in 2000 Nader was the nominee of the Green party so.......fuck all the Greens?

[SwampG8r]

seems short sighted but go ahead I guess
I suppose its much easier to lay the blame off on Nader and the Greens than it is to explain the 300,000 registered democratic party members who voted for bush

[delrem]

1. The US doesn't work to safeguard elections at the source.

The "black box", which is the US election system, is rather crazy.

At least it is in my honest and most humble opinion.

[Mnpaul]

42. and Cobb, the Green party candidate in 2004

was the one fighting to count all the votes.

[pnwmom]

2. No, just Nader. nt

[SwampG8r]

5. but the green party paid and ran his campaign they enabled him nt

[pnwmom]

6. He also got funding from the Rethugs. I don't blame the Greens for that. n/t

[SwampG8r]

8. so the greens are allowed to have a candidate?

because that is what he was in 2000
the green party candidate
so a candidate yes but not one they approve of? or a candidate as long as its not nader? or do they have to have their candidates oked by a different political party?
because I guess they just boobooed on the ballots by listing him as the green party candidate in 2000

[JI7]

23. Greens can do whatever the fuck they want, but i will call them out when they lie and claim

there is no difference between someone like Gore and Bush.

or when they dismiss the threat to women's rights like Nader did.

[Luminous Animal]

43. Republican Contributions: $10.7 Million for Kerry vs. $111,700 for Nader

Oops.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/10/19/republican-contributions-10-7-million-for-kerry-vs-111-700-for-nader/

Today, the Independent presidential campaign of Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo released the preliminary findings of research conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics. The findings demonstrate that Senator John Kerry has thousands of contributors who have supported the Republican Party. Kerry has more than ten million dollars donated by Republican donors.

[merrily]

62. When you are not a Dem or a Pub, you can't afford to refuse money.

(Not that Dems or Pubs do a whale of refusing anyway.)

Nader knew he wasn't going to win, no matter what, and so did the Republicans who donated to him. So, it's not as though he was promising anything in exchange for the money. It enabled him to keep running which is what he wanted and what they wanted or could expect.

Hillary got caught taking money from the Chinese during the 2008 primary and Bubba made a very questionable pardon for one of his larger donors. I have more of a problem with those things.

[LiberalElite]

75. So, the Greens should have run whose campaign? Gore?

[joshcryer]

3. He screwed the Greens' chances to get federal funding.

If he didn't do that by now we'd probably have Greens in Congress and possibly some governorships.

[merrily]

29. Sorry to be uninformed, but is this what you're referring to

as a screwing?

His campaign did not attain the 5 percent required to qualify the Green Party for federally distributed public funding in the next election. The percentage did, however, enable the Green Party to achieve ballot status in many new states, such as Delaware and Maryland.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader_presidential_campaign,_2000

He fought a lot of lawsuits over ballot access and other things that benefit all third parties.

[joshcryer]

69. Yes, he put too much emphasis on swing states.

He got far better numbers in safe states. If he focused on other safe states rather than campaigning hard at the end in swing states, it is possible the Green Party gets federal funding. It was a pure tactical failure on his part and he should be blamed for it.

[merrily]

71. Well, him or his advisors. However, I would not call that "screwing" the Greens.

Maybe he didn't use the best strategy, but a screwing implies (to me, anyway) some malovolent intent by the screwer to the screwee. I don't think that was the case.

Besides, his failure hurt the Green Party for the next cycle, not forever. Plus, as I said, he did a lot of good for all so-called "third" parties, too, by never giving up on his ballot access suits, even though he personally had nothing to gain. Not to mention his life's work Most people don't do that much good in four lifetimes.

but, sure, what a poopyhead Nader is!

[joshcryer]

73. The Party declined 75% the next year.

And has continually declined since then.

I don't think Nader intended it, I think he had a really mind bogglingly incorrect idea that if he "gave the Democrats a cold shower" the next cycle after Bush messed up so bad, he'd have a better chance of being reelected.

This is the whole historical materialist roadmap.

