> If the majority of Americans were really angry with Ralph Nader's
> actions as you argued, why worry about Nader helping Bush get
> reelected at all? Just how many votes in the battleground states do
> you think Nader will receive? It is evident that you aren't convinced
> of what you are saying. :-)
You can really be a very sloppy reader of people who disagree with you, you know? I didn't say "the majority of Americans are angry with Nader," I said the majority of Americans *who consider themselves on the Left,* which is very different! The reason I'm worried about Nader helping Bush get reelected is that a vast number of Americans are definitely going to vote for Bush, and if the Bush-Kerry margin is small enough, Nader could do just that. If I have to explain such an elementary point to you, I wonder how much you understand about this election.
> I'm confident that Bush will be voted out (barring a major terrorist
> attack on the mainland United States), and I'm interested in making
> sure that John Kerry will not win by a landslide and, more
> importantly, that organizers and activists in social movements know
> what kind of Democratic president they will be fighting against for
> four years:
I'm not at all confident that Bush will be voted out because, unlike you, my thinking is not governed by my wishes but (to the extent that I am able to see them) by the facts. And the fact is that this is at this point a very close election (as 2000 was), and I expect it will continue to be. Bush's support is very solid -- hardly anyone who now expects to vote for him will change their mind. Kerry's support is very squishy, because even many people who would like to vote for him as a vote against Bush are concerned about his vascillating Senate record and his general lack of personal warmth. He will have a very tough fight to pull in enough swing voters, and could badly use the votes that will go to Nader. So there is no need to worry about a Kerry landslide.
As for organizers and activists misunderstanding Kerry, I don't think there is much danger of that, either. I don't see anyone out there (outside of dyed-in-the-wool Democrats) jumping up and down cheering that Kerry is the Left Messiah. In contrast, I remember very well how enthusiastic we kids were about the first JFK, John Kennedy (I was not quite old enough to vote at the time, since the voting age was still 21, but I was quite politically interested), thinking that he would represent an enormous shift from the dreary Eisenhower years. But stuff like the Bay of Pigs, followed of course by the Vietnam escalation by Johnson (the first presidential candidate I voted for), cured us of the notion that Democrat = Left saint. If any of the young folks who weren't alive at that time harbor any illusions about Kerry, I'd be glad to dispel them.
When we say "anybody but Bush," we sincerely mean "anybody" -- even Kerry. We are fully aware that he's as much of a bastard as Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, and all the other crooked Dem pols. But he's not a bat out of Hell like Shrub.
> I came to the conclusion that Bush is finished at the beginning of
> last October -- more than one year before the election in November
> 2004:
>
> ***** George W. Bush, c'est fini
>
> * To: PEN-L at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> * Subject: George W. Bush, c'est fini
> * From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at xxxxxxx>
> * Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 09:06:55 -0400
>
> Bush is finished -- it's time to plan ahead for a struggle against a
> Democratic President in the White House who won't end the occupation
> of Iraq (thirteen months is a shorter period of time than you think).
>
> ***** New York Times October 3, 2003
> Poll Shows Drop in Confidence on Bush Skill in Handling Crises
> By TODD S. PURDUM and JANET ELDER
>
> The public's confidence in President Bush's ability to deal wisely
> with an international crisis has slid sharply over the past five
> months, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll has found. And a clear
> majority are also uneasy about his ability to make the right decisions
> on the nation's economy. . . .
>
> <http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2003w39/msg00141.htm>
> *****
>
> Bush's electoral defeat will be thanks to Iraqis' (armed and unarmed)
> resistance to the occupation, plus economic troubles after the end of
> the neoliberal recovery of US economy.
As further evidence of your political astuteness, you quote what you wrote back last October. Don't you realize that that was ages ago, in political terms? Things can change very substantially in that amount of time, and we are still much too far away from the November election to be sure what will happen. The Iraqi "resistance" (to use your term, which I don't necessarily think is accurate) may diminish, employment in the U.S. may pick up (there are respectable economists who think it will), and, as you noted, there might be another terrorist incident. Too many uncertainties, in my view, to risk giving Nader a large vote.
And then you quote:
>
> ***** Published on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 by the Guardian/UK
> Surge in Support for Nader Spells Trouble for Kerry
> by Julian Borger in Washington
>
> A new poll suggested yesterday that Ralph Nader's independent
> presidential bid represented a serious threat to the Democratic
> candidate, Senator John Kerry.
which completely undercuts your argument that Kerry is a shoo-in. Do you have any understanding of elementary logic at all? Do you understand what the word "contradiction" means?
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile