I thought weren’t trying to be biased on the non-oped pages…

Posted by: Lakhim at August 16, 2004 01:33 AM

Note, Lakhim, that the last snide remark is still in the block quote… that’s straight from the NYT article.

Although, California Yankee does fail to point out that the NYT itself is quoting a Mr. Jim Musselman, Nader Supporter and victim of “undemocratic harassment”

Posted by: TBox at August 16, 2004 07:31 AM

Wow, an ad hominem attack? From a Democrat?

Well, I’m shocked.

You know, I almost, almost, mind you, feel sorry for Ralph. But the reality is that Al Gore had just appealed to the people who voted for Nader, it wouldn’t have mattered, just like it wouldn’t for Kerry.

Posted by: johnnymozart at August 16, 2004 10:36 AM

whoops, that “if” Al Gore…..

Posted by: johnnymozart at August 16, 2004 10:36 AM

OhGeeGollyGush!

Folks being paid (from the contributions of some Rs, as has now been documented out here on the Left Coast) to work gathering signatures for Ralphie found that (gasp!) there were some Out There who didn’t agree with what they were doing?

And, Shades of Free Speech, actually said so? Directly — to their faces??

Why, hoodathunk it??

Politics is not an activity for those who can’t handle rejection. It just goes with the territory.

Posted by: Don at August 16, 2004 11:27 AM

Evidently Don, your lovers of free speach have as much to do, if not more so with “The climate of Fear” then the republicans. If the democrats were really concerned with “fairness” in debate they would understand that not everyone agrees with them, and should be allowed to dissent, but if that were allowed, the ABB coaltion would crumble.

Posted by: Brian at August 16, 2004 12:15 PM

Hey — Free Speech doesn’t mean that anyone has to agree with what’s being said!

That’s the best thing about it.

Ralphie is trying his level best to get a Free Ride onto the ballot, only this time it’s not the Librul side of the D’s that are going to boost him there — it’s the Consurrrvative side of the Rs.

Whining that the Ds won’t support that effort out of the Goodness of their hearts is, in a political context, content-free utterly.

As for the other “predictions” they are based on nothing of any specific worth. Wishful Thinking doesn’t elevate itself to Reality™ in a political cycle.

Posted by: Don at August 16, 2004 01:15 PM

Hey Don,
How did things go down there in Medford? sen. Windsock have anything to say, besides “Hey, did you know I was in the Navy?”
I saw a guy on the news pictures standing by sen. windsock with a broom and a shovel ready to clean up all the B.S. was that you?

Posted by: commander at August 16, 2004 02:00 PM

Dunno — I wasn’t within 200 miles of the place, and didn’t go up to the Portland gathering either.

The UPW I do involves Far more than being in a crowd.

Sorry to disappoint you. I spoke with probably 1200-1300 folks Thurs-Sunday.

What did You do?

Posted by: Don at August 16, 2004 02:18 PM

I thought I read of 1200-1300 people who slept for 2-3 days, I was worried that it was an illness, but it was just Don!!

Posted by: I collect political items at August 16, 2004 03:37 PM

“But the reality is that Al Gore had just appealed to the people who voted for Nader, it wouldn’t have mattered, just like it wouldn’t for Kerry.”

That’s ridiculous of you Mr. Mozart, as usual. As close as Florida was, there is no doubt that Gore would have won if Nader had not been on the ballot. It’s not even an arguable proposition. I hope you are right that it won’t matter this year. Glad to see you are finally recognizing that Kerry is leading (despite Nader’s drag off his left flank).

Posted by: rdelephant at August 16, 2004 06:11 PM

So when a democrat has cursed, scolded, threatened and called “naïve” and “stupid” a Naderite, it’s the D’s free speech that needs to be protected?

So, turnabout, I could say that Don is a dimwit whose Poor Literary Skills require him to enshrine every other noun as a Buzz Word because his views are so stupid that he has to resort to innuendo to get his point across, for, were he to state it plainly, he’d get laughed off the stage? And that he has to purposely misspell categorical tags (Meeja, librul, etc.) because he’s too full of vitriol to have a civil conversation and needs to include at least one aspersion to the intellect of his fellow debators before he can feel fulfilled? And I could say that his naive views about national and global security threaten the lives of soldiers in Iraq as well as citizens at home, and that I would be doing our nation a service if I simply offed the bum? Oh, and, I know where he lives. And that’s all protected under my right to free speech, viz. my right to disagree with Don openly?

