Ralph Nader Challenges Google to Hold Presidential Debates

[UserGoogol]

A friend of mine quit the Green party in 2000,after having active in it for a number of years.
When he saw what was essentialy the hijacking of the party by a few Marxist oriented fanatics, and when the party's platform begun sounding like the Communist Manifesto (he particuraly was upset by the clause calling for "worker's control" (a fancy euphemism for Nationalisation) of all businesses making above One Million dollars a year in profit..and saying that was only the intial stage...he knew he had to get out of there.

I haven't gone through it by a fine toothed comb, but I don't see anything remotely like "worker's control" in here.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Who says it hasn't? You? Our electorate is better informed than any electorate in history. Nader can make all the Youtube clips he wants, his followers can reach way more people over the internet now, and a full description of the positions of each candidate is but a few mouseclicks away.

You ever try to get somebody to read a website or watch a video that they're not already interested in? Especially when it's...politics?

Most people don't go out of their way to find out what third-party candidates think. Heck, a lot of people don't even know what their candidate thinks! To seek out that information, you really have to have time, motivation, and to care. You have to be, in short, a political geek.

To draw a corollary...because of all the websites debunking astrology on the Internet, there should be fewer people believing in astrology now.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

A friend of mine quit the Green party in 2000,after having active in it for a number of years.
When he saw what was essentialy the hijacking of the party by a few Marxist oriented fanatics, and when the party's platform begun sounding like the Communist Manifesto (he particuraly was upset by the clause calling for "worker's control" (a fancy euphemism for Nationalisation) of all businesses making above One Million dollars a year in profit..and saying that was only the intial stage...he knew he had to get out of there.

OH NOES!!
Those Marxists always ruin everything!

They're gonna get my workers to take over my one-million-dollar business to--- Oh, wait...

 

[Suddenly]

You ever try to get somebody to read a website or watch a video that they're not already interested in? Especially when it's...politics?

People that try to push these sorts of things on people usually come off as somewhat whackjobish. That people may have tuned you out proves nothing about the world in general. In my experience people do tend to look into things I suggest even when it may disagree with them.

The key word for today is "credibility."

Most people don't go out of their way to find out what third-party candidates think. Heck, a lot of people don't even know what their candidate thinks! To seek out that information, you really have to have time, motivation, and to care. You have to be, in short, a political geek.

Hardly. Third partyites like to think this way because it helps explain the gap between The Truth as spoken by their pet candidate and the fact that the vast majority of people do not agree.

It is the political version of a man assuming a woman is a lesbian because she rejects his advances.

To draw a corollary...because of all the websites debunking astrology on the Internet, there should be fewer people believing in astrology now.

Nope. The analogy would be that more people know more about astrology than before.

Your prejudice is showing itself here. You define having more information as coming to a conclusion you agree with, if a person does not share your conclusions you assume this is due to ignorance.

Those that spend a lot of time on skeptic boards tend to forget that people can disagree. There are many reasonably intelligent people that believe in a variety of things for whatever reason. This does not make them misinformed, just human.

 

[UserGoogol]

I suspect that third parties are "crazy" precisely because they don't get much airtime. If they had TV time, there would be more incentive for the parties to promote remotely electable people (they'd still probably lose, but more because of the structural disadvantages that third parties are stuck with) because their candidates would have more of a chance to persuade people. (People who research information on their own are harder to persuade than people who just sit back and watch a debate.) But since that's not happening, third parties get dominated by ideological purists at best and crazy people at worst, which produces a self-perpetuating cycle.

 

[Suddenly]

I suspect that third parties are "crazy" precisely because they don't get much airtime. If they had TV time, there would be more incentive for the parties to promote remotely electable people (they'd still probably lose, but more because of the structural disadvantages that third parties are stuck with) because their candidates would have more of a chance to persuade people. (People who research information on their own are harder to persuade than people who just sit back and watch a debate.) But since that's not happening, third parties get dominated by ideological purists at best and crazy people at worst, which produces a self-perpetuating cycle.

This is because of game theory, not the media. If anything, the media gives third parties more attention than they deserve, and generally that attention involves someone famous with no shot at being on a major party ballot deciding to run in a third party because of ballot access issues.

Running in an election with the goal of making a decent showing simply isn't long term rational behavior in the US system. If real support is there, reasonable people seek to form a coalition with a chance of winning an election, and this is done usually within the major parties. Idealogues ignore rational behavior in the belief that if only the masses understood their party and its platform, their party would immediately become a player.

