We can blame the 97,000 Nader voters in Florida in 2000

[mdmc]

Or we can explain to them why the auto and bank bailouts, wall street bailouts, drug war, afghan war, iraq war are good for America.

I am sure many of these Nader voters got on board with Kerry Edwards.
I am sure even more got on board with Obama Biden.

But, there are still people out there that think that corporations have too much power, especially over the two ruling political parties in this country.

Think of the millions that dont vote. Feel free to blame who you want. But I can't blame someone for voting against war, drug war, corporate bailouts, mandated for profit insurance. I can't blame someone for voting for gay rights. In fact, I respect that courage.

I mean, if our only shot of electing a dem is to ensure no .02% socialist vote getter runs for office, we are a pretty sad bunch.
But some things go without saying.

[stray cat]

1. Who will we blame for 2004 and for 2010 and 2012

any who don't vote dem?

[mdmc]

5. With all due respect, I think citizens should be allowed to vote as they please

And if voters want Sarah Palin, then that is what America deserves.
If they want wall street bailouts, then that is what they deserve.
If they want the drug war, they deserve the drug war.

And if they want to voice their opposition to the two corporate system, they can do that too..

[Toots]

9. What if we vote for someone that makes us lots of promises but once elected

Does all the things you suggest? Do we still deserve it?

[mdmc]

36. yesohyes

[glitch]

40. What about the 320,000 FL Democrats who voted for Bush in 2000?

Do they get a pass?

Actually if you want to blame anyone you should blame the rigged election machines, the people who own them and the people who allow them. We don't actually know the true election results.

Edit: and the USSC, the Bush family, and the people too disenchanted to vote in PRIMARIES.

[mdmc]

54. I would argue that Nader is not the cause of those problems

perhaps he is the solution...

peace and low stress

[glitch]

59. I am not arguing that either, I am arguing to get involved in primaries if you don't like who

you're stuck voting for, that not voting is not the solution.

[ixion]

2. yes, how DARE people not support the tyranny of the status quo

:eyes: :puke:

Happy to unrec this garbage post.

[Fading Captain]

3. DEMs who act Like REPS

They are the reason Nader ran.
They are the reason why Gore lost.
They are the reason why the DEMS don't win almost every election.


Imagine if there was a party that worked behalf of workers. On behalf of consumers. On behalf of citizens who want clean air and water.

[midnight]

4. This is odd that Nader is being dragged out. I would think dragging out the

people in Florida who were in charge would be the real link in the loss....

[Buzz Clik]

6. Compromise: explain to the Nader voters that our economic crisis wouldn't exist if Gore was elected.

It's that simple.

Thanks, Ralph!

[girl gone mad]

41. Of course it would exist.

The roots of the crisis were planted firmly in the Reagan and Clinton administrations. There was no evidence the Gore would have repealed NAFTA or re-instated Glass-Steagall or done anything to reign in the GSE's or appointed anyone other than Greenspan or another Greenspan clone to the Fed or sought to cool any emerging bubble.

[NJmaverick]

7. You get no forgiveness from me

Nader and the fools that voted for him are just as responsible for the Iraq war and the economic meltdown as the people that voted for Bush

[superduperfarleft]

8. What abou all the Dems who voted for the Iraq War?

You know, the people that were actually in power to authorize the thing as opposed to the tiny margin of people who voted for a guy that they realized had no chance of winning?

[NJmaverick]

10. You mean the ones that got false intel from the bush white house?

[superduperfarleft]

11. LOL. I can't believe people still believe that excuse.

"You mean the ones who embraced craven political opportunism?"

There, fixed it for ya.

And thanks for admitting that Kucinich is smarter than our current Secretary of State.

[Jim Lane]

57. Kucinich is indeed smarter than Clinton. He's also smarter than Nader.

Kucinich, unhappy with the conservatism of the Democratic Party, challenged it within the primary system.

