Select a Candidate
I invite you to take MPR’s "Select a Candidate" survey.
It asks you about the issues, then tells you which candidate most closely matches your views. As expected, my scores were:
Nader 93.0, Kerry 46.0, Bush 0.0.
As of this writing, the cumulative results from all respondents are:
Kerry 52%, Nader 42%, Bush 26%.
The numbers don’t add up to 100% because it’s the average of overall matches. If they did add up, it would be:
Kerry 43%, Nader 35%, Bush 22%.
This is unscientific, of course, MPR has a liberal audience, and it’s subject to change, but if poll numbers were like this, at least Nader would get into the debates. If everyone who agreed with Nader would simply support him, our future would be much brighter indeed.
posted by Tom Cleland @ 8/07/2004 03:38:00 PM
21 comments
21 Comments:
What I think of Ralph Nader:
http://szettner.blogspot.com/2004/08/naderocchio.html
True, Bush is much worse than expected, but if we let that scare us into voting for Kerry, then the fascists have already won. Bush and Kerry both derive their power from the same corporate sources. You may get an improvement with Kerry, but you can also expect the occupation of Iraq to continue throughout Kerry’s term. You’re also giving up on repealing the Patriot Act, same-sex marriage rights, repealing the Taft-Hartley Act, and Instant Runoff Voting. And if Kerry’s term is anything like Clinton’s, you can forget about universal health care, reduced auto emissions, and an end to insane military spending levels.
You can dispute the exact numbers, but I think it’s entirely believable that some Republicans voted for Nader in 2000 and will again in 2004. My grandmother in Iowa is a Republican who plans to vote for Nader. Campaign reform is an issue that crosses party lines, and other issues such as the deficit and the prison scandal have Republican voters looking for alternatives. That’s not to say that Nader solicits signatures and money from the Republicans. And even if some Republicans do collect signatures for selfish purposes, they won’t be the ones voting for Nader anyway. As for the contributions, the Democrats take a lot more money from Republicans than Nader does. Heavy hitters like GE, Disney, Viacom, and AOL/Time Warner, and many more give to both of the establishment parties.
We don’t need to win this year, Sheryl. If you keep losing elections, you’ll be forced to join us! Then maybe we can get Instant Runoff Voting so we can rank the candidates and not be pitted against each other like we are under the current system. Yes, as you say, “Look at me. I'm so virtuous and pure and patriotic.” Better to be virtuous, pure and patriotic than non-virtuous, impure and unpatriotic. Try it, you’ll like it!
In terms of reforming the system. Who do you expect is going to make these reforms? The people who benefit from the very split in the liberal vote? Because that is who is left in control to write the laws when Democrats can't get elected. Do you see Republicans voting to open up our system when they know that as long as the Democrats and the Greens, who share the same constituency aim for the same voters, neither will get elected?
Maybe your grandmother is a Republican, but I personally know at least 20 people who voted for Nader in 2000, and not one of them was either A) a conservative, nor B) a non-active voter prior to the election. Fortunately, a great many of them know what is at stake this time. The others just put their idealogy over outcome--never mind that people are being murdered abroad for oil. What's another 4 years?
But the truth is that you can't change the laws without having people in power who are sympathetic to those changes. Right now the Republicans own all three branches of government--the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. And they aren't going to change what benefits them. On the contrary, they are solidifying their hold on power. After years of opposing communism supposedly on the grounds that it was "undemocratic," they are quietly suffocating democracy in this country. "Aber in vieren Jahren..." But in 4 years...--I'm sure the Germans said that while they still had their democracy as well
Then there is the issue of appointments. Do you have any idea how many appointments Bush makes in a single year? (I'm starting to create a list based on the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. Off the top of my head, I can tell you that in the first 3 months of 2003, he had nominated over 9000 people to various roles in government, so it's probably close to 36,000 nominations per year. But more to the point, do you know what type of people he is appointing? If not, I suggest you look into it, because it is extremely scary. And when these people are too right wing for even the right wing controlled judiciary to confirm, Bush just re-nominates them. Once, twice, thrice. And I can assure you, it is not their ABA ratings that get them on the list. The hint of the direction this President is trying to take this country is probably given away by his first few executive orders.Have you looked at The Executive Orders he's issued? The direction is evident from the Faith Based Community Initiatives link on his own website. So much for separation of Church and State.