[merrily]

83. Are you saying Nader ran in 2004 to help Bush get re-elected?

If so, as usual, we are not going to agree.

In any case, I think the 75% decline after Florida and Bush v. Gore is no surprise. People on the left got spooked by the what the Green vote had wrought (supposedly, anyway). I don't think federal funds would have done much, if anything to change it.

Post Nader, the Green Party does an extremely poor job of party building, IMO. If all the leftists who profess to want a real alternative would donate and volunteer, it might do a lot better. But, I think people are resigned, dispirited, or something.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. I like the Greens but the 300,000 Dems....

... and I gotta wonder where this # comes from.... could NOT have been dissuaded by the presence of a third option on the ballot. They *preferred* Bush to Gore.

The thinking is that all or certainly MOST of the Nader voters would have voted for Gore if the choice was limited to "either A or B".

A lot of assumption built into that calculus, seems to me.

[SwampG8r]

9. and thats part of the point too

in a stolen election how do you have any confidence in any of the reported numbers.
we know harris said nader got 97000 votes but did he?
anyone who uses harris numbers to blame nader is giving her count credibility it doesn't deserve
did 300,000 (+ or -) dems in florida vote for bush or is that just where the votes ended up?
I know who I voted for in 2000 here in florida but in my opinion the only one who knows is me I have no confidence my vote was counted and if it was that it was counted correctly

[joshcryer]

14. Only a 5% spread.

90% of Republicans voted for Bush, 85% voted for Gore.

Independents are where Nader won, and he couldn't have won them over without campaigning hard in swing states.

[merrily]

30. 5% is a lot these days. Also, I disagree that Nader could

not have won independents without campaigning hard in swing states. That's not where all independents are. For that matter, though I was practically born a Democrat and will never vote Republican, I myself registered "unenrolled" when I moved to Massachusetts because, at the time, it seemed more intellectually defensible and open-minded somehow, like calling yourself an agnostic, rather than an atheist. (I changed to Democrat after the 2004 election.)

And, as blue a state as Massachusetts is, the majority of all registered voters are registered "unenrolled."

His showing in Florida says something, but I don't know if it says he did a lot of campaigning in Florida or in other purple states. It may say that Florida Democrats were more Traditional Democrats than DLC Democrats.

[joshcryer]

70. I didn't mean that.

I mean that Nader won over independents in FL because he campaigned there. I do not believe that would've been the case if he did not campaign there. But he also campaigned in other important swing states like PA, causing Gore's campaign to have to double down and back.

[merrily]

72. So, you are angry with him for not doing well enough to ensure

that the Green Party got federal funding, and also angry at him for winning over people in Florida?

So, 14 years ago, he ran because he thought the Democrats had gone too far right' and he campaigned however he wanted to campaign.

A. So what?

B. Whatever, why is it worth 14 years of whining? Isn't that lame? Perot cost Poppy the popular vote by a lot. I haven't heard Republicans demonize him and all he did all his life was make money for himself.

[joshcryer]

76. a. Bye bye first viable liberal third party.

b. Around a million dead Iraqi's, NSA spying, Oligarchy United, Citizens United, billions lost to bankers, the list goes on.

But I think you exaggerate. 1) it's not whining and 2) it happened because of yet another SCOTUS decision and people saying it wasn't Nader's fault with false messages. Everyone loves the Nader fight.

It remains a fact that Nader broke his promise and campaigned hard in swing states causing a lot of trouble for Gore. It wasn't as if Gore didn't have enough on his plate with his poor decision picking Lieberman, his poor decision distancing himself from Bill, and the media constantly trashing him from saying he invented the internet, questioning his clothing choices, and mocking his aggression toward "everyday guy" Bush in the debates.

[merrily]

85. You can imply all you want that Iraqis died because of Nader. Not buying it.

For reasons I and others have already posted on too many of these threads today alone, not buying it. You can also imply that the Greens in 2014 are so lame because of Nader. Not buying that either.

But I think you exaggerate. 1) it's not whining and 2) it happened because of yet another SCOTUS decision and people saying it wasn't Nader's fault with false messages.

