i saw this on youtube few months ago and i couldnt believe it. moore and maher, people i had so much respect for, on their knees begging nader not to run. not to bring democracy to the u.s, the bringers of democracy. comon, having 1 more political party than communist china, or 1 more party than a 3rd world country with military dictatorship isnt exactly a flourishing democracy......i lived i 3 european countries and the u.s, what i like over here is that i have the right to vote for a socialist,communist or whatever you like to call it, party...evil party....i wont, but i have the choice, and the right.

Winning a majority requires forming a coalition, which requires making some compromises with people. Nader should exercise his right to influence the democratic party primaries and platform committee meetings. He's not running for parliament where every extra 1% nets you a seat, it's plain old plurality voting without a run-off, and obviously under those conditions having more than 2 liberal candidates helps the conservatives by splitting the liberal vote. Look at what happened in France recently, where a conservative candidate for PM got nearly a plurality in the general election then got trounced in the runoff. It happened because the liberals were split in the general. Until and unless the US establishes runoff elections, working to change the democratic party from within is the only realistic option for Nader to do some good in US politics.

Also, if nader had not run in 2000, Al Gore would be president and 2 million people would not have died in Iraq.

Runoff elections are the right way to go, but until we get runoff elections splitting the liberal vote is counterproductive. The democratic party is not some monolithic beast run from the top down; it has internal elections and committees to determine its platform.

>> ^dead_tofu:
i saw this on youtube few months ago and i couldnt believe it. moore and maher, people i had so much respect for, on their knees begging nader not to run. not to bring democracy to the u.s, the bringers of democracy. comon, having 1 more political party than communist china, or 1 more party than a 3rd world country with military dictatorship isnt exactly a flourishing democracy......i lived i 3 european countries and the u.s, what i like over here is that i have the right to vote for a socialist,communist or whatever you like to call it, party...evil party....i wont, but i have the choice, and the right.


Respect for moore and maher? Who actually has that?

Respect for moore and maher? Who actually has that?


I like them.

Those 21% of Nader supporters who said they would have voted for Bush instead of Gore if Nader hadn't run, are fucking morons. Gore supported about 80% of Nader's platform while Bush supported about 0%.

Watching this is dramatic irony at it's ... saddest.

It really is a pity that un-off elections or preferential voting systems are unlikely to appear because of the obvious control over the legislative ability the Republican/Democrat behemoth have. They know full well when people are afraid of their vote not counting for anything, minor parties will never gain traction. On the other hand it's perhaps even more tragic many Democrats-preferred Libertarian, Nader or other third party candidate supporters lack the power for forward thought or any kind of conceptualisation of the the effect their votes have.

Seems they'd rather be both powerless and ignorant.