No, he didn't win, but he brought progressive views to the attention of many voters. He was in some televised debates -- shorted on time, to be sure, and eventually bounced, but he still did better than Nader, who contributed nothing but an occasional televised snippet of whining, in an interview in the parking lot, that he wasn't allowed to participate.

Most of all, of course, Kucinich let progressives vote for an anticorporatist candidate and still help defeat the Republican in November.

If Nader had followed that course in 2000, he would've reached many more people, received many more votes, done more good for the progressive cause -- and hundreds of thousands of slaughtered Iraqis would still be alive.

[Fumesucker]

21. You mean the ones that believed proven liars?

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

[SOS]

35. Anyone

who believed Condi Rice when she asserted Iraq could fire a nuclear missile into London in 45 minutes was an IDIOT.

[totodeinhere]

38. LOL. If I knew at the time it was fake the Dems in Congress shouldn't have fallen for it either. n/t

[Raineyb]

46. I didn't have access to the intel and *I* knew it was a load of shit. Why didn't they?

And there are plenty of Dems who voted for this cluster fuck who STILL make excuses as to why they voted for it. They get NO pass from me.

[sabrina 1]

47. You just contradicted yourself. It's hard when you try to defend

a political party over the facts.

Which is it? Was it Nader? Or was it the Bush cartel together with the USSC acting, as Bugliosi said, on behalf of the Bush gang in his excellent and factual accounting of that crime against Democracy, 'None Dare Call It Treason'?

You are beginning to look like a pretzel. Partisanship won't let you admit that four times the number of Democrats voted for Bush because their Party did a poor job of convincing them to vote for them, than voted for Nader a fact which could more easily be blamed for the loss. And so you stumble on the real reason, the theft of an election.

Nor can you grasp the fact that of those who did vote for Nader, you have no idea who they were, what Party affiliations they had or whether the Democrats or the Republicans would have gotten those votes.

But thanks for finally stumbling on the actual reason why we got the War in Iraq and all the other traumas and attacks on our civil liberties brought to us, by BUSH and his cabal. Even if by accident in a desperate attempt to divert away from the Democrats who voted for Bush, you finally admitted that it WAS the Bush cartel, and NOT as you would so love to believe, for some strange, incomprehensible reason, although I could take a wild guess, Nader after all.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

12. you're not very into taking responsibility, are you?

You sure know how to caterwaul like a two-year old.

[NJmaverick]

19. I voted for GORE, maybe it's time for you to man up

[DisgustipatedinCA]

31. well golly, so did I, you stupid git

I was never close to voting for Nader, and I STILL wanted Gore to run in 2008. Maybe it's time for you to quit obsessing about your own flaccid inadequacies and factually fucking up everything you say.

[Ignis]

51. Manned.

:thumbsup:

[Don Caballero]

17. Agreed

These folks who thought they were being progressive by voting for the Repug operative Nader totally screwed this country up. If Gore were President for those eight years we would have gotten HCR, Climate Change legislation, and no Iraq or Afghanistan wars.

[izquierdista]

30. I did?

Hey, I tried volunteering to do something for Gore, but apparently they had already written off South Carolina.

[izquierdista]

13. My Nader vote was a good vote

I moved South Carolina a little bit to the left!

[GreenMetalFlake]

15. +1

[StarfarerBill]

27. Ditto for Tennessee. +2

[Don Caballero]

14. People who voted for Nader in 2000

are as culpable for the current state of affairs as the NeoCon Bush regime. They should feel shame for what they did to this country. We now have an administration that is straightening out all of the terrible problems caused by these people.

[superduperfarleft]

16. See post 8. n/t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

29. no they are not. al gore should have picked a better strategy than

trying to run away and right of bill clinton

[HughBeaumont]

32. Him picking anti-video-game/religious right whackjob Joe Lieberturd didn't help matters.

Republican Lite vs Republican = Republican wins.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

33. thats exactly my point. people don't like disingenuousness & liberals

running as republican rite reeks of dishonesty

[Ignis]

52. Weak moral equivalence.

But those pom-poms are stunning! :thumbsup:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. the older i am getting, the more i realize that liberals & progressives dont OWE their vote to dems

Dems need to earn it.