Seems exactly like whining to me. It happens periodically here. Bet it's happened periodically since 2000, though I haven't tried to search.

I thought it started up today because one poster started two threads this morning over it, instead of one, and a third poster wasn't satisfied just to reply to both those threads, but started his own thread instead.

I have no idea what false messages you refer to.

But, again, you don't seem able to decide whether you are angry with Nader for not doing well enough or for doing too well. Or maybe, you just want to bash him both ways?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

80. iirc correctly

they get those sort of numbers from exit polling. Since you can't actually see who voted for whom, you generally have to just trust that those you exit poll aren't lying to you. So it would be an extrapolated number based on a smaller sample size. There would be margin of error, but the order of magnitude is almost certainly right.

[libodem]

7. Love all the Greens

Include all the Greens just don't let them fracture our Party, like they did, in 04.

Don't allow them to do to us what the Teaparty, has done to the Pukes. That's all.

[winter is coming]

12. So the Greens can do their thing as long as they don't threaten us?

If we're worried about losing folks to the Greens, maybe we should look at why we're in danger of losing them and do something more effective about it than hating on the Greens.

[libodem]

16. We could stand to move to the left

As far as I'm concerned. The whole political spectrum has been artificially pulled so far right, the public is nearly comfortable with Fascism.

If we all went a little Greener it couldn't hurt. Seriously.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

82. And that's certainly the lesson that should have been learned in 2000.

That if you're losing a significant chunk of what should be your base on the left, you were too far to the center.

If it weren't for demographic shifts and Republicans running totally clueless candidates, the Dem party would still be screwed in the WH races, running centrists cycle after cycle.

Sadly, Repubs have finally caught on to their foot in mouth problem, and are trying to shrink it by shortening their primary cycle and minimizing the number of debates. We can only hope they keep saying stupid things (47%!) until demographics has totally swamped them.

[merrily]

31. +1

Far more convenient to demonize Nader and the Greens, than look at why he ran in the first place and why he got enough votes in a purple state to allow the Republicans and the SCOTUS to steal an election from a centrist and triangulator.

[merrily]

27. Apples and oranges. Tea Partiers ARE Republicans.

They simply primary Republican incumbents and candidates whom they feel are too complicit with Democrats or otherwise unsatisfactory to them. Nothing new about primarying.

Actually, Tea Partiers don't primary. Koch and other big donors are running and backing candidates who are uber conservative and raising money for them, too.

Democratic donors, and affiliated organizations, however, tend to be more obedient to the mainstream Democratic Party line. That's why you will not see a counterpart of the Tea Party within the Democratic Party.

Hence, the Greens and other parties to the left of Democrats. Too many parties for any of them to win, though. (Bless the left's tendency to start a new party at the drop of a hat.) However, Green is the only U.S. political party that: (1) is to the left of Democrats, (2) is considered a major national party and (3) has international affiliation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States

[LWolf]

48. The best way to include them,

imho, would be to give them a Democratic nominee worth their votes. I'm behind that all the way.

[libodem]

77. Good thinking

It needs to start somewhere. There is a big tent to cover between the DLC holdovers and the Greens.

[MohRokTah]

10. Bob Novak was a registered Dem

He did so to fuck up primaries.

[merrily]

65. What does that have to do with Nader or the Greens?

Read Nader's wiki and Novak's wiki. They are nothing alike.

[MohRokTah]

67. Just the fact that there are many people who always vote Republican in general elections

but register as Democrats.

I've known dozens in Chicago alone because everybody in Chicago knows the real election is always the Democratic Primary and the general election for all local positions and districts is really just a formality.

I've also known people who do the opposite as well. For example, I lived in Western Nebraska for a time and many would register as Republicans just to have a say in who would win locally because the Republican primaries were the real elections.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Basically, yes. In our system of winner take all...

a third party can't do much of anything but disrupt a Presidential election. Perot, Teddy Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, Henry Wallace, Strom Thurmond... and a few others I can't think of at the moment had serious campaigns that ended badly, usually with the disappearance of the party they ran with. And, then, of course, there are those silly little parties, some of which stay around for years but never get enough votes to affect the election.

