Reply #22: Overly simplistic math

[Bill Todd]

At least qualitatively, and if one subscribes to the also overly simplistic theory that voters vote essentially on the location of the candidate on a one-dimensional left/right spectrum, there are clearly portions of that spectrum (nearer to the left-hand side) where moving to the right will pick up net additional votes for Kerry (he may lose some lefties, but will pick up more moderate-to-righties) and other portions of that spectrum where moving to the right will lose net votes for Kerry (where he'll pick up only a few more far-righties, because he's moved into the area where most of them will choose Bush anyway, but lose increasing numbers of disgusted moderates and lefties). (misplaced parenthesis edit)

Some of us are pretty sure that he's already moved to the right beyond the point where it's any net gain for him - even if Nader weren't running at all. So we view Nader's candidacy as a means to make it clear that he's got to move back to something like the real center, rather than the middle-of-the-right-lane 'center' that the DLC has been touting unsuccessfully for so long now.

But of course the situation is also more complex than that - yet another reason why continued rightward movement makes no sense given its abysmal failures over the past decade. Because standing for something is also important to voters (as long as it's something they have at least some interest in supporting, which most real centrist/progressive positions are), and the closer Kerry stands to Bush (who certainly does present himself as standing for some things that resonate with voters, mendacious as this portrayal may be), the less he looks like any real alternative.

- bill