This is why third parties generally stink. Evangelical Christians organized and sold their support to the GOP for influence. Reasonable libertarians do the same, but since the idiotic LP siphons off some libertarian support the Xians have a stronger influence.

It isn't rational even before we note that a third party almost always takes votes away from the major party whose positions are closest to the third party's platform. This isn't essential as to the game theory analysis, but it adds a little bite to the assertion that third party politics is generally irrational.


There have been third party attempts for many, many years. None have succeeded, while the GOP did replace the Whigs, it was no longer a third party at that point. The Socialist Party did pretty good until the Democrats picked up organized labor as part of their coalition. In the modern era Democrats have let go of the southern white bloc as a means of attracting more progressive support from minorities and those concerned with civil rights. After a spattering third party spasm these groups were snapped up by the GOP as part of a Southern Strategy.

This is the only real purpose of a third party, a warning shot by a voting bloc that believes it isn't getting any value out of a coalition. If that bloc has enough support, one of the parties will change the platform in favor of that bloc, and the reasonable members will flee to the larger party which allows the chance of influencing policy, leaving the ninnies behind to scream in the wilderness.

 

[UserGoogol]

This is because of game theory, not the media. If anything, the media gives third parties more attention than they deserve, and generally that attention involves someone famous with no shot at being on a major party ballot deciding to run in a third party because of ballot access issues.

That's the problem. Giving third parties the attention they deserve produces a vicious cycle, since getting little attention preserves the very qualities that makes them undeserving of attention.

Additionally, even though there are fundamental game theoretical things that are preventing third parties from winning (which dooms them to be full of crazies) this is an incremental thing, and thus if you can make them slightly less hopeless, they will be incrementally more sane. Look at how the NDP in Canada and the Lib Dems have been able to do relatively well and be relatively sane while still dealing with most of the same factors as the Greens and Libertarians in America. (Although I have heard that part of that may be because the parliamentary system is more amicable to third parties than the presidential system, since the big prize of the presidency motivates voters to form coalitions even more than in a first past the post parliamentary system.) It's not entirely hopeless for third parties.

Running in an election with the goal of making a decent showing simply isn't long term rational behavior in the US system. If real support is there, reasonable people seek to form a coalition with a chance of winning an election, and this is done usually within the major parties. Idealogues ignore rational behavior in the belief that if only the masses understood their party and its platform, their party would immediately become a player.

To a point, but voting itself isn't rational. From the point of the view of the voter, their individual vote is infinitesimally likely to be a tie-breaking vote. (Even in 2000 Florida, it was a couple hundred votes that made the difference.) Voting, therefore, is inherently based on stuff like conscience and civic duty, and therefore people untactically voting "their heart" for unlikely candidates are always going to be a presence. Thus, there is a demand for third party candidates, and although third party candidates cannot be rewarded with a likely chance of winning without a structural change to our democracy, there are other ways that people can be motivated to run without having to be crazy to take the offer.

 

[WildCat]

Every election, the Democrats call anyone a hair's breadth right of their position a reactionary, and the Republicans refer to anyone a hair's breadth left of their position a lefty or socialist.

Well as for me everyone to the right or to the left of me is simply wrong.

 

[Dragoonster]

This is because of game theory, not the media. If anything, the media gives third parties more attention than they deserve, and generally that attention involves someone famous with no shot at being on a major party ballot deciding to run in a third party because of ballot access issues.

The media gives superficially popular or interesting (or rich) people like Perot and Nader more attention than they deserve, but run-of-the-mill podunk third parties less than they deserve. How much do they deserve? A mere percent or two of what major party's get, but they aren't even getting that.

Running in an election with the goal of making a decent showing simply isn't long term rational behavior in the US system. If real support is there, reasonable people seek to form a coalition with a chance of winning an election, and this is done usually within the major parties. Idealogues ignore rational behavior in the belief that if only the masses understood their party and its platform, their party would immediately become a player.

It is rational behavior when whether or not the party is on the ticket or gets federal funds in a next campaign cycle or gets a spot in a debate is directly tied to a puny though objective % measure of support. That's the carrot the system has set before the third-party's, so "the system" seems to support their efforts at remaining viable and independent.

