> The whole myth of American democracy depends on people participating
> in it. If the majority of people decided that they didn't like this
> system and therefore refused to participate, the myth would be
> shattered.
>
> --
> Joe R. Golowka
> joegolowka at earthlink.net
My frustration with the Nader campaign and most third party efforts is that they seem to be based on nonsense like this, as if the average person is an idiot who needs to have the false illusions dashed from their eyes. Most folks know exactly the score, recognize that special interests run most of the show, but make the best of a bad situation.
Presenting futile resistance as a strategy is not attractive to most folks, which is what most spoiler third party campaigns present.
Only one-third of potential voters bother to vote in off-year elections, which usually means that about 17% of the population elects the Congress in such off-years. Yet despite the fact that 83% of eligible voters (and a larger proportion of all adults) did not support Gingrich and his allies in 1994, no scale of illusion dropped from peoples eyes.
There are literally hundreds of Congressional seats where incumbents are running essenitally unopposed, which would be a perfect place for a third party to make a stand against the lack of democracuy. Instead, the Greens have mounted their largest Congressional efforts in very competitive districts in New Mexico, helping to elect rightwing Republicans.
I am all for proportional representation and a simple reform would be an instant run-off system where voters could rank candidates and the votes of losing candidates would move to the second-choice rank. In that case, I'd vote for Nader in a second and many other people would as well.
No scales of illusion would fall from their eyes. It just would make sense to do so. But it is just arrogant to accuse other people of being stupid or deluded because, given the reality of bad choices, they don't act irrationally.
Getting the Greens matching funds may get activist saliva running, but for most people, that's not a strategy, just the Greens sounding like they want to join the same old game.
-- Nathan Newman