Have you considered why a party that already controls all three branches of government would be breaking traditions in redistricting in order to gerrymander districts away in already solidly Republican areas like Texas? (And remember, these are the same folks that are going to get elected once the Greens and Nader sabatoge the Democrat's chances to stop all this fun--I'm sure gerrymandering is just great for third parties trying to get involved in the process, eh?) Do we wonder why the head of Homeland Security has asked Congress for the ability to "postpone" our elections in case of a "terrorist threat"? (Kind of like the terrorist threat in Iraq, right?) Or why the head of Diebold, one f the larger electronic voting machine vendors promised Bush to try and assure him the election? Why the Republican Secretary of State in Texas only approved about 3 voting macines, and of course Diebold was one of the three. If things aren't turned around in this election, we will be lucky if there is another election.
If the Greens want to open the system up, then they should form a caucus within the Democratic party for the sole purpose of getting people elected who support a opening the system up. I am sure that they could work with people like Bernie Sanders and others in the Congressional Progressive Caucus to those ends.
I assure you there are many democrats who are perfectly happy with the idea of opening the system up for more parties, but we know there is a way to do that makes sense, and a way that is political suicide. That is not to say that all democrats share that vision. Some are clearly more progressive than others. Did you see the Dean-Nader debate. I can't make a link for an rtsp file in Blogger comments, but here is the URL: rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04070904_naderdean.rm?start=7:53
In short, being idealogically pure means nothing if it sabatoges your own idealogy. And that is what Nader is about. Just like he was in 2000. He didn't make the country more liberal or progressive then. He made it less so, just like he will if he succeeds in sabatoging this election too. Having lived with the results of his handiwork for 4 years, I am not about to sit back and be "tolerant" to more russian roulette.
PS In addition to what I said in my blog about the hypocrisy of Nader saying that he is going for the conservative vote while he is attacking the liberals (which of course suggests exactly who he is trying to convert), let me also point out that if he were really opposing the right, then the would be the Republicans cross examining his votes for accuracy, not the Democrats.
You can be sure, that both the democrats and the republicans hire folks who know exactly how people like Nader affect the election. If Nader were really picking up loads of Republicans, then it would be the Republicans questions the legitimacy of his petitions and complaining that the democrats were helping him get on the ballot.
But then as Howard Dean pointed out, if he were really sucj a populist, he could get on the ballot without the help of either party.
PPS Just one more thought. If Bush gets re-elected or re-selected, then he's a "lame duck" President. He doesn't have to run for re-election in 4 years time, because he can't (assuming that we still have ademocracy by then.)
Considering all the damage that he has done to the economy, the environment, our standing in the world community, our civili liberties, if he has a Republican Congress there to rubber stamp everything he does and continues to stretch the bounds of executive privilege, what is to stop him?
A Nader supporter here recently suggested that we could still recall him. Apparently she doesn't realize that that is an option for Congress, not the general electorate, and a Republican packed Congress is not likely to recall Bush. It's this combination of ignorance and not think things through. I'm a really depressed and angry these days. :-(
No doubt, Bush is terrible, but if things get too unbearable, you should be able to persuade Republicans to vote Democratic. It’ll be easier than persuading me. If Kerry is elected, we’re still going to have a lot of suffering in the third world. If Kerry is elected, the rich will still get richer and the poor will still get poorer. If Kerry is elected, we’re still going to run out of oil before we have replacement technologies in place, like windmills and Personal Rapid Transit. Pick your poison. One thing is certain: If Kerry is elected, you will still jerk us around with the same arguments in four years.