Now, local and state elections, including Congress, is another story. The Greens, Working Families, Independence, or other parties could possibly run a candidate, although for the past few years they've tended to just endorse someone else.

[joshcryer]

15. We need approval voting.

http://www.electology.org/approval-voting

Seriously. It would change everything. We'd have dozens of viable Third Parties.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. Maybe, but...

First, I have very little confidence in the American voter. Giving us more choices would just as likely mean more bad choices.

Small parties have a much better chance of working in a parliamentary system and with our bicameral legislatures would mean even more gridlock.

And, just how do we institute this new system. Fifty states and Federal rules are already somewhat inconsistant

[joshcryer]

22. Except at the high office level it would result in centrists.

Look at the studies done. High office would result in centrists having more strength, not less.

[merrily]

61. Maybe, but

if I am going to end up with crap government anyway, I'd rather have it be crap government the silly people who own this country chose than the crap government the PTB who steal from the people who own this country imposed.

Anyway, the only way to get rid of gridlock is to dump all super majority rules and insist that every vote be by yeas and nays and that all yeas and nays be published the next day. Then, if we don't hold them responsible, shame on us.

If the DC creeps won't do abolish super majorities, we should go the Constitutional amendment route. Or we'd need to sit down and shut up because we'd then be experts in learned helplessness and therefore just as useless to ourselves as they are to us.

[merrily]

32. Working Families and Greens have both gotten candidates elected

on the local level. Sanders won Mayor of Burlington as a Democratic Socialist so handily that, in one election, the Dems and Republicans teamed up and backed one candidate between them against him---and he still won. I think he even won his congressional seat as a Democratic Socialist, though I am not sure. (Now, though, Sanders runs as an indie and the Democrats promise not to run anyone against him, as long as he votes with them on certain issues.)

And then, there is Sawant, who ran as a Socialist and won in Seattle (city council).

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022333916_sawantplansxml.html

But, as always, the issue is money, money, money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around.

[Cha]

13. Didn't say that.. Fuck Nader.

[libodem]

18. Yep

You know the drill.

[JI7]

17. FUCK THOSE WHO LIED AND SAID GORE AND BUSH WERE THE SAME

[4now]

19. After choosing Joe Lieberman as his running mate

He is lucky that he got the votes that he did.
If that was his first decision after being nominated I shudder to think what he would have been like as President.

[B Calm]

25. The best way to silence a senator is make him a Vice President!

but, if his name is Cheney.. . ..

[merrily]

28. You are offering that as a rationale?

The Clintons, Gore and Lieberman were all founding members of the DLC. Why would Gore have wanted to silence Lieberman?

And, as Cheney said, the Vice President has two duties, to inquire every morning after the health of the President and to preside over the Senate.

The first duty cited, of course, refers to the fact that Lieberman would have become President had Gore died or been killed. Not to mention that the VP gets much more visibility than a Senator like Lieberman.

So, no, you don't pick a VP out of a desire to silence him. Unless you are incredibly selfish, you pick a VP as though you are picking a President. And then, you pick a VP to balance the ticket. Gore the Southerner, plus Lieberman, the Northeasterner (the flip of JFK and LBJ, except that the South had changed and Gore didn't even carry his home state).

On all counts, I have to say Lieberman was a bad choice.

[merrily]

33. Belated welcome to DU.

I, too, have the temerity to question Imaginary President Gore. And, while I don't want to discourage you from speaking your truth--just the opposite--I feel honor bound to advise that it hasn't won me any DU popularity contests.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. I've voted Green several times and the nation survived.

I'll probably do so again given that "not as bad" is not a convincing selling point for me.

I'm a Democrat but have no qualms in voting for the most progressive, anti-war, candidate on the ballot when the Democratic candidates get too greedy for office and support and/or vote Republican policies.