Posted by: TBox at August 16, 2004 06:31 PM

TB: Nope — anyone say it was the Ds Free Speech alone that needed to be protected?

Defending something that hasn’t been attacked doesn’t mean an attack actually occurred.

So, you know where I live. That makes you probably unique among the several thousand folks who do, and the others who could easily find out. It’s not as though I’m hiding Out There. Nor do I place myself behind an anonymous cute little Nomme de Net either.

My views place No One in any danger anywhere. Their security is well beyond my purview, just as it is well beyond yours. It resides in the hands of those in the Chain of Command, and it is to Them you must look to entrust the security of the troops.

Love the oblique threat, though. Cowards oftimes say such things to make themselves look Rilly Kool. But it’s inevitably hot air. I’ll just assume you have more sense than to seriously attempt such a thing.

You are participating in a time-honored Murken Tradition — the Heated Political Exchange. Learn to do it well, else becoming overheated makes you appear silly. It’s a hazard amongst the TFC, and it sometimes takes years to learn the skill.

The clueful can pick it up Much sooner, though. It’s not as though it’s difficult.

Posted by: Don at August 16, 2004 06:55 PM

TBox, no violence please…..just a well placed dog turd in his mailbox should suffice!! Or maybe a Kerry picture with a feces mustache!! ha ha ha
Don is pretty effete as most of dem dar libruls. Dey have not no sense of write and rong…don’t waste your time just party hearty on Nov 2!!!

Posted by: dickmr at August 17, 2004 01:12 AM

You truly are a buffoon, rdelephant. You could make missing the point an Olympic sport. This is stupid, even for you.

///You are ridiculous, Mr. Mozart, as usual. As close as Florida was, there is no doubt that Gore would have won if Nader had not been on the ballot.///

Well, yes, that I am ridiculous is well known; perhaps not as ridiculous as suggesting, rdelephant, that Saddam Hussein was “completely cooperative” or that Kim Jong Il isn’t a mass murderer, but of course, my expectations of you are pretty low.

No, rdelephant, let me spell this out for you again, because I know you have difficulty with reading comprehension and basic concepts like rational thought.

Yes, Gore would have won Florida if Nader hadn’t run. No one is debating that. But he also would have won Florida if Nader had run, if a significant number of your party hadn’t found him appealing enough to vote for.

And yet they did. So your boy lost.

There are plenty of people on the Presidential ballot. Only a few of them matter. But the fact is, whether you like it or not, it wasn’t Nader that made Gore lose; it was Nader’s appeal, or Gore’s lack of appeal, or some combination of both.

And that’s what really has your panties in a twist over this, isn’t it? The fact that it was your own party that lost the election? You guys love to blame Nader for this, but the fact is, nobody put a gun to your head. Nobody HAD to vote for Nader. If one of the above things weren’t true, it wouldn’t matter whether Nader was on the ballot or not. The people in your party lost Gore the election, not Nader; Nader was just the means through which they did it. If the will weren’t already there, ten people just like Nader on the ballot wouldn’t have mattered.

Posted by: johnnymozart at August 17, 2004 10:14 AM

JM nails it, no doubt about it. What the rude pachyderm is saying is this: Absent Nader the dissafected democrats would be forced to chose Gore.

Kerry’s pretty much banking on the same dynamic this time around: with no other rational choice, the far left fringe will have to vote for Kerry.

thus his recent pronouncements about going into Iraq. This was a clear signal that Kerry thinks the far left will embrace him no matter how far to the center his words are now.

I think that’s called pandering, no?

Posted by: skip at August 17, 2004 11:32 AM

“But the reality is that Al Gore had just appealed to the people who voted for Nader, it wouldn’t have mattered, just like it wouldn’t for Kerry.”

You left a word out of your sentence. Apparently you meant to say that “IF Al Gore had just appealed to the people who voted for Nader…”. That makes sense at least, in a backhand sort of way. Slow down and we won’t have these problems.

