Re-thinking fucking Ralph Nader

2. You know what? I fuck Ralph Nader unfairly. Fuck our voting system. We should have RANKED VOTING in major elections fielding more than 2 candidates. With three candidates, your first choice gets two points, your second gets one and your last gets none. Other countries -- Jess could tell us which -- use this system. A one-candidate-one-vote system expresses the subtleties of the polity's preferences far more poorly than a ranked system -- AND, more to the point, does more to discourage the viability of third parties, I would guess, than any other factor in an election.

Nader was the spoiler, have no doubt. Nader won 2.6M votes nationwide; Bush-Gore were 176k apart. Nader's take in Oregon and Florida similarly far exceeds the split. But it's not fair that Nader supporters had to vote for Gore, thus under-representing Nader, nor that the wishes of the majority of the polity (Gore over Bush) weren't respected. Ranked voting would have given Gore the win AND reflected the stronger support that Nader actually had.

A third party will always be the spoiler; but a one-candidate-one-vote system gives every voter a HUGE incentive NEVER to "waste" a vote on the third party, and thus does more to insure a 2-party system than anything *I* could imagine. I didn't follow Nader's campaign to know if he ever raised this critique, but it seems to me that any of us interested in 3rd-party politics should give it some thought, and perhaps agitate for it.

That, however, is not the system we have, or had, going into this election.

3. Therefore it is with many misgivings that I must beseech you, yet, to fuck Ralph Nader. Because:

3.1. IF he'd run in the Democratic primary he would have pulled the Dems farther left than he was able to in the national arena. This cannot be contested; he is a liberal among liberals, and many Dem libs would have loved to see Nader pull the too-conservative Gore left. It is quite true that Gore would have gone back right in the general; but this is standard, and he might have given Nader a cabinet post.

3.2. IF he'd concentrated his campaign on one state -- say, Oregon -- he might have had some horses to trade in the electoral college. A Gore administration would at least give him the time of day, if not a cabinet post.

3.3. IF his primary goal -- as he said last night -- is not in fact securing funding, but rather reducing corporate influence in DC, then the election of a candidate who would sign McCain-Feingold, while not perfect, is a step in the right direction.

3.4. We were all surprised by the closeness of this election. BUT that it would be close enough to have Nader cover the split was eminently precedented. Kennedy bested Nixon in '60 by .1%; Nixon Humphrey in '68 by .3%; Carter Ford in '76 by 2.1%. All these margins were smaller than what Nader was expected to win in this election. And Lo, it has come to pass.

3.5. Chris said: "If only all those people who voted for Gore out of fear of Bush had instead followed their consciences and voted for Nader, then Nader would have won." No one, including Nader, would agree; even ranked voting would not have given Nader THIS election. He may fare better next time; or, like Perot, he may have incurred the ire of many would-be future supporters for splitting '00. Many of Perot's conservative supporters never forgave him for "giving" Clinton the '92 election; Perot did very poorly in '96. It could be reasonably argued that Nader would have done more for the Green Party and himself by pulling out a month ago and endorsing Gore. Time will tell.

3.6. "If Gore had simply run a more intelligent race the last two months, he'd have won easily." Perhaps. But Kennedy only beat Nixon in '60 by .1%. The better man -- even the much better man -- does not always win. Thus did Tricky Dick lose in '60, but only barely; thus did he win in '68, when Wallace split; thus will Dubya have won, if he has.

Irregularities in Florida vote.

Statistical analysis of irregularities in Buchanan Florida vote -- online at http://pdenker.home.mindspring.com/buchanan.html . Site includes overview, statistical analysis of diputed votes and collection of current news orgs covering this story.