Sure, Dean said some good things about Instant Runoff Voting, but he’s not your candidate. In the debate, Dean didn’t disagree with Nader so much on the issues, just on tactics. It’s as if his role is to keep progressive Democrats under control. I sure felt stymied when I was a Democratic delegate and activist in the 1990s.
Do you seriously believe that Democrats will pass IRV? Ask your Democratic candidates what they’re doing to advance it. I’m sick of getting the run-around. I’ll believe it when I see it. You can start by passing it in those states where Democrats still control the legislatures. You better hurry, though, because people like me have already lost trust!
"No doubt, Bush is terrible, but if things get too unbearable, you should be able to persuade Republicans to vote Democratic."Like in Nazi, Germany? Very easy to be a dissident when you have rights. Less so once you have thrown them away.
"It’ll be easier than persuading me."That is the most believable statement you've made. As Bill Moyers recently said of George Bush, an idealogue is someone who will never change his mind irregardless of new information or ideas presented.
"If Kerry is elected, we’re still going to have a lot of suffering in the third world."And degree makes no difference to you? If a person is suffering, is it ok to beat the shit out them on the grounds that they were already suffering? By such logic, no suffering is bad, because there will always be suffering.
"If Kerry is elected, the rich will still get richer and the poor will still get poorer." Kerry actually has a fairly progressive voting record. Would you mind explaining your proof for this last statement? Like something from his history as a legislator or lawyer, not just whatever he has said he will do one the campaign trail. If we went by the latter, then Bush is the education President, the environmental President, the peace President.....
"If Kerry is elected, we’re still going to run out of oil before we have replacement technologies in place, like windmills and Personal Rapid Transit."Actually one of the most persuasive forums I saw Kerry in was with the League of Conservation Voters Forum:
(See Forum at: rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04062603_conservationleague.rm)
"If Kerry is elected, you will still jerk us around with the same arguments in four years."No, I will probably top myself if Bush gets another 4 years. Either that or move to Switzerland and watch people like you get thrown in concentration camps from afar. And I'll remember that it's all ok, because people would have been suffering in the US under Kerry anyway.
"In the debate, Dean didn't disagree with Nader so much on the issues, just on tactics."That's why I am so aggro with Nader supporters. They pretend to care about the things I care about, but don't care if their "tactics" sabatoge their own ideals. Which shows that it is actually a fundamentalist religion. I care about outcome, because that is what people have to live with.
What good are ideals about humanity if you don't care enough about people to care about how their lives are actually affected? What good is it to call yourself a liberal if your "tactics" end up making people's lives worse off?
That's why I actually dislike Nader supporters more than Bush supporters, because at least the Bush supporters are fighting for the ugliness they say they believe in. Nader supporters would compromise the ideals they believe in order to espouse them.
"It's as if his role is to keep progressive Democrats under control."He's a healer. As such he sees his role as ensuring that people's lives are better rather than worse. It actually reminds me of Dr. Rieux at the end of the book The Plague, and in a sense life under the Bush administration has been a plague:
"...he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of final victory. It could be only the record of what had been done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions, by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers."
"I sure felt stymied when I was a Democratic delegate and activist in the 1990s."Then you must have been doing the right thing at that time at least. And you must also realize that the Democratic party is a very diverse group of people. You have you cynics, but you also have your idealistic pragmatists.
I too have been a delegate multiple times. I also set up a branch of Democrats Abroad when I was in New Zealand in 2000, but couldn't find any members. I joined the Texas Progressive Populist Caucus the year before last, which actually has accomplished a lot in reforming our state party. And at the last state convention, I even organized a Secular Humanist Caucus with 82 members showing up. So I am an activist too. It's not like I sit on the sidelines as a democrat.
In 1994 I was in the Rules Committee at the state convention and this year I did that again. I can say without reservation that the power structure in the party in this state at least is a lot more progressive than it was in 1994. I think part of that is because a lot of the people who were in the party just for insignificant power or to get elected have bailed and become Republicans.
And I will be the first to admit that the local county executive committee meetings are just plain scary.