Posted by: rdelephant at August 17, 2004 06:23 PM

You both rather miss the more central point:

If Gore had appealed to those who voted for Nader, then he wouldn’t have appealed to more of them who didn’t.

Remember — Ralphie was campaigning on the “There’s no difference between Bush and Gore” during his campaign.

Clearly Ralphie was incorrect. There was.

Posted by: Don at August 17, 2004 07:20 PM

Nevertheless Don, you describe a problem inherent in the Democratic party, not with Ralph Nader himself.

Not, of course, that I am either a defender of either Nader or Republican attempt to get him on the ballot.

Oh, and rdelephant,

whoops, that’s “if” Al Gore…..

Posted by: johnnymozart at August 16, 2004 10:36 AM

Posted just below the post that confused you. Not even a minute went by. Whom should slow down? Apologies for the confusion.

Posted by: johnnymozart at August 17, 2004 08:18 PM

There’s no particular problem within the Democratic Party. Unlike the Rs, it has historically Never marched entirely in lockstep. While the erstwhile existence of Moderate Rs has now become a cause for concern, in that they seem to be ready to go onto the ESL, the D’s have always been fractious, with the Leftward Extreme side prepared to be either In or Out, depending on their perceptions of the Issue du Jour.

The Naderites draw their Votes from the Extreme Left and the Terminally Disaffected. The latter tend to be fromaged at both major parties simultaneously, and gravitate toward the most notable of the crop of Anyone Else wandering around out there.

But they don’t contribute much money or work. This cycle, that’s come mostly from the R’s, if the current efforts to get him on the ballot hereabouts are any indicator.

I’d not worry all that much about intra-party problems with the D’s, were I you. Frankly, you don’t know enough about how it actually works to discuss it intelligently.

(This coming from a guy who tossed out a local D who had run a stealth campaign last cycle to become the county chair, then promptly announced that she was supporting Ralphie rather than WJC. I put together some folks, and her tenure as chair lasted about two weeks. Direct Democracy in Action, as these things go.)

We handle these things well within the party all on our own. Your interest is welcome, but your concern is ill-placed.

Posted by: Don at August 18, 2004 11:39 AM

//But they don’t contribute much money or work.///

Nope, they just contribute to loss of elections.

As for this: ///I’d not worry all that much about intra-party problems with the D’s, were I you. Frankly, you don’t know enough about how it actually works to discuss it intelligently///

Yes, Don. That’s nice, Don. We’re all in awe of your razor-sharp political acumen, Don.

There, feel better after making a petty, unprovoked insult? There was no need for this.

Gore lost because he could not appeal to people in your party who would never vote “R”. Another candidate might have. Clinton was able to. Works the same in both parties. Reagan was able to appeal to people that neither of the Bushes ever would or could. It is doubtful that a Ross Perot would have made a significant impact on another run by Reagan. By the same token, an attractive, charismatic democrat, which Al Gore was not; might not have allowed Ralph Nader to make a dent. Kerry seems to be managing, but that is more a function of backlash against Nader, as described in this article, rather than any inherent charisma of Kerry’s. The fault for the fact of Nader actually getting traction lies with the party and the candidate that party ran, not with Nader. Sorry. Those are the facts, Don, your esteemed work in the upper echelons of the Democratic machine notwithstanding. So flame or insult away; or better yet, maybe claim that I’m misinterpreting you. It doesn’t matter. I’m not concerned at all, I’m just saying that’s what happened.

Posted by: johnnymozart at August 18, 2004 01:53 PM

Indeed, they do — hence the willingness of the R’s to bankroll and work for Ralphie’s effort. It’s not as though folks don’t understand what’s going on. Ralphie’s scorched earth approach to politics isn’t going to play Nearly as well this cycle as it did last. But it won’t be because the R’s are unwilling to try to use him as their own campaign tool.

You weren’t insulted. Clearly you have essentially No Clue about the intra-party workings of the D’s, else you’d not be quite so quick to paint it with the overbroad brush you so often use. Try to discern between an observation and an insult — they are hardly the same thing.

