Nathan Newman wrote:
>Yet the Congressional votes between
>Dems and the GOP was almost exactly the same as four years earlier. Nader's
>3% seems to have had almost zero effect on changing the overall vote for
>Congress.
-Why should a vote for Nader mean a vote for a Dem for Congress? Lots -of Nader voters wouldn't vote for a Dem if a gun were held to their -heads.
Because many Nader supporters sold voting for Nader on that basis, notably Michael Moore but also Nader himself at points. But your dodging the issue illustrates my point-- I ask what Nader's campaign accomplished and someone notes it helped down ballot with people like Cantwell. I give evidence to note that is anecdotal and across the country, that did not seem to be a real empirical result of the campaign. So you turn around and say that it doesn't matter.
That's how this third party theology works-- every empirical prediction or measure of success is subject to ex post facto recanting. It's the definition of theology by faith in which there are no testable propositions put forward that are ever held up as ways to disprove the argument. I hate to be completely Popperian on this one, but when no prospective or retrospective evidence of why the Greens have improved peoples lives is ever presented for serious debate, I have a hard time taking the whole argument seriously as anything other than a theological belief system.
>Sorry to find myself disagreeing with Seth, but I don't see how Nader
>gave the election to Bush. If Gore had carried his home state, he'd
>be president.
And if Gore had not had to campaign in places like Oregon and Michigan the last week or so of the election because Nader was there campaigning in swing states, Gore would have had more time to spend in places like Tennessee and Florida to lock down his victory. Nader's effect on the race was not just in the final tally but in the way he forced Gore to divert money and resources to states he should not have had to worry about. Progressive groups had to spend money in those states as well, rather than in swing states. Nader chose to put his own electoral judgement ahead of those of organizations representing millions of union members, environmentalists and womens groups and therefore created wasted funds on contrary electoral strategies.
-- Nathan Newman