Top 10 reasons I will NOT vote for Nader (sorry JB)...

[Karlinhos]

Okay, I've remained quiet long enough on this most obvious and IMPORTANT issue!

10. He's not running for President, he's running for federal matching funds for the Green Party!

9. He was able to take all those perfect progressive positions of the past because he never had to build an electoral coalition, earn a majority vote, or otherwise submit to democracy.

8. By condemning Gore for ever having taken a different position - for example, for voting against access to legal abortion when he was a Congressman from Tennessee - actually dissuades others from changing their minds and joining us.

7. Nader is rightly obsessed with economic and corporate control, yet he belittles a deeper form of control - control of reproduction, and the most intimate parts of our lives. For example, he calls the women's movement and the gay and lesbian movements "gonadal politics," and ridicules the use of the word "patriarchy," as if it were somehow less important than the World Trade Organization. As Congressman Barney Frank wrote Nader in an open letter, "your assertion that there are not important issue differences between Gore and Bush is either flatly inaccurate or reflects your view that...the issues are not important...since you have generally ignored these issues in your career."

6. The issues of corporate control can only be addressed by voting for candidates who will pass campaign-funding restrictions, and by conducting grassroots boycotts and consumer campaigns against sweatshops - not by voting for one man who will never become President.

5. Toby Moffett, a longtime Nader Raider who also served in Congress, wrote that Nader's "Tweedledum and Tweedledee assertion that there is no important difference between the major Presidential candidates would be laughable if it weren't so unsafe." We've been bamboozled by the media's practice of being even-handedly negative. There is a far greater gulf between Bush and Gore than between Nixon and Kennedy - and what did that mean to history?

4. Nader asked Winona LaDuke, an important Native American leader, to support and run with him, despite his likely contribution to the victory of George W. Bush, a man who has stated that "state law is supreme when to comes to Indians," a breathtakingly dangerous position that ignores hundreds of treaties with tribal governments, long-standing federal policy and federal law affirming tribal sovereignty.

3. If I were to run for President in the same symbolic way, I would hope my friends and colleagues would have the sense to vote against me, too, saving me from waking up to discover that I had helped send George W. Bush to the most powerful position in the world.

2. There are one, two, three, or even four lifetime Supreme Court Justices who are likely to be appointed by the next President. Bush has made clear by his record as Governor and appeals to the ultra-rightwing that his appointments would overturn Roe v. Wade and reproductive freedom, dismantle remedies for racial discrimination, oppose equal rights for gays and lesbians, oppose mandatory gun registration, oppose federal protections of endangered species, public lands, and water - and much more. Gore is the opposite on every one of these issues. Gore has made clear that his appointments would uphold our hard won progress in those areas, and he has outlined advances in each one.

1. The art of behaving ethically is behaving as if everything we do matters. If we want Gore and not Bush in the White House, we have to vote for Gore and not Bush - out of self-respect. I'm not telling you how to vote by sharing these reasons. The essence of feminism is the power to decide for ourselves. It's also taking responsibility for our actions. Let's face it, Bush in the White House would have far more impact on the poor and vulnerable in this country, and on the subjects of our foreign policy
and aid programs in other countries. Just as Clinton saved women's lives by rescinding the Mexico City policy by executive order as his first act as President - thus ending the ban against even discussing abortion if one received U.S. aid - the next President will have enormous power over the lives of millions abroad who cannot vote, plus millions too disillusioned to vote here. Perhaps there's a reason why Nader rallies seem so white, middle class, and disproportionately male; in short, so supported by those who wouldn't be hurt if Bush were in the White House. Think self-respect. Think about the impact of our vote on the weakest among us. Then we can't go wrong.

THINK.

[John Bennett]

Your short-sightedness is a sin!

How will the Green Party EVER become a political force if people like you cut its throat now, when it desperatly needs the federal matching funds for the next election.

Don't you want the Green Party to be part of the next debates?

Don't you want people to take the Green Party seriously?

Do you want the Green Party to die on the vine?

Neither Gore nor Bush advocate a living wage, affordable housing or an end to child poverty. Neither fights for universal health care. Neither cares that our consumer protection, worker safety and environmental laws are threatened by international trade deals and disputes resolved by WTO tribunals behind closed doors.

Neither opposes the discriminatory and costly system of capital punishment. Neither protects or improves labor's right to organize. Bush and Gore and their respective parties receive hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations who know that money is buying favors and building up political debts.

If you want to make your voice heard and make your vote count in November you should be voting for the candidate you believe in.

JB:

Give up your pathetic ruse. I gotcha, dude. You're about as likely to vote for Nader as I am to vote for Pat Buchanan.

You're just a ditto-head who wants to see Bush win at all costs.

It looks like you're going to get your wish. Why don't you just be honest, and say you like Bush?

[Karlinhos]

Uhhhh... I like bush...

(nevermind)

BTW, Karl, great post, I agree with pretty much everything you said.

I respect Nader's accomplishments, but come on, he's not made of presidential timbre.

Like he could work with the Republican Congress. Please. People just want to believe in an incorruptible super-hero.

[nhb_wanabe]

Gore exists solely to sell you lefties down the river.

the way he has with:

the environment.
worker health and safety.
health care.
living wage.

