never to send another soldier into an unnecessary war.
- I want a candidate who rcognizes that the Constitution is not a magical, infallible edict from on high, but one whose all-too-human authors expected it to be a living, changing document. Realizing that the current Electoral College system is broken, that gerrymandering has removed electoral choice in 90% of Congressional districts, that the bars to entry of a third party are unreasonably high, my ideal candidate would call for a new Constitutional Convention to address these issues and bring our Constitution in line with the realities of modern times.
- I want a candidate who recognizes that vast portions of our economy are subsidized by our willful ignorance of the unaccounted-for costs of pollution. If the price of cars, for instance, included the environmental costs of their manufacture and use, I bleieve that even Bill Gates would be riding a bicycle.
Is John Kerry my ideal candidate? Not by a long shot. Is Ralph Nader that candidate? The Nader who spent decades in selfless public service is much closer, but not nearly close enough. Does my ideal candidate exist? I don’t know… I don’t even think that if I were to run for president I could possibly fulfill all my expectations. And I suspect that there are millions and millions of people just like me. What are we supposed to do while we wait for that ideal candidate to appear? Do we vote our conscience and take the chance that our defection from the “least-worst” candidate will allow the worst candidate to waltz into another 4-year term where he can strengthen his disgusting and disastrous legacy to the detriment of our nation and our world? We can’t.
The other side of the choice is also highly unappealing. By voting for John Kerry, I am voting against my own beliefs and making it all the more difficult for a true third (or fourth or fifth) party to emerge and take its place in the major leagues. The more we subscribe to the either/or, Republican/Democrat mindset, the less likely it is that there will ever be true change. The more we let distasteful and anti-democratic political maneuvers — like trying to keep Nader, a legitimate candidate, off the ballot — become accepted strategies, the less likely it becomes that we will ever see needed reforms appear on the ballot. The more we allow our electoral process to be driven by the kingmakers in big business and big media and big politics, the less likely we are to ever reclaim democracy for the people.
But Nader himself needs reclaiming. The more Nader focuses on the strategies needed to counter the disservice being done him, the more he loses sight of his message. The more tainted money he accepts from the Swift Boat Liars, the more he denies that there is anything wrong with accepting this money, the more he allows Republican organizations to use him as a strategic blocking device in battleground states, the closer he becomes to a Machiavellian caricature of himself. What is his message? What does he seek to accomplish? What do I want to accomplish with my vote?
I know it’s not the most original thought, but, here’s my idea, fantasy, whatever: Ralph Nader meets with John Kerry and offers him a deal. If Kerry will commit to nominate Nader to the Attorney General post in his administration — a post where Nader (if he could actually get confirmed) will be best able to realize his anti-corporate agenda — Nader will endorse Kerry and request his supporters in battleground states do the same. Meanwhile, in safe states, like Maryland and New York, voters will be asked to see their vote as a referendum on the two-party system. If they like the choices, Kerry supporters should cast their votes for Kerry. If, however, they are voting for Kerry for strategic reasons, they should consider casting their vote for Nader or another third-party candidate. Result: Kerry wins, Nader has a voice and an ear to listen to it within the party, third-parties reach the threshhold for federal matching funds and a place at the debate table in the next election cycle. More importantly, voters start to feel like they actually have a choice, and that maybe, just maybe, that ideal candidate will actually have a chance to be heard when he or she finally comes along.
So, what do you say, Ralph?