Coalitions don't work for many fringe groups, their ideas simply aren't able to be watered down. The libertarian party for example has some black-white issues and the party is notorious for not giving an inch. Third parties are idealistic because they can afford to be, they have no reason to move to center or form coalitions because they have no chance of winning. In some ways I respect that, and think it's healthy for that to continue instead of there only being two parties, now and forever, with no alternate choice at all.

I agree with a lot of your points about third parties, I just think they should get a more proportional airtime on the major networks/newssites than they do. They DO have some support, 1-5% of all popular votes in every election is not the 0% of free coverage by the major media networks that they get.

And to don my tin-foil hat ca. 1984, it would be nearly impossible to form an electorate revolution against only the two major parties if they control everything and merely play off the other for an effect of great difference, if they're actually almost the same. They're damn close to doing that when it comes to major media and what the common man thinks; I'd rather the trend reverse rather than continue.

 

[WildCat]

The problem is there's really no reason in the US to have a single-issue party. It works in a parliamentary system, but not ours.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

People that try to push these sorts of things on people usually come off as somewhat whackjobish. That people may have tuned you out proves nothing about the world in general. In my experience people do tend to look into things I suggest even when it may disagree with them.

The key word for today is "credibility."

I see you've got me pigeon-holed as one of "those sorts of people".
I don't know what you have against people who vote for third parties, but you're entitled to whatever prejudices you want. You might want to examine your reasons for that, though.

Your "experience" proves absolutely nothing, and is useless to me.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

The problem is there's really no reason in the US to have a single-issue party. It works in a parliamentary system, but not ours.

Most third parties are not single-issue.

 

[fuelair]

His unpopularity is a result of a massive Democrat smear campaign, which they started when he ran in 2004. (It probably goes back further than that, I can't be sure.)

Most people on the left actually agree with all (or most) of his positions, they just hate him for being a "spoiler".

Compare Nader in 2000 with Nader in 2004. Pundits like Michael Moore, who had campaigned for Nader, completely changed their tune, and were instead begging people not to vote for him.

Because, they intelligently recognized that they needed every vote they could get to end Bush - and did not realize in 2000 why that should have been done then (I did as did many of us - but it should have been overwhelmingly obvious). By "04, when it was, it was too late - especially with the "don't change horses in midstream" stupidity and the ongoing security scares that so many republickers fell for - and the majority in Congress was not large enough to actually do anything (which many democratic voters stupidly did not notice so they got pointlessly annoyed at Congressional democrats for something they had no real control over.

Of course I hate him for being a spoiler. He can like whatever he wants, but we needed Shrub never in or soonest out - and Nader helped both of those not happen because he wanted his way. He is free to burn in hell forever for that.

 

[fuelair]

Well as for me everyone to the right or to the left of me is simply wrong.

perfectly logical *

- logic I am almost certain every individual believes in!!!








*in case this does not make immediate sense to anybody out there: Unless you are evil (and even then it should work this way) you have each opinion you have because it is based in your own knowledge, beliefs, standards,upbringing, etc. ergo, for you, it is the only true/valid/operational/correct way to believe so anyone who does not believe exactly the way you do, must be wrong to the extent their view diverges from yours.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Well as for me everyone to the right or to the left of me is simply wrong.

On this issue, I'm right behind you.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Of course I hate him for being a spoiler. He can like whatever he wants, but we needed Shrub never in or soonest out - and Nader helped both of those not happen because he wanted his way. He is free to burn in hell forever for that.

No, he didn't.

Why don't the Democrats ask about the 250,000 members of their party who voted for Bush in Florida (more than double the number that voted for Nader)?
Or the other liberal candidates on the ballot, which exceeded Nader's vote count?

They pretend like they're just upset at Nader because he "got Bush elected." But you notice, they've supported Bush straight down the line: they voted for his war, his appropriations for the troops, the PATRIOT Act (including the renewal!), everything!

The "spoiler" issue is just Democrat propaganda. Of course they don't want you to vote for Nader! He's their competition! If their people start listening to and voting for Nader, their party will disintegrate.

You don't see them attacking the real problem, which is the "winner take all" voting system in this country. There are many superior systems which would solve the spoiler issue, such as Instant Runoff Voting. At the very least, if no candidate gets >50% of the vote, they should hold a runoff, as they do in other democratic countries. But the Dems aren't even interested in that! Their solution? "Just don't vote for Nader." The so-called "Democrats" aren't interested in democracy, they're interested in maintaining the power of their party.

It's simple: if spoilers exist, the system is broken. The system needs to be fixed.