I saw on the news yesterday morning that he might announce it, but I never checked back.
Jordan
Posted:
Member since
Re: Did Nader decide if he was running??
Posted by yabbobay
Posted by OctGroom
Nader is running... but the Dem's are beggin him not to. He won't have much of an effect as he did on Gore. He totally f----- Gore.
Not that I liked Gore.. or Bush... I liked McCain.. but now I'm living in the past. LOL
this is unfair...Gore f-ed himself...
you can not blame not winning on someone else...Nader is doing democracy a huge favor by not cowering to these two big political parties...
If the dems want to win so bad- they have to step up to the plate and start taking some responsibility...blaming Nader is a LAME excuse...when you can't even win your home state!!! even MONDALE won his home state!!!
Ah, thank you. Well put!
september2004
Posted:
Member since
Re: Did Nader decide if he was running??
Posted by NIHA
i think nader will 'take away' votes and when the race is so close and the world in such turmoil it is REALLY IMPORTANT not to throw in a monkey wrench.
I don't think it's fair to HAVE to vote for one of the 2 dominant parties. If there were only 2 choices for me to vote, then I would vote Democrat, but why should I *settle* and vote for someone (any of the democratic candidates) that I don't truly believe in? I also think that Dems need to stop blaming Nader and those who voted for them. Why don't they take a look at why people voted for him?
IMO it's a matter of idealism vs. realism at this point in time. I don't want to HAVE to only vote for 2 parties either. But at this point I will take any Democrat over Bush even if I agree with a third, fourth, whatever party... I am not being 'forced', I am making a 'lesser of two evils' choice given certain probabilities.
Look what happened to Kerry, he supposedly is winning on the 'electability factor'. In the primaries I will not necessarily vote for him, but Kerry will get my vote if it's Kerry vs. Bush!
IMO it's a matter of idealism vs. realism at this point in time. I don't want to HAVE to only vote for 2 parties either. But at this point I will take any Democrat over Bush even if I agree with a third, fourth, whatever party... I am not being 'forced', I am making a 'lesser of two evils' choice given certain probabilities.
I don't think it is unrealistic to want a multiparty system...every country in Europe has one...It takes people...us...t ochange things...we can't expect others to get up and do things for us...
IMHO Its time that this archaic 2 party system is knocked up a bit...and Ralph Nader is doing more about it than we are...
september2004
Posted:
Member since
Re: Did Nader decide if he was running??
Posted by yabbobay
just a FYI...Americans feared Jefferson becoming president b/c he was a different party and people thought that all hell would break loose...
can you imagine if Jefferson decided not to run, because another party who wanted to win told him not to...it will hurt our chances...
and you are equating Nader with Jefferson?
We just disagree on this one.
I would much rather see and back a Dean approach rather than an egotistical Nader...
If Bush is reelected I will consider fleeing the country...
I would much rather see and back a Dean approach rather than an egotistical Nader...
If Bush is reelected I will consider fleeing the country...
personality wise? not at all...their desire to protect democracy -ABSOLUTELY!!!
I have said that i can't imagine what another 4 years of Bush will be like...but I would never ask someone not to run b/c it might hurt my chances...
I think egotistical isn't the word for Nader...i don't think he thinks he is going to win...i think it was unfair of russert to label him that - I truly believe that 3rd parties are running to bring out issues that are often overlooked
for everyone debating the 2000 election...some interesting facts from nader's site (yes its biased...but so is the ralphdontrun site)
Did Ralph cost Al Gore the election in 2000? No.
Al Gore won the election in 2000.
George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.
No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.
To say someone is a 'spoiler' is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. American does not belong to two parties.
The Constitution does not mention parties.
This country had a rich history of third parties.
George W. Bush’s recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election.
The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election.
Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election.
A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin’s book Too Close to Call).
Playing the 'what if' game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates.
Buchanan cost Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico).
Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign.
And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida.
Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph’s votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph.
In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph’s voters would NOT have voted for Gore.
In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph 'took more votes' from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin.
CNN’s polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting.
For the last three years Democrats and media pundits have been smearing Ralph Nader and the Greens — oblivious to the facts — looking for a scapegoat for the failures of their own party and its candidates.
It is not the job of third-party or Independent candidates to make sure either of the two major parties wins.
That would be like asking a new start-up to make sure Microsoft or Apple has more market share.
Moreover, there are 100 million people in this country who do not vote. There are plenty of nonvoters for all candidates to attract.
Electoral votes are not a zero-sum game.
Historically, third parties and Independents move very important agendas.
however, 2004 is a very different ballgame for me. too much has happened under bush that is scary…
RedHead
Posted:
Member since
Re: Did Nader decide if he was running??
Posted by OctGroom
Posted by yabbobay
Posted by OctGroom
Nader is running... but the Dem's are beggin him not to. He won't have much of an effect as he did on Gore. He totally f----- Gore.
Not that I liked Gore.. or Bush... I liked McCain.. but now I'm living in the past. LOL
I AGREE
this is unfair...Gore f-ed himself...
you can not blame not winning on someone else...Nader is doing democracy a huge favor by not cowering to these two big political parties...
If the dems want to win so bad- they have to step up to the plate and start taking some responsibility...blaming Nader is a LAME excuse...when you can't even win your home state!!! even MONDALE won his home state!!!
Gore did screw himself by not linking up closer with Clinton.. and losing TN was inexcuasble as the VP of a two-term incumbant president.. but Nader had a definite hand in costing him the election becuase Nader secured a lot of votes in Florida that would have gone to Gore in a two person race. Now I don't like the two party thing either.. I think they're both the same in the end.. both have special interests behind them.. one pretends to care about the average guy and they really don't.. the other prefers huge companies over the average guy. To say Nader, whose voters were mostly Dem's did not have an effect on Gore is not accurate in my opinion. And the Dems see the same thing happening again this year.
I AGREE
sweetadeline
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Member since
Re: Did Nader decide if he was running??
It's been really interesting to read all of these different opinions about Nader. A political discussion without any namecalling or nonsense! Maybe Ron's 'threat' of a time-out board worked!
(I'm only joking, but I really did enjoy reading what everyone had to say.)
OctGroom
Posted:
Member since
Re: Did Nader decide if he was running??
Posted by sweetadeline
It's been really interesting to read all of these different opinions about Nader. A political discussion without any namecalling or nonsense! Maybe Ron's 'threat' of a time-out board worked!
(I'm only joking, but I really did enjoy reading what everyone had to say.)
That's cause we are all so much better than Fox News.. LOL No really.. we are!
I saw the Daily News today and they referred to Nader as... get this... ' DARTH NADER.'
I truly understand what the others have written.. especially those who it may seem I disagreed with. It's actually great to disagree.
From my perseptive, the Dems lost in 2000 because they did not appeal/lose their support with the their loyal base of supporters. Some happened that caused a splinter with the people who voted for Nader who usually would have.. if they had known what might happen.. would have voted for Gore instead.
There was absolutely a Nader effect.. just as in 92... when it was Clinton/Bsuh Sr./ Perot. Clinton won only about 40% of the popular vote or less. Hardly a majority. But wih the economy totally tanking, people who were angry at Bush, turned to Perot. JMO
And a third party as alluring as it can be because it's ideology is set and is VERY different from the 2 party standards that we have, excited a lot of people and caused the Bush's adminsitration's demise.
Yes, I will say that it could have been anyone that caused Gore the 2000 election. The personification of this is Nader.. therefore he directly had a big impact... and that screwed Gore especially in FL. But Gore did lots of things to make himself lose as well.
These two factors.. and not Bush at all.. made the 2000 election what it was.