On the other hand, it's a lot easier to be philosophical and intellectual in small groups. There are a lot of democratic clubs in San Antonio that get a lot more done than the party itself , but that is partially because they aren't sitting around playing Roberts Rules of Order games. At the same time, we have several hundred people attending each county exec meeting, so how do you get visionary with that many people? An obstacle that the greens don't have to contend with now, but would if they ever did get politically viable. (Although Nader isn't actually running as a Green. Because an independent he can double the impact of sabatoging the dems again.)
"Do you seriously believe that Democrats will pass IRV? Ask your Democratic candidates what they're doing to advance it. I'm sick of getting the run-around."If you can mobilize enough people as Greens outside the party for this end, then why can't you mobilize the same people within the democratic party? That's what caucuses are all about.
Look, in 2002 some liberal progressives in Texas set up this caucus--The Progressive Populist Caucus. They set up a website, held statewide meetings, set up a Yahoo discussion group. By this last convention, they had something like 400 people attend the caucus meeting. You can be sure that the politicians and the party are now listening. Only a year earlier they were being slagged off as a "radical fringe" group by the party regulars. And the whole idea behind the caucus is changing the structure to be more inclusive and open to every day people.
Parties are just structures. They are whatever people make of them. But right now the Democrats have infinitely more people, and it's a zero sum game with the Greens. I don't see why the same people can't organize within the Democratic Party and get their own elected. A party within a party--that's what a caucus is.
But instead they do this external thing that sets people with the same ideals against one another.
If you want instant runoff voting than form a caucus for it in the Democrats party, grow it, get people to run for office for it, and it's done. How do you expect the Greens with so few numbers to accomplish that by themselves? Or do you expect that the Republicans are going to support this?
Kerry is a Senator, so it’s hard to prove or disprove if he cast "safe votes," in other words, votes that are safe because they know the bill won’t pass anyway. We know for sure that Kerry voted for NAFTA, which made it easier to export jobs to countries without union and environmental protection. This allowed company presidents to pay their workers less and pocket more money for themselves. It most definitely made the rich richer and the poor poorer. Other plans are in the works, like CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
http://www.stopcafta.org/As for third world suffering, Clinton killed more Iraqis than Bush did. His sanctions deprived the people of food and medicine.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1045944/postshttp://www.iacenter.org/chomsky.htmThere was also the Rwandan genocide
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/rwanda/index.html
Kerry is a Senator, so it’s hard to prove or disprove if he cast "safe votes," in other words, votes that are safe because they know the bill won’t pass anyway. We know for sure that Kerry voted for NAFTA, which made it easier to export jobs to countries without union and environmental protection. This allowed company presidents to pay their workers less and pocket more money for themselves. It most definitely made the rich richer and the poor poorer. Other plans are in the works, like CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
http://www.stopcafta.org/As for third world suffering, Clinton killed more Iraqis than Bush did. His sanctions deprived the people of food and medicine.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1045944/postshttp://www.iacenter.org/chomsky.htmThere was also the Rwandan genocide
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/rwanda/index.html
The NAFTA vote is an arguement we can discuss, because that is something Kerry himself did.
The rest of your arguements seem to follow guilt by association with Clinton. The weakness, of course, is that if guilt by association is legitimate, then so too is credit by association.
Therefore, we can also link Kerry with all of Clinton successes as well as tying Kerry to other fellow democrats like Paul Wellstone, Barbara Lee, etc, etc.
But one has to wonder if a person is really informed about the person they are attacking , then why he or she should have to cite other people's records in order to slag the person off. Go figure.
I campaigned for Wellstone in 1990 and 1996, and John Kerry is no Paul Wellstone. Actually, even Wellstone had room for improvement. I would say the burden of proof is on you to show that Kerry won’t be like fellow Democrat Clinton. Ask your local campaign officials if Kerry will distance himself from the Clinton record as outlined in Appendix D of Ralph Nader’s book “Crashing the Party.” I’d be curious to find out if Kerry opposed Clinton on the Iraq sanctions and the Rwandan genocide.
