Hi, I’m the political Junkie.
In 2000, Ralph Nader made a history altering decision.
Ralph Nader: a name few outside of the US even recognize, changed everything for everyone.
As Justin Martin describes in his book Crusader, Spoiler, Icon: Nader’s goal in 2000 was
to grab 5% of the vote, as doing so would unlock access to federal election funding
for the 2004 race.
As the 2000 election polling drew razor thin between Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President
Gore, some in the Nader campaign wanted him to place his efforts into liberally-dense
population centers like California or New York.
Campaigning in these Democratic safe states would allow Nader to easily tap into a concentrated
group of people who may be sympathetic to the Green Party cause, but who normally wouldn’t
vote Green for fear of handing over the electoral votes of say, Ohio or Iowa to the other side.
Nader’s decision illustrates why your 3rd party candidate is probably playing you for
a fool.
But before I go any further, there is another side to the this debate.
Matt Beat over at Mr. Beat’s Social Studies Channel has the exact opposit opinion, and
hes made a video about it.
If you believe in a open and robust debate like I do, be sure to go check him out.
Ralph Nader really didn’t like being called a spoiler.
Interviewer: There is a large argument out there that we had Bush because of you.
Did you cost Al Gore the election?
Nader: No.
And Al Gore agrees.
He blew it in Tennessee, his home state.
Everything else being equal, he’d have been in the White House if he got Tennessee.
And he thinks it was stolen in a number of ways in Florida.
-everybody has an equal right to run for an election.
If everybody has an equal right- then we’re either all spoilers of one another, trying
to get votes from one another- or none of us are spoilers.
We’re not second class citizens because we’re a green party candidate or libertarian
party candidate.
Question: will you concede that most of your Florida voters in 2000 would have gone to
Gore?
Nader: Here we go again.
Let’s start with this: Gore won the popular vote- only the antiquated electoral college
allowed the man who came in second to become president.- most countries, you know, if you
get the most votes, you win.
In Florida 250,000 Democrats moved across the aisle and voted for George W. Bush.
the spread between Bush and Gore was about 527 votes, but the recount was leaning towards
Bush- toward Gore in terms of a full state recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court,
The Democratic exit polls had our vote- the green party vote- 39% of our vote would have
voted for Gore, 25% would have voted for Bush, rest would have stayed home.
The question of spoiling got under his skin.
“Gore won the popular vote.
Only the antiquated electoral college allowed the man who came in second to become president.”
George W. Bush won 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266.
The specific controversy of the 2000 election usually revolves around Florida, where the
US Supreme Court rejected a recount that could have given the state to Al Gore, and thereby
the Presidency.
Bush won the official Florida count by 537 votes.
Ralph Nader won 97,488 votes in Florida.
The argument goes that if Nader wasn’t running, enough of his voters would have gone to Gore
for him to win the state.
“Only the antiquated electoral college allowed the man who came in second to become president.”
Nader is choosing the electoral system he wants rather than knowing the one we have:
the popular vote doesn't decide elections.
Bush didn’t come in second, he came in first by winning more electoral votes.
This is a motif we’ll see more of; Nader thought he could fight the system by ignoring
it.
2) “The Democratic exit polls had our vote- the green party vote- 39% of our vote would
have voted for Gore, 25% would have voted for Bush, rest would have stayed home.”
Nader’s own words: 39% for Gore 25% for Bush.
If you do that math, 39% of 97,488 added to Gore’s total, then 25% of 97,488 added to
Bush’s total, Gore comes out on top by over 10,000.
There were other polls demonstrating a similar phenomenon; Nader’s own example for exoneration
actually damns him.
Further, a 2006 study by Michael C. Herron and Jeffrey B. Lewis used ‘ballot-level-
analysis and came up with an even worse 60-40 spread of Nader voters for Gore.
We can’t be sure exactly what the split would be, but only a fool would believe that
more liberal Green party voters would run to Bush than Gore.
And Nader apologists often try to hide behind independents.
After all, 76% of Nader voters in 2000 were not Democrats.
This employs the myth of the American independent; unfortunately, no such thing exists, at least
not as many as third-parties would have us believe.
So-called independents make up 42% of the electorate, but polling consistently shows
that the majority of these voters simply vote Republican or Democrat and won’t admit it.
The remaining open-minded swingers comprise a sad 5% of the voting population.
But what about the argument that Gore lost his own flock of Democrats to Bush?
“In Florida, 250,000 Democrats moved across the aisle and voted for George W. Bush”
This ignores what Bill Scher noted in his Real Clear Politics Editorial, that the 11%
of conservative Democrats that voted for Bush are a known quantity; “the same 11% snubbed
Kerry in 2004.