[Smarmie Doofus]

24. In New York, there generally is no alternative. Greens ARE the "opposition."

>>>http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1068&pid=14169

[merrily]

34. I live in Massachusetts. We survived Romney as Governor.

Then again, our legislature overrode a lot of his vetoes.

[WhiteTara]

26. Nadir didn't bother to register as a Green. He remained

a Republicon and he wasn't in the race to help the Greens; he was there to "wound the Democrats" because "they deserve it." Greens were naive in thinking Nadir was there for them. But then, I think that Greens are all around naive.

[merrily]

35. He ran in the Democratic primary while registered as a Republican?

Are you sure?

His anti-corporatist CV sure doesn't read like that of a Republican, either.

[WhiteTara]

40. as a Green. He would never work in the Democratic party

he hates us.

[merrily]

41. First, you said he never registered Green but "remained" a Republicon.

When I asked if he ran in the Democratic primary while registered a Republican, you replied he had run in the Democratic primary as a Green.

Now, you say he hates "us." However, he's endorsed Democrats since he ran and fought against Republicans and corporations his entire life..

Sorry but your posts seem internally inconsistent, as well as inconsistent with other information out there.

[WhiteTara]

50. Sorry Merrily, He did NOT run in the dem primary.

He ran as a Green while registered as a republican. And yes he hates Democrats and that is us.

Please do enlighten me about the Republicans he "fought" against.

Also, he took on the small car at the behest of Big Auto when they didn't want to retool and create cars people in the US wanted to buy. It was another 20 years before Detroit started making small cars that were fuel efficient (and they're still not particularly fuel efficient.)

[merrily]

52. Um

Nader is a five-time candidate for President of the United States,

having run as a write-in candidate in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic primary

, as the Green Party nominee in 1996 and 2000, and as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader

In 1964, Nader moved to Washington, D.C., where he was appointed as a political aide to the Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan and also advised a United States Senate subcommittee on car safety.

Id..

I seriously question whether Moynihan would have hired a registered Republican as his political aide, certainly not one who hates Democrats.

During the Watergate affair Nader challenged the dismissal by Robert Bork of Nixon's special prosecutor Cox in the aftermath of the Saturday Night Massacre.[27]

Id..


Fighting Nixon was fighting a Republican.

I would say that his fights for consumers and the environment, against corporations, and his anti-nuke work was fighting Republicans as well. On the other hand, Nader supported the airline deregulation of Carter and Carter's Democratic Congress, which doesn't sound like hating Democrats.

Id.. and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act

Photo of Carter and Nader playing baseball together.

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/R%20Disk/Roselli%20John/Item%2008.pdf

Also at the above link, a record of Nader having introduced Carter while Carter was on the campaign trail and Carter then speaking to a lot of the issues for which Nader had been fighting. Doesn't sound like either a Republican or a hater of Democrats.

The info below does not sound like a Republican, either.

In 1980, Nader resigned as director of Public Citizen to work on other projects, lecturing on the growing "imperialism" of multinational corporations and of a dangerous convergence of corporate and government power.[39]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader



As far as being a tool of big auto and against small cars, that runs contrary to just about everything he did in his life regarding auto manufacturers and the environment. However, perhaps you refer to his opposition to the Corvair on safety grounds:

Automobile safety activism

Nader began to write about consumer safety issues in articles published in the Harvard Law Record, a student publication of Harvard Law School. He first criticized the automobile industry in 1959 in an article, "The Safe Car You Can't Buy", published by The Nation.[14]


In 1965, Nader wrote the book Unsafe at Any Speed, in which he claimed that many American automobiles were unsafe to operate. The first chapter, "The Sporty Corvair - The One-Car Accident", pertained to the Corvair manufactured by the Chevrolet division of General Motors, which had been involved in accidents involving spins and rollovers. More than 100 lawsuits were pending against GM related to accidents involving the popular compact car. Nader based his initial investigations into car safety on these lawsuits.[15]

In early March 1966, several media outlets, including The New Republic and The New York Times, reported that GM had tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past, and hiring prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations.[16][17] Nader sued the company for invasion of privacy and settled the case for $425,000. Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by the New York Court of Appeals, whose opinion in the case expanded tort law to cover "overzealous surveillance".[18] Nader used the proceeds from the lawsuit to start the pro-consumer Center for Study of Responsive Law.