Actually, the burden of proof is on everyone. Being a responsible and informed citizen is the duty of every American. Actually it is the duty of citizens anywhere.
For what it's worth, I donated $40 to Paul Wellstone almost a month before he died and perpetually receive requests for money from his sons. (Unforunately I have no money at this point and am more inclined to groups like Common Cause.)
But last night I was in fact digging up some proof about Kerry, because I do need to be able to defend him if I am going to do my job as precinct chair.
I am definitely on the right side of this debate. :-) It actually made me feel good. I had been looking at this in terms of much better than Bush, but Kerry has actually stood up on the right side of most issues.
I browsing the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, because it goes back forever. You can search their archive of newscasts by key kewords. It gives extremely terse summaries (clearly because they want you to order video tapes.) However, it tells you enough to get an idea of who is being interviewed and what they are fighting for. I already knew that Kerry was not what he has been making himself out to be, but then neither is Bush nor Nader.
Here, I'll give you a sense of what what was coming up. Kerry was a very vocal opponent to Ronald Reagan, particularly in regards to Noriega, Nicaragua, and Columbia. A lot of his public statements on those subjects seem to bash the CIA and he discusses their relationships to drug dealers and money. I saw several comments mentioned where he compares the war on drugs to Vietnam, which may recall he protested when he came back.
As I mentioned before, he was also a vocal opponenet to the original Gulf War.
He supported allowing gays in the military.
He proposed an Amendment, I think it was on the Clean Air Act, to reduce suburban smog emissions.
Opposed Reagan on South Africa....Opposed the Marcos's in the Philippines.
Anyway, I will post detailed findings once I can follow them up with lots of links. More information forthcoming. And I have only gotten as far as 1993. I believe that is where I left off.
In terms of Clinton, Clinton was a very shrewd politician. Sometimes he did the wrong things, but a lot of times it was in order to get other right things accomplished. Everything he did was tactical.
I'm not going to worry with trying to justify his record, however, because he is not the one running.
I agree we all have a civic duty to stay informed, but nobody can research everything. I’m sensing that you have more time and energy right now, so I’m willing to let you do some of the work for me. I’m still curious on the Iraqi sanctions and the Rwandan genocide. I don’t recall Kerry being a vocal opponent of the sanctions, but I could be wrong. On the genocide, Kerry may not have had access to Clinton’s intelligence briefings, and I’m not sure how it could have been prevented peacefully.
For the record, I have a few good things to say about Clinton. He cut the deficit, his people prevented the Millennium Attacks, and they stopped Serbia without U.S. combat casualties, though not before a tremendous amount of human suffering was allowed.
But there are so many more bad things to say about Clinton. Here’s a link to Appendix D:
http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=80As for Kerry, my March 4 post lists a dozen reasons not to vote for Kerry:
1. He voted for the War in Iraq.
2. He voted for the Patriot Act.
3. He voted for No Child Left Behind.
4. He voted for NAFTA.
5. He voted for Most Favored Nation treatment for Communist China.
6. He supports ethanol, even though it takes about a gallon of ethanol to make a gallon of ethanol.
7. He wants a non-universal, non-singlepayer health care plan.
8. He takes more lobbyist money than anyone in the Senate.
9. He was in the Senate when Clinton had both houses of Congress and didn't get much done.
10. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, founded by Robber Barons John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan.
11. He is a member of the elite secret society "Skull and Bones" along with George W. Bush.
12. His senior foreign policy advisor, Rand Beers, was chief counter-terrorism adviser to George W. Bush.
If you want me to vote for Kerry, you’ll have to explain how he’s better than Nader on all these points.
But for now, the items I’m most curious about are IRV passage in Democrat-controlled states, the Iraqi sanctions, and the Rwandan genocide.
Sorry I haven't gotten back to you on this conversation. I've had some things distract me. More later.