Even Barack Obama lost 10% of Democrats en route to his seven-point 2008 victory,”
3) “He blew it in TN, his home state.
Everything else being equal, he’d had won the White House.”
Well, all things weren’t equal.
As early as October, 2000, there was polling showing Gov. Bush leading Vice President Gore
in Tennessee.
Plus, conservative Tennessee had only voted Democratic twice since 1976; Gore losing might
have been a shock, but it shouldn’t have been.
Which brings me back to the critical decision of Nader just days before the 2000 election;
under pressure to focus on the liberal population centers away from the tight swing states,
Nader tripped on his own hubris and fell into a history book.
As Jonathan Chait described for NY Magazine, “[Nader]- insisted on spending the final
days of the campaign on a whirlwind tour of battleground states such as xPennsylvania
and Florida.
In other words, he chose to go where the votes were scarcest, jeopardizing his own chances
of winning 5 percent of the vote, which he needed to gain federal funds in 2004.
Is Ralph Nader wholly responsible for Gore’s loss?
No.
Can we give Gore the blame for losing his own election?
Yes.
Was Nader a tangible factor?
A measurable variable?
Was his choice to focus on swing states without regard to the political reality of the American
electoral college a risk to the values and priorities he himself holds?
Yes.
4) “Here’s where a Libertarian really supports- everybody has an equal right to
run for an election.
If everybody has an equal right- then we’re either all spoilers of one another, trying
to get votes from one another- or none of us are spoilers.
We’re not second class citizens because we’re a green party candidate or libertarian
No one has said that Nader didn’t have the right to run for office.
Any candidate can pursue office; but if they’re not one of the major parties, they have to
consider whether or not whether they will play the role of the spoiler.
We have a first-past-the-post system, you either win the most votes and take everything
or you get nothing.
For my final thought, let’s go a little bit deeper with this topic..
History shows there are only three possibilities for third-parties in America:
1.
Die
The vast majority of 3rd parties are doomed to flail in obscurity or simply die.
Just ask the Socialists of the early 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt’s short-lived (and
1912 spoiling!)
Bull-Moose Party, or Ross Perot’s Reform Party of the 90’s.
But what about the minority with success?
Well, mostly they 1.
Are absorbed into one of the major parties.
As many have pointed out, including other youtubers, the first-past-the-post system
incentivizes two major parties with large umbrellas.
By appealing to a broad base, they increase their odds in a zero sum game.
Smaller voting blocks are tempted to coalesce around their lesser-of-two-evils out of fear.
Democrats absorbed William Jennings Bryan and his populism at the turn of the 20th century.
Take a look at the tea party movement, which disappeared into the Republican Party in less
than 5 years.
Or the Bernie Sanders revolution; of which around 85% will be voting Democratic come
November.
3) Become a major party.
Rarest of all, a third-party movements actually win.
The anti-Jacksonian Whigs of the mid 19th century or the anti-Kansas-Nebraska Act Republicans
of the civil war era are two examples.
This begs the question, ‘if third-parties can win, why spend an entire video calling
one a spoiler?’
Because even successful third-parties are doomed to become a big umbrella party themselves,
or risk returning to obscurity.
The short-term effort of third-party supporters to bring about real change is inevitably wasted
as the party adapts for long-term survival through a watered down platform and milk-toast
candidates.
Third-parties are fireworks in a system which demands satellites.
The chance of a long-term American political reality with more than two-major parties without
fundamental electoral reform is fantasy.
Just as the Presidential election is a binary choice, so is the mere existence of your chosen
party; either yours is one of the two major parties, or yours will lose badly.
And as much as I’d love to have a vibrant multi-party system here in the US, we don’t.
And it is naive to think we can build one with the electoral college in place.
It’s not good enough to say, ‘we need more choices’.
It’s not good enough to say, ‘end the tyranny of the Republicans and the Democrats’.
If your 3rd party says ‘vote for me!
We can have more than two choices.
Don’t choose between the lesser-of.two-evils, choose me’.
But they aren’t also calling for electoral reform and an end to first-past-the-post,
they don’t want to end the 2 party dichotomy; they want to be one of the two parties.
They are manipulating your vote in order to join the 2 party system they claim to detest.
Let me what you think in the comments.
Be sure to check out the video that directly contradicts this one by clicking here.
It’s by Mr. Beat over on his Social Studies Channel.
Mr. Beat, Matt, found my channel back when I was flailing at like 75 subscribers- and
his support meant a lot.
So matt, if you’re watching, Thank You.
To everyone watching, definitely go subscribe!