Gore lost for a variety of reasons — not just one. From where I stand, it’s largely because his folks ran a pretty TFC campaign. It was poorly organized, poorly focused and tended to be reactive rather than proactive. We could do a regression analysis of the effect of a bunch of variables, and we’d find that different variables played differently in different states and regions. So trying to focus a personal perceptual mailing tube on any single matter doesn’t cut it for anyone who knows the strange interaction that Politics involves. We take a myriad of different motivations, varying in kind and degree, and we distill them all down into one single behavior — a vote.

Voters are not monolithic. Their reasons vary all over the landscape. Please one group and you fromage a different group with the same act.

How the Ralphie supporters vote wanders all over the landscape. Some are merely Leftists, while others are Looney Leftists and a flock of them are the Terminally Disaffected. A reasonable D campaign shouldn’t be expected to pander to all of them simultaneously, because doing so would cause a larger problem elsewhere amongst the voters.

Just as in what I did 8 years ago in tossing out the local Greens who had deliberately attempted to pose as D’s in my community. Their effort worked — for about two weeks. But once they clearly were identified, we tossed out their representatives and replaced them with the more Moderate sorts of D’s this community is more comfortable with overall. Gotta give the G’s credit — their move was well done. Just not for long.

Gore never should have attempted to appeal to the hard-core Ralphies on the Left or the Terminally Disaffected either. Their policies tend to the Silly and their Political allegiance is ephemeral. They aren’t worth the bother, any more than the Nuclear Power guy (his name escapes me at the moment, but his followers used to campaign endlessly and annoyingly in airports till most of them threw him out some years back) who masqueraded as a D.

The Lefties bought into the Nader campaign that there was no difference between the R’s and the D’s last cycle. They were Wrong, in retrospect, and most of the more sensible ones now clearly see it. They have been persuaded to become a tad less Absolutist in their approach, and in the process have become resentful of their previous silliness. This is A Good Thing as defined. I know of several hereabouts who are atoning for their past misjudgements by becoming the most anti-Ralphie folks out there, saying “I’ll Never make that mistake again!”

But they won’t all come over. Ralphie will get fewer votes this cycle than last, though he’ll still be a bother. But it’s part of the background noise, and it’ll be worked around in due course.

I’d not place my hopes on a Dubya win based on the Ralphie vote this time. And wasn’t it only a few months back that such as y’all would never have bothered with this anyway, in that Dubya was predicted to win by a landslide, and the D candidate wouldn’t be in it at all?

Funny how things change, idnit? But then, you were warned long since.

WJC, btw, didn’t appeal to the Ralphie votes either. First time he ran, they were largely over in the Aitchross side of things. The Terminally Disaffected bloc tends, ceteris paribus, to gravitate to the most noticeable of the Anyone Else group.

The marginal side of politics is merely Marginal. It needs to be noted, but its effect is far overblown.

Some years back, we had a fellow locally named Witt (I always called him Witt/2 just to annoy the R’s) who lost a congressional race by a margin approximately equal to the number of votes the local Libertoonian candidate got. Next time around, Witt/2 tried to buy off the L’s. Really he did — I am reasonably close to a bunch of the L’s, and got pretty much a play by play of the attempt.

The L’s might have done rather better had they simply sold out and not put a candidate in the race at all and taken Witt’s money. As it was, they nominated a different candidate altogether, and that one got fewer votes than the previous L did (deservedly so - he was a bit of a twit at his best) and meanwhile, the margin between Witt and the D candidate grew. The second time, the margin swamped the L vote altogether.

This idea that one can simply do a one-for-one displacement of a specific vote from one candidate to another is mostly nonsense. Why campaigns believe it seems silly to me. But hey — things get all Sorts of weird when the campaign juices start to flow.

The D’s should indeed attempt to keep Ralphie off their ballots by countering the attempts of the R’s to get him on. To have the D’s and R’s facing off in any venue is the way things should be. I quite approve of it.

The hard-core Naderites are their own thing, and not an element of either party. Just like any other of the terminally disaffected. They might or might not change their vote according to some Strategic Insight, but probably not. In that, they are rather more like Libertoonians in their behavior, just from a mildly different perspective.

But try not to assert any one specific opinion as Fact or Truth Revealed. As a general rule, such assertions are flawed early on.

