Reply #56: Because there aren't enough Democrats and third partiers to win

[jobycom]

If you combine all the Democrats and third party voters together, they still have to get the middle-roaders (those who like to call themselves "independents" but who are far from independent when it comes to making up their minds). So even if all Democrats and third partiers voted for either candidate, as you suggested, that would just about counter the Republican/Right Wing vote, and the moderates would decide.

Bush didn't get elected by campaigning as a right wing drunken illiterate with a criminal record, he got almost elected by campaigning as a moderate centrist uniter who would end the politics of partisanship. All those tactics the right wing use to keep Bush from appearing in front of a microphone are not just meant to keep the idiot from telling more offensive jokes or demonstrating that he's a buffoon, but are also meant to keep him from answering allegations from the Democrats-- he appears above it all. So the Democrats say "Bush lied to start a war and has driven the economy into the ditch," and Bush's spokespeople say "President (sic) Bush does not comment on partisan issues," and Bush does not even get asked the question to his face, so to the public Bush is above partisanship.

The point of that obvious observation being that you win by being in the middle, even if you aren't. Braun and Sharpton are too honest to play that game (and if they did they wouldn't get the third party vote, anyway) and so they appear partisan and opinionated. To those of us who pay attention they appear right, but to that mindless mass of "independents" (sic), they appear to be special interest candidates.

That's why they won't win. It's not their color. Powell could win. Harold Ford had a chance in the future but might have blown it by his floor fight last year (though he's young enough to recover). And it's not Braun's gender-- Clinton has a decent chance, and I believe one reason that Bush appointed Whitman to the EPA was to destroy a potential rival (and to punish her for not liking him). It's because Braun and Sharpton say "There are issues here that you are ignoring," and people don't want to be told they are wrong, even implicitly. It's the same reason Kucinich doesn't have a chance.

And yes, the fact that they are black makes those issues more upsetting to a lot of moderates, who don't want to feel that they bear any blame, but know that they do. It's the same reason people can't meet the eyes of the homeless begging for change, and then pass laws forbidding them from begging.

Then there is the media issue. The media will only portray someone as they have portrayed them in the past, barring some dramatic reason to change. The media never writes new stories if they can help it,because it is easier to just pullout canned footage and update old scripts. So Sharpton's past image will dominate coverage of him.

So their color does have something to do with it, but the color alone isn't what keeps them from being viable candidates.

And incidentally, I'll be voting for Braun in the primaries, barring Gore getting in the race, or someone actually starting to look presidential from our current group. With electronic voting in my county, you can't write in a candidate unless that candidate has been approved as a write-in candidate, so I can't write in Gore, as I understand it.