Sheryl
Ok, thanks. I've been working on a few things myself. Those last few research tasks would be pretty challenging. I did an initial search on the sanctions and couldn't find a quick answer.
Tom,
I've started a blog purely on Kerry, which is very much a work in progress:
http://thekerryfiles.blogspot.comI've posted several articles from various sources, but I have been researching it in chronilogical order and am just now getting to 1984 when was actually elected to the Senate. That of course is where it should get fun.
I am starting to think, however, that the reason the democrats are painting Kerry as a rambo type is because he's Ted Kennedy's boy.
Caroline Kennedy worked for Kerry's campaign in 1972. There are pictures of Kerry on JFK's yacht before he even went to Vietnam, and Ted Kennedy is in just about all of Kerry's election photos.
Also, I suspect he got him some key committee assignments once he got to the Senate.
My suspicion is that maybe Kennedy figured he could never run as President after Chapaquidick (sp?). Maybe that's just me overinterpretting things--after all, Kerry has been in the Senate 20 years. Still, I think they have a very close relationship.
I was looking at Kerry's bills from the 107th congress, and they are mostly seem to be about promoting small business. There are just tons of bills--some he sponsored by himself and some co-sponsored. Once again, he seems to co-sponsor a lot of bills for Ted Kennedy. They all seem pretty liberal.
My feeling is that both Bush and Kerry are playing smokescreen games with the public to hide their true colors. Bush because he is too right wing and Kerry because he is too left wing. We have too extremists both pretending to be centrists. Because what they are both after are the center swing voters in the center.
Sheryl
This struck me as funny and worth dropping into our conversation. This is about this guy O'Neill from the "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth," who have been showing those anti-Kerry ads and writing anti-Kerry books lately. Sadly this shmuck is from my home city San Antonio:
"O'Neill was incensed by Kerry's anti-war activities, particularly his claims that American troops in Vietnam had committed wholesale atrocities. His criticism of Kerry eventually came to the attention of Nixon White House counsel Charles Colson, and he became the centerpiece of Colson's attempt to discredit Kerry.
"Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes a Ralph Nader," Colson wrote in one of the White House memos about recruiting O'Neill to challenge Kerry. Nixon himself became part of the effort, meeting with O'Neill for an hour in the Oval Office."
Here's something else you will enjoy. You have to scroll down on this link to read the text:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/flash/photo/politics/candidates/kerry/2003/movie.htm?startat=6
As a Nader supporter I would not say that Kerry is too left-wing, but I would say that he has backed away somewhat from his earlier criticisms of the Vietnam War. This may make it more difficult to counter the Swift Boat Vets for Lies latest tack against Kerry’s earlier claims of war crimes in Vietnam.
In 1972, Kerry said, “Be your own Ralph Nader.”
Thanks for the photo of Kerry and Wellstone. Gore was also kind enough, or team-player enough to speak at a Wellstone fundraiser I attended with my son in 1996.
I recall you specifically asked about Kerry's support of Nafta.
He says that the problem with Nafta was that they have not bothered to enforce provisions of the treaty. I would imagine that would have been an executive decision.
I kind of wish the interviewer had followed up with the question and asked him why he thought the treaty was not being enforced. They never ask the questions I want them to ask! (Except that guy in New Hampshire who asked my question I emailed him--that was good.)
http://www.nytimes.com/videosrc/politics/20040224_KERRY_07HI.ram
Here's an article about why Kerry's views on Vietnam have changed over the years:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-kerryprofile16jan16,1,1416834,print.story?coll=la-news-elect2004And I have broken down an interview about Vietnam that he did on Jim Lehrer back in 2000 before he was thinking of running for President (and therefore less worried about whether he was seen as macho enough.) The set the URLs with start times for when Kerry talks, but whereas I also set an end time, it doesn't seem to be working, so just hit stop when you end the question and use the next link to fast forward over the other senators comments (unless you want to hear them as well):
http://thekerryfiles.blogspot.com/2004/08/discussing-vietnam-on-jim-lehrer-may-2.html
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