Nader for President?
 

So Ralph Nader has decided to run for president again. What does this mean for the other candidates? I doubt anyone seriously expects him to win, however he may split the democratic vote and put Bush back in office for another term.

What do you guys think about Nader and the impact he may (or may not) have on the 2004 election?

Well, he might have an effect on the Democratic vote, but far less of one than the first time around. Just like Perot, he might have caught attention the first time around, but far less of one this time. Personally, I hope he ends up not running, but I can't say what will happen.

Sky Warrior Bob

i betcha a lot of the hardcore deaniacs will support Nadar now. I'd say that would be a loss for the dems, but they probably wouldnt have voted dem unless Dean was the nominee anyway.

Nadar will probably only leach off a small percentage of the vote form teh Dem nominee anyway, but there were states that went to one side or the other by magins of less then half a percent that could be lost because of Nadar. The effect of a third party can be most seen in swing states

Zeth, you apparently have some weird ideas of the Dean supporters that I just can't buy into. I personally hit the blog & the fairly recent forums, and I can assure you the majority of them won't throw away a vote on Nader.

Yes, a fair few will still vote Dean, especially here in Vermont as only Dean & Kerry are on the ballot (Edwards isn't on it), but those are the primaries, not the election. In the election, they'll vote for whatever Democrat is in place, if a viable 3rd party shows up, then maybe, but Nader showed us in the last election he's an absolute waste of vote.

But again, I say that Nader will have a far less of effect than he did in the first election, much like Perot. Plus, I wouldn't be suprised in most of his funding will come from Bush supporters.

Sky Warrior Bob

i guess you didnt read the last post in the "Dean to quit the race" thread.

in some places all you need is a handful of people to say "i could vote for a democrat because hes better the Bush, but ill vote for Nadar because he's better then everyone else".

Meh, I'd give him more of a chance if he didn't miss the "I want to be a serious candidate" deadline.

the "I want to be a serious candidate" deadline isn't for a while. Independants don't have primaries. You just have to get enough signatures on petitions in order to get your name on the ballot. the only reason why it SEEMS like he's missed the dealine is because this primary has been getting a helluva lot of news coverage as of late.

by the way, i took a qick look. Nadar's vote count exceded the gap between Bush and Gore in 5 or 6 states. If all , or even a fourth, of the Nadar votes had gone to Gore in New Hapshire Gore woulda won the state and FL would have been a moot point.

I responded too it now, and I tried to discount your statements as best I could, at this time.

Yes, there will be those who'll still go to Nader's side, but those who go out and advocate others to joining them will likely meet with harsh resentment. Nader posters will likely be torn down, and at least a few heated arguements will arise.

It won't be pretty. Besides, until Nader starts actually doing anything, its a moot point. I can state that I'm running for President, but until I start doing anything, it doesn't mean anything.

Edited to Add:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/b...news/3000h.htm
(And in case you didn't know, that's the main Vermont paper...)

SWB

The problem with the democrats right now is that they have no platform. Their whole campaign now is based on what could happen if Bush is elected. Their entire platform is fear based and a lot of people won't vote out of fear for a democrat. Freedom and fear don't mix. Quite a few people are going to vote based on how they think the country should be and on hope. Running on "electability" will cause them to lose. The DNC blames everything they can get their hands around for their failures except themselves. I respect Nader. He's fighting the good fight. Sometimes a lossing fight is still worth fighting.

For the curious, here's Nader's site.

heh, amusing.


anyway, like i said, there were several states in 2000 in which nadar got enough votes that, if given to one side or the other, would have changed the state. i think only 2 of those states went to Bush, while the other 4 or 5 went to Gore (compelling the conclusion that Bush probably wouldnt have won those states, since Nadar voters aren't natural allies of Bush, but he would have lost NH and FL)

Wether or not anti-politcal speech democrats try to tear down posters or get into debates doesn't really undermine the validity of those statistics.

Even if Nadar lost half of his percentage that he got in 2000 (like Perots decline from 92 to 96), he'd still have more then double the overall popular margin between Gore and Bush in '00. This won't matter in most states, but in states like NM where the margin was less then a tenth of one percent, it can matter. And Nadar can ONLY hurt Gore, not Bush.

now, there are a ton of assymitries between Nadar and Perot (the most obvious that Perto got 18+% and Nadar got less then 3% of the pop vote) and between the elections of '92, '96, '00 and '04, but if you apply the simplistic phenomenon of thsoe years to this year, you can see that Nadar can tip the scales, if ever so slightly, towards Bush.

then again, another trend is that elections are almsot never as clse as they were in '00. But 'meh'.




oh yeah, i also find it amusing you complain that Nadar would be funded by bush supporters while implying that Democrats would be tearing down Nadar signs. I'll choose to take that as a sign that you implicitly agree with me that Nadar's only potential is to harm the democrats.