>Gore isn't moving to the left to get Green votes in the general election.
>He's moving to the left to get labor and other progressive votes WITHIN THE
>DEMOCRATIC PARTY primary. It is not Green strategy but progressive Dem
>strategy that's pushing Gore in that direction.
How can you say this after the dismal results of the Nov 5 election? The Dems offered the weakest campaign imaginable. It may be that that loss is causing some reflection on the lack of product differentiation. But if this progressive Dem mobilization were so powerful, why was it so little in evidence over the last few months?
And, fairness dictates that we must acknowledge the effects of another, more effective, third party - the Libertarians, who are picking off Reps all over the place!
Doug
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New York Times - November 16, 2002
November 16, 2002
A Third Party on the Right By JOHN J. MILLER
OODBRIDGE, Va. - The decision this week by John Thune, the Republican candidate for senator from South Dakota, to concede to his rival, Tim Johnson, the Democratic incumbent, virtually guarantees that Mr. Thune's narrow defeat will go down in conservative lore as the one lost to voter fraud on an Indian reservation. This charge probably won't ever be proved, but people on the right will continue to believe it - just as many people on the left think corruption in Florida cost Al Gore the presidency.
In both cases, however, there's a better explanation for what happened. George W. Bush is president today because of Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, whose liberal supporters almost certainly would have preferred Mr. Gore in a two-way race. In Florida, Mr. Nader attracted some 97,000 votes, dwarfing the 537-vote margin separating Mr. Bush from Mr. Gore.
There's a similar explanation for Mr. Thune's 524-vote loss: a Libertarian Party candidate, Kurt Evans, drew more than 3,000 votes. It marks the third consecutive election in which a Libertarian has cost the Republican Party a Senate seat. If there had been no Libertarian Senate candidates in recent years, Republicans would not have lost control of the chamber in 2001, and a filibuster-proof, 60-seat majority would likely be within reach.
The Republicans' Libertarian problem became apparent in a race than ended in victory. A decade ago, Paul Coverdell, Republican of Georgia, nipped the incumbent Democratic senator, Wyche Fowler, 49 percent to 48 percent. A Libertarian candidate, Jim Hudson, took 3 percent of the vote. Under Georgia law the winner must achieve a majority, so Mr. Coverdell and Senator Fowler were thrown into a runoff without Mr. Hudson. Virtually all the Libertarian's votes transferred to the Republican, and Mr. Coverdell won, 51 percent to 48 percent.
The maddening defeats began in 1998, when John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, came 428 votes shy of ousting the Democrat, Senator Harry Reid. Michael Cloud, a Libertarian, collected more than 8,000 votes in the same contest. (Two years later, Mr. Ensign won election to Nevada's other Senate seat.) In 2000, Senator Slade Gorton, a Republican from Washington, lost to the Democrat, Maria Cantwell, by 2,228 votes. Jeff Jared, a Libertarian, gathered nearly 65,000 votes. If these elections had gone a different way, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont would not have switched control of the Senate when he bolted the Republican Party.
The problem also affects gubernatorial races. Jim Doyle, the incoming Democratic governor of Wisconsin, probably owes his 68,000-vote victory to the 185,000 votes cast for Ed Thompson, a Libertarian and brother of Tommy Thompson, the former Republican governor. In Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, the Democrat, won by 33,000 votes as Tom Cox, the Libertarian, pulled in 56,000 votes. The only reason the governor's race in Alabama was so close this year as to be disputed beyond election night was that the Libertarian candidate, John Sophocleus, attracted 23,000 votes.
It's important to appreciate that Libertarian voters are not merely Republicans with an eccentric streak. Libertarians tend to support gay rights and open borders; they tend to oppose the drug war and hawkish foreign policies. Some of them wouldn't vote if they didn't have the Libertarian option.
But Libertarians are also free-market devotees who are generally closer to Republicans than to the Democrats. "Exit polling shows that we take twice as many votes from Republicans as from Democrats," said George Getz, a spokesman for the Libertarian Party.
Yet Libertarians are now serving, in effect, as Democratic Party operatives. The next time they wonder why the Bush tax cuts aren't permanent, why Social Security isn't personalized and why there aren't more school-choice pilot programs for low-income kids, all they have to do is look in the mirror.
John J. Miller is a writer for National Review.