[Don Caballero]

22. Dems must be supported over Repugs

Regardless if they earn it or not. We have a thousand percent better chance at change with a Dem in office.

[Fumesucker]

26. Any number times zero is still zero..

A mathematical axiom..

[La Lioness Priyanka]

28. you cannot demand a group whom you generally disdain vote for you

and there is a large disdain for the progressive voice in current moderate dem politics.

i support most dems over repugs, but i dont owe this party my vote. its a decision i still get to make. democrats like to pretend that i dont even get to make this decision as a progressive. its a losing strategy

[totodeinhere]

39. No, just having a "D" after their name is not enough.

We have learned that lesson the hard way.

[Raineyb]

48. Bullshit! THAT attitude is exactly why we get these milquetoast pathetic

weasels who call themselves Democrats while voting like Republicans and actively working to stymie any actual reform.

I don't owe the Democrats shit. If they don't do the right things I damn well can and will withhold my vote from them. They aren't entitled to a damn thing from me. And until you learn that small fact about the democratic process you will continue to look for scapegoats instead of doing what needs to be done to actually change things.

You are of course perfectly within your rights to keep your head up your ass but the rest of us are not obligated to pretend that you're not talking out of your ass.

[GreenMetalFlake]

24. Yes. If they choose and value like cons, then fuck em, they get what they deserve

[TheCowsCameHome]

25. I see this happening in Massachusetts

Some Dems are taking their re-election for granted.

Wrong.

[Vickers]

20. Fuck Nader. n/t

[Don Caballero]

23. +1

His supporters are as bad as Ron Paul people.

[conscious evolution]

34. Put the blame where it really belongs

On the US Supreme Court.
The USSC are the ones who allowed the overthrow of our goverment.Not Nader.All he did was exercise his right to run for public office.

[Vidar]

37. Recommended.

[slipslidingaway]

42. knr nt

[cloudbase]

43. Not one of those 97,000 would have made a difference

had Gore won his home state.

[cliffordu]

44. Sounds good to me.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

45. The votes of the left are available to the Dems.....if they earn them.

At least mine is. But, I'm not about to waste my vote on politicians who continue to Republican policies and Republican wars.

[DevonRex]

49. Fuck Nader. nt

[JamesA1102]

50. Yes.

They were voting for a man that couldn't win, who accepted funding from the GOP and then used that money to run ads lying about Al Gore, and threw the election to a man who did great harm to this country. It even 10% of those people had voted for Gore there would have been no Florida recount, no Bush tax cuts geared to the rich, no 9/11, no wars in Iraq and Afganistan, a better response to Katrina, etc. All the disasters of the last 10 years could have been avoided.

I'm not saying that anyone owes their vote to any politician or political party. But but if you decide to use your vote to make a statement at least be an adult and accept responsiblity for the consquences of your actions.

[struggle4progress]

53. I reckon we could. But it'd be frickin dishonest or stupid to do that. We need realistic analysis

if we want to win

Blaming Nader distracts us from all the other issues and it's divisive. So naturally, supporters of the status quo will encourage us to blame Nader

But in fact we don't know whether Nader voters in Florida would actually have voted for Gore: they might just have stayed home

Meanwhile, there are issues like: uncounted ballots, dishonest media coverage of campaigns, the SCOTUS decision, and so on

[Vinca]

55. I've actually come to understand the Nader voters.

Given the "hope and change" baloney I bought hook, line and sinker last time around, I'm more open to considering third party candidates. It seems the mainstream members of both parties have merged into Republicrats who never really get anything done. Bush policies are mostly still in place, wars are continuing, health care "reform" isn't, banks are god. Very frustrating.

[Kaleva]

56. Or blame the estimated 300,000 Dems who voted for Bush in Florida?

[trumad]

58. Fuck Nader