No bloc is monolithic in politics. No party commands All of its members across the board. No ideology is pure and unsullied by exogenous ideas that oftimes run counter to its stated purpose.

This is Politics here — not Systems Management. Its dominant characteristic is the Human Condition, and not a Memory Chip.

It’s great fun, highly entertaining and endlessly fascinating. Predictable, it ain’t.

Posted by: Don at August 18, 2004 02:37 PM

Press the Send button, and the name pops up:

Lyndon LaRouche.

Calls himself a D.

Isn’t. Never was.

But he got a couple of his folks nominated as D’s some years back somewhere in the Midwest, if memory serves.

Posted by: Don at August 18, 2004 02:39 PM

You weren’t insulted. Clearly you have essentially No Clue about the intra-party workings of the D’s, else you’d not be quite so quick to paint it with the overbroad brush you so often use. Try to discern between an observation and an insult — they are hardly the same thing.

Insults are in the eye of the beholder, O pompous one, and I see that just to prove your (or perhaps my) point, you do it again——twice. Nice work.

The only one painting with a broad brush here, Don, is you. Take this, for example:

I’d not place my hopes on a Dubya win based on the Ralphie vote this time. And wasn’t it only a few months back that such as y’all would never have bothered with this anyway, in that Dubya was predicted to win by a landslide, and the D candidate wouldn’t be in it at all?

Nope. Never said that. Nor was I happy. Indifferent is the word, as I am in favor of third party candidates. Nor have I ever suggested Bush will win in a landslide. And I, like you, think it somewhat of a bastardization of the Democratic process to be manipulated the way the “R”s are trying to do with Nader. So let’s review, who is painting with a broad brush?

But that nonsense aside, for all the talk about my classifying people into monolithic groups, you don’t actually identify where I’ve done that. (Broad brush, anyone?) I never suggested that Gore’s lack of appeal was the only reason he wasn’t elected; I was merely refuting the idea that the fault for Gore’s loss lies only with Nader. That, of course, is the primary reason for the anger against Nader: the idea that votes for Al Gore were somehow stolen by Ralph Nader, thereby costing Gore the election; but as you so verbosely but it above, those votes were unlikely to go to Gore anyway, even if he hadn’t run. Just like they didn’t (although I question this) for WJC

So you prove my point for me, Don. Which was to refute this: (from the article)

she said she was cursed, scolded, threatened and called “naïve” and “stupid” by Democrats who blamed her for ruining Al Gore’s chances to win the White House in 2000

Those people aren’t yelling at Ralph Nader supporters because they “disagree with his views” They aren’t yelling because Gore ran a campaign that was “poorly organized, poorly focused and tended to be reactive rather than proactive.”

No. They are blaming Nader for Gore’s loss, and that as I have said, and you concurred, (although indirectly) is nonsense. As you described, the fault lies with the way Gore ran his campaign and how he appealed (or didn’t appeal) to the variety of individuals and interests which now constitute, (or perhaps have hijacked), the modern Democratic party, not Nader. Or perhaps not just Nader. Which is what I stated. There was nothing, overtly or implied, that suggested that the Democratic party is a monolithic bloc. Had Gore been more appealing, (if indeed it is possible to be done—I’m not sure that it is given the current makeup of your party) once again, the additional of Ralph Nader or any other random politico would not have mattered.

But the fact remains, not disputed by you, that the reason Nader is not gaining traction is because people are angry with him, or because people thought they made a mistake in voting for him, not because of any particular laudable trait of Kerry’s. Either way, those people’s vote for Kerry is about Nader or Bush, not about Kerry. Which begs the question? What will happen to the “fractious” Democratic party if a popular, charismatic Lefty/Naderite runs against the Democratic golden boy in the future? Because of the nature of the makeup of your party, this divisive scenario seems likely for an encore performance. Just as it perhaps could in the R party with either the evangelical Christians or the Libertarian leaning conservatives.

Yes, Don, there is a person or persons whom have a lack of appreciation for the multifaceted dynamic of the political landscape, but that person isn’t me.

So thanks for the anecdotal modern civics lesson, that no one, least of all me, needed.

It was Interesting, but not particularly Useful or Relevant.

Just an “observation”.

Cheers.

Posted by: johnnymozart at August 18, 2004 04:42 PM