Common Ground Campaign between Nader and Gore supporters

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Fri Nov 10 10:18:33 PST 2000


Justin asked me to repost it; it's written based on reaction to me resetting my calendar wrong and then jokingly imagining the next year's campaign from the future. - NN

----- Original Message ----- From: "martin schiller" <mschiller at mac.com>
>Well, the 10 month offset is gone. But you're still a year ahead of the
>rest of us and we'd like to know how the election finally turned out. Did
>Bush win?

Well, coming back from a future (you know quantum multiple realities and all that) where progressives on both sides of the Nader-Dem divide got over blame games and decided to maximize their joint leverage, here's what I saw:

Activists began mounting major challenges to voting procedures in Florida, using the chance to highlight every existing abuse, from voter intimidation to the disenfranchisement of ex-felons (including 25% of Florida black males I believe). On issues, progressives highlighted the fact that Bush's ideas for privatization of social security, drilling in Alaska, and giant tax cuts for the wealthy had been rejected by a majority of voter, whatever the electoral college might say.

The Greens announced a new campaign of "No Vote Wasted" and mounted a campaign demanding that the people's will be recognized in electing Al Gore, not because the electoral college ignored the nominal popular vote, but because the system ignored the second choice preferences of Green voters. They noted this problem was unfair not just to those supporting Gore, but was unfair to those supporting Nader, since in a fair ranked system, Nader would no doubt have received not just the 5% he needed, but would no doubt have topped 10% and possibly even 20% in a system that did not perversely elect the least liked choice when one voted one's top choice.

After delaying the recount for about four weeks, the election was certified for Bush, since Gore was too wimpy to push the issue any further. But the result was a Bush transition with a full sense not only of his lack of mandate but a general sense of the illegitimacy of his whole Presidency - an intangible that progressives used to the hilt for the next year.

Having gained new progressive allies in the Senate - Corzine and Dayton especially, with Stabenow strong on a wide range of areas as well - electoral reform for obvious reasons became a focus. While only watered down legislation was passed - a McCain-Feingold lite for appearances - the grassroots were energized by strong debates and mobilizations for cutting down corporate power over campaigns, introducing ranked voting and the possibility of real public financing. Progressive activists vowed to unite to push these initiatives through state legislatures and, failing that, taking ranked voting especially to the ballot in states across the country in 2002.

I could mention a few other amazing things in the first year of W's presidency, but it's kind of fading as I speak. Time travel does have its odd effects.

-- Nathan Newman



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