Nader's advocacy of automobile safety and the publicity generated by the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, along with concern over escalating nationwide traffic fatalities, contributed to Congress' unanimous passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The act established the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, marking a historic shift in responsibility for automobile safety from the consumer to the government. The legislation mandated a series of safety features for automobiles, beginning with safety belts and stronger windshields.[19][20][21]

Several years later, in 1972 Texas A&M University conducted a safety commission report on the Corvair for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; it found that the 1960–1963 Corvairs possessed no greater potential for loss of control than its contemporaries in extreme situations.[22] According to Crash Course by Paul Ingrassia, Corvairs were environmentally friendly due to their smaller size and lighter weight.[23] In contrast, the former GM executive John DeLorean asserted in On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors (1979) that Nader's criticisms were valid.[24]

Doesn't really seem as though either Nader or Big Auto thought Nader was in the pocket of Big Auto or that his motives for criticizing the Corvair were anything but the same auto safety concerns for which he'd fought a good part of his life.

I can't say I have spent a bundle of time looking to prove your claim that Nader was a registered "Republicon," but I did google without quickly finding anything about his alleged Republican voter registration. Or his alleged hatred of Democrats.

I think, above all, Nader was pro-average Americans.

[Maedhros]

53. Registered as a Republican? I'm afraid you'll need to prove that with some kind of evidence,

rather than just stating it as if it were true.

It really undermines your argument, to the point that I have to laugh.

[merrily]

81. Crickets.

No one but me (I?) has to prove anything they post on this thread, apparently.

Luckily for me, I usually try not to pull stuff out of my elbow.

[raouldukelives]

36. Fuck Goldwater!

History is full of mistakes. Some of the biggest being caused by those always looking backward.

[dsc]

37. actually he screwed them over too

If he had made the 5% threshhold, which he might well have managed had he campaigned in places such as California and New York where there were plenty of liberal votes to spare, the Greens would have had automatic ballot access for the next few elections. Instead he campaigned in swing states to hurt Gore and missed the 5% mark.

[YoungDemCA]

45. This. He was a spoiler

And I strongly suspect he cares more about his own publicity than any principles that Democrats hold dear.

[IronLionZion]

49. Nader is the nadir of the liberal movement.

He set back the liberal movement by a good many years, maybe more. His goal was apparently to punish the Democratic party, not to shift things left.

[merrily]

58. What, then, was his motive for saying, in 2012, on being asked if he would run,

that he hoped people from within the Democratic Party would come forward and influence the direction of the party?

And how did you discern that his motive was never to shift the party left, only to punish it.

Besides, when the Party response is "the left has nowhere else to go," what is one supposed to do? Clap louder?

[IronLionZion]

59. Dude can't change his mind in 12 years?

People hold different views at different points in their lives. There was a time when Nader was all about seatbelts in cars.

[merrily]

60. Let's see. All along, Nader said he was running because the Democrats were getting

too cosy with Republicans and too much like them. And, in 2012, he said, "no, i'm not running myself, but I hope someone from within the party comes forward to influence the party."

So, where are you seeing different views? Seems consistent to me.

BTW, he was never all about seat belts and you are nowhere near big enough to try to trivialize him that way. Car safety, the environment, anti-corporate, and on and on. Read his wiki.

[Tarheel_Dem]

102. You said it!

[ieoeja]

38. Works for me! Fuck all the Greens!

Every election we get the "what part of this do you disagree with" post listing the Green Party Platform.

Every election DUers respond, "damn near all of it!"

You would think the Greens would learn that DUers are not nearly as radical as Greens, Republicans and Libertarians imagine we are.

[Maedhros]

54. Yes. "Fuck all the Greens." That's a winning strategy.

While the Democratic Party shifts it's policies rightward in order to appeal to conservatives, it makes perfect sense to ostracize and insult liberals.