Go ahead and Vote for your corporate candidate. You'll get more of the same.

Of course Bush is one step closer to Naziism, so.

I live in a Swing state where my vote actually matters (FL). I traded my Nader vote to someone I trust in VA which is totally locked for Bush. They vote for Ralph I Vote for Gore.

So I'm voting against Bush AS WELL AS voting for Nader.

I'll have to hold my nose as I pull the lever.

You keep on voting for corporate fronts.

I'll vote for a person!

want to trade your Locked up Republican state vote for a swing state vote (I mean vote strategically and cooperatively with like-minded people)?

go here to learn:
http://www.nadertrader.org/

go here to trade:
http://www.voteswap2000.com/

This is great, we can break the Electoral College Shackles!

[Edited by nhb_wanabe on 11-06-2000 at 08:21 AM]

[Tony10]

You assume there are--and will always only be--two options in an election, and many people in this case see it as a lose/lose proposition.

To ridicule the idea of a third party or third party candidate is flat-earth society thinking. The destroy-and-conquer at all costs mentality of Dems vs. the GOP is what has ground progressive government thinking to a halt in this country. This conflict has been far more destructive to us as a nation than any terrorist bomb or communist threat.

Rather than approach the problems of this country united, as one people, you have the GOP on one side with their barely disguised hatred-masked-as-politics while on the other the Dems with their anti-GOP stance disguising a lack of ideas.

We have reached a stage where partisan politics have become so vile, so disrespectful and so accepted that many good ideas die a legislative death simply because they were forwarded by the party not controlling the majority.

If you believe everything the GOP tells you about "liberal" Democrats, you are an idiot and a dupe.

If you believe that the Dems should have power simply so the GOP won't, then you're getting what you deserve.

Some of us expect better.

Yes, there is a much wider chasm between Bush and Gore on the issues than Nader says. With regard to YOUR government, though, being bought out from under you in a slow-motion coup d'etat by big monied special interests: no, there isn't a lot of difference between them. You can laugh at the "alarmist" Green Party thinking all you want as you pull that lever tomorrow, safe in your complacent, don't-worry-be-happy blanket.

Laugh all you want about the wasted vote on a third party, but Jesse Ventura laughed his way into the governor's mansion because Minnesota voters obviously had had enough.

BTW, if you're in a swing state, yes: your vote for Nader could help Gore. If not, vote your goddamn consience which is what you should always do in the first place.

[Edited by Tony10 on 11-06-2000 at 10:15 AM]

Tony10:

I respect your opinion, and I like Nader, but bottom-line is that Gore is the best man for the job.

He has spent 8 years in the best internship for being Prez that one could possibly have. Running foreign policy is the Prez's primary responsibility, NOT setting the domestic agenda. That is what Congress does, and Congress is Republican (hopefully the Dems will win back the House).

The Dems have their problems, but they are not as corrupted by corporate interests as the Republicans...yet.

Gore is a better man than either Bush or Nader supporters give him credit for. He has dedicated his entire life to public service. He just isn't "sexy".

[Joe Manco]

Ronin said,
"I respect your opinion, and I like Nader, but bottom-line is that Gore is the best man for the job."

Your entire premise is wrong: Gore isn't a man. In fact I believe Ronin is Gore. The mutual cluelessness is just too striking to discount.

Yours truly,

Joe

Joe Wanco:

I am constantly flabbergasted at the way you use facts and logic to bolster your witty, nay poetic statements.

Good job!

[Joe Manco]

Ronin:
I am consistently amazed by the way you can write, and write, and write ... and say nothing.

Yours truly,

Joe

Al Gore is the best-qualified MAN to be president.

Is that simple enough, or do I need to abridge it further for you?

[Atomic]

Nader's party will flounder once Nader drops out of the picture because it's a FIGUREHEAD PARTY. Once the leader is gone, the party is history and this is why I don't really care what happens with him or his party. Who cares if they get federal funding? Nader can spout off all his idealistic ideas without becoming a realist on any issue because he has 0 chance of getting elected. Idealism is what attracts many voters to this guy.

The Green Party, as well as the Reform will most likely be gone within 15 years.

Same crap happened to the Bull-Moose party a long, long time ago.

Atomic

[Mata-Leão]

It is a fact of the American political system that a strong independant third party is an impossibility. For a third party to garner enough votes to actually win an election, it would have to win over 90% of the votes of one of the other parties OR both of the main parties would have to have such unappealing candidates that no one wanted to vote for them.

This will never happen. What happens with successful third parties in this country is that they end up replacing an established party. In order to remain in favor, however, the newly emerged third party must discard all of it's "radical" (read that however you want, I just mean whatever ideas make it different) ideas and stand somewhere more near the middle of the road. The new party basically has to espouse the ideals of the previously strong party that it replaces.

What we're left with is a minor variation on the previous two party system. The players change, but the game stays the same.

Don't expect any outstanding exceptions to this rule. It is fundamental to US politics.

[Tony10]

I hear ya.

However, I would say that there's not a lot "radical" about Nader's party, except that it would undo the "business as usual" approach in Washington.

It's not too far from McCain--with his campaign finance reform--or Bradley and his ideas, and they did fairly well.

I would never count it out. I hear what you're saying, but look at Minnesota.