[Cal Carpenter]

39. Democrats aren't so democratic when it comes to Nader the Scapegoat. n/t

[clarice]

44. Cuts both ways...If we hadn't had Ross P., we would have had GHW Bush again. Just sayin' nt.

[IronLionZion]

46. Fuck everyone! Fuck all the things!

Fuck you! Fuck Me! Fuck everything!

[LWolf]

47. Wow. Just wow.

Not your OP. The rabid responses...and it's not even primary season, let alone the '16 GE.

This reeks of desperation to me. Frankly, it looks like a large number of Democrats already know the party is screwed in '16, before the first primary nominee is declared, and are frantically looking to play scapegoats dominoes.

Accountability is simple. The Democratic Party can attract enough votes to win...or not. The process of attracting those votes isn't simple, to be sure, but the bottom line is. If some are so worried about passengers jumping overboard before the ship even leaves port, perhaps we could quit pretending that the ship is seaworthy, and do something about it. Blaming the life boats seems ineffective, at the least, and, in all honesty, supremely stupid.

Instead of rolling over and accepting a pre-crowned neoliberal nominee that will send people overboard BEFORE THE FIRST CANDIDATE EVEN DECLARES IN A PRIMARY, why not put all of that intense energy into nominating someone that will repair the ship?

Or, even better, why not focus on electing them right now, in '14, as the first repair effort?

[winter is coming]

55. ^^ This should be an OP.

[merrily]

64. Hit. (Nail. Head.)

[riderinthestorm]

68. +1

I've already admitted I voted for Nader but I live in Northern Illinois where it was dead certain Gore would win.

I did so because I wanted to send a message that third parties like the Green Party shouldn't necessarily be counted out. That they had an important message that "reached" people. That the Dem party has/had moved too far right and wasn't connecting with a lot of us progressives anymore.

You know, we on DU talk ALL the time about how the DLC types are killing the Dem party but whenever anyone takes ANY steps to move us back leftward it becomes this huge problem.

I'm not a Green but the current centrist bullshit sure has me looking at their platform longingly even as I will dutifully fall in line and vote for Obama (twice) and Hillary.

Gore lost because of the Supremes and because he ran a lousy campaign trying to run against Clinton who was still enormously popular. Gore even lost TN for god's sake. How this is all Naders fault is crazy....

Great post LV Wolf. K and R

[merrily]

79. Not to be contrary, but

You know, we on DU talk ALL the time about how the DLC types are killing the Dem party but whenever anyone takes ANY steps to move us back leftward it becomes this huge problem.

Only some DUers talk about how the DLC types are killing the Dem Party. Some are proud centrists. Some are unconditional loyalists and will go anyway the Party goes (usually also centrist). These are the same people spitting bile and venom at Nader in today's threads with the same old tired, fact-free, assumption heavy memes.

Some of us are traditional Democrats and some of us are further left than that. Only the last two groups talk about how the DLC types are killing the Dem Party--or at least are undesirable to us.

IOW, the Republican Party has its divide, but so does the Democratic Party. The teabaggers have the luxury of big bucks backing from the likes of Peterson and Koch, as well as the big party ballot access, Presidential debate access, etc.. We have none of that.

[riderinthestorm]

84. Thank you for the clarity!

I'm posting hurriedly on my phone. Nuance is lost.

[merrily]

86. You're welcome. I hope to heaven you are not trying to post and drive.

[riderinthestorm]

88. No way. Standing here holding a horse for the farrier

Youngster getting his first shoes. Need to make sure he gets lots of treats, TLC and positive reinforcement.

He's being a gem so I'm lapsing on the job and looking at DU....



Good thing I'm the boss....

[merrily]

89. Awwww. Give him a pat and an apple from me.

[Tarheel_Dem]

51. Yes!

[MohRokTah]

56. Fuck all the Connecticut for Liebermans, too!

OOPS, nope. There was only this one member who seized the party after Lieberman lost because there were no members of that party.

He spent the next few years making Lieberman's life complete hell via the party's website.

[stevenleser]

57. The Greens strategy was flawed from the very beginning and caused a lot of issues as a result

A progressive movement is not built by putting a candidate at the top of the ticket and saying this person on a white horse is going to save us.

The Greens should have started with local parties, candidates to state legislatures and assemblies and when they had a number of those folks in office, start going for candidates to the House of Representatives, then Senate and then President.

A President can do very little without a working relationship with congress. Nader would have been a complete failure as a President as a result. It would have served both parties' elected congressmen and senators' purposes to undermine him. None of his initiatives would have passed congress.

It's very similar to what has happened when independent folks have won Governor's races. In almost every case, they haven't had people in their state legislatures who were invested in them and thus when the going got tough, as it eventually does for everyone, the folks in the state legislatures abandoned them completely leaving them lame ducks.

If you dont have a strong coalition of your folks in congress, at least in a strong minority role in one or both houses, you are setting yourself up for failure as President.

[merrily]

66. Memealicious!

[merrily]

63. Just rec'd this thread. Wouldn't do it this a.m. because I thought

rehashing 2000 was unnecessary. However, after reading all the shit I've read today on three Green/Nader threads, REC.

[KittyWampus]

74. not all, just the ones who wanted Gore to lose to teach us all a lesson.

[conservaphobe]

78. Fuck the Green Party.

There's only one party I give a damn about.

The Democratic Party.

[Maedhros]

91. Blind partisanship is ruining this country. [n/t]

[lumberjack_jeff]

94. Partisanship built the site you're posting on. n/t

[Maedhros]

95. Did you miss the "blind" part? [n/t]

[lumberjack_jeff]

97. I assume that everyone posting here has adequate vision to read the name at the top of this page.

If I considered myself a green, I would only participate here for the purpose of peeling away support from my adversaries.

In fact, that's the only rational reason that a green or republican would post here.

[WinkyDink]

87. Especially the ones who own Hobby Lobby.

[Maedhros]

90. Huh? I can't imagine you are that ignorant of politics.

The Greens condemned the Hobby Lobby decision:

http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=716

Green Party leaders and candidates strongly condemned the Supreme Court's Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores ruling, and said that the decision should motivate more people to demand single-payer national health care and abolition of corporate "personhood."

"The Supreme Court's ruling lays bare the need to separate health insurance from employment status and exposes the absurdity of affording corporations the same constitutional rights as natural persons," said Isa Infante, Green candidate for Governor of Tennessee (http://www.isainfante.org).

"The ruling grants business corporations the 'religious freedom' to impose the beliefs of owners on the lives of employees and tamper with their medical care on the basis of the owners' beliefs. We hope that the anger provoked by the ruling leads people to join the Green Party's call for Medicare For All and a constitutional amendment affirming that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights," said Ms. Infante.

The Green Party of the United States supports making replacing the current for-profit health insurance system (maintained under the Affordable Care Act) and employer-based coverage with a single-payer program that establishes quality health care as a basic human right.

Yes, "fuck the Greens" for demanding what any self-respecting Democrat should have demanded in 2009 and 2010.

[WinkyDink]

92. I can't imagine you are that joke-impaired. The GREEN FAMILY OWNS HOBBY LOBBY.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hobby-lobby-ruling-puts-green-family-crosshairs-24385500

Sorry you went through all that there learnin' me.

[Maedhros]

96. I stand corrected. [n/t]

[lumberjack_jeff]

93. Yes. And if this is hidden on Democratic Underground, so be it. n/t

[SwampG8r]

98. 24 days later

is the jury still out?

[lumberjack_jeff]

99. I can't summon any outrage

that the Green (or any other) party can't get universal support on DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5196185

[SwampG8r]

100. i wasnt trying to get any support for them

[samsingh]

101. if the greens are serious about helping the environment

more of their agenda will be implemented under the Democrats.

if the greens want to screw the Democrats because all their agenda won't be implemented, then they can continue to split the vote and let repugs win.