Randomness Daryl Ducharme Randomness Daryl Ducharme

Too Good To Not Post

As I was watching some of last weeks episodes of "The Daily Show" that I had missed. I could not help but laugh out loud at a couple of bits. Here is a great one on the differences of opinion around the same issue when people are talking about someone they don't want to support and someone they do.
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However, nothing made me laugh harder than the bit at about 4:20 in this section that compared John McCain's acceptance speech to George W. Bush's 2000 acceptance speech.

I just love how this shows speaking to what people want to hear more than anything of substance. I would love to see how Democratic candidate acceptance speeches are similar, if they are.

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Randomness Daryl Ducharme Randomness Daryl Ducharme

My thoughts: Whining about Nader

Ever since Nader announced his exploratory committee people have been whining. They've been making unsubstantiated claims about his ego, financing by the Republican party and calling him all sorts of names. I was happy to see many supporters with comments responding to those against Nader but many people are spouting the same responses that land on deaf ears. To reach more people there need to be many different arguments so I thought I would share some. ...

About Nader as a spoiler

Nader was a spoiler
So was George W. Bush, Pat Buchanan, Howard Phillips, Denny Lane, Harry Browne, John Hagelin, Earl Dodge, David McReynolds, James Harris, Monica Moorehead and all the Independent and write in candidates* The difference was that Ralph Nader got 2,883,105 votes as opposed to Pat Buchanan's 449,895. Buchanan, by the way, admits many people probably accidentally voted for him in Florida due to the style of ballots.**

Nader was not a spoiler
By saying Gore was spoiled by Nader's presence in the race assumes that people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore. It also assumes that they would have voted in the election at all.
Every candidate needs to earn their votes. If Gore didn't earn them and Nader did then it went as the voters felt best.

Gore spoiled it for Nader
If you believe people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore, than it stands to reason that people who voted for Gore would have voted for Nader. People argue that if Nader really believed in what he said he believes in ( I'll humor them, even if they weren't listening ) then he would have gracefully dropped out and let Gore win. I rarely hear people saying that if Al Gore believed so strongly in what he believed in, like not letting a George W. Bush be president, he would have dropped out and told all his supporters to vote for Ralph Nader, because nothing in Nader's history( except Democrats vain hopes ) says he would quit.

About Wasting your vote
“a vote for Ralph Nader is a wasted vote”

You waste your vote when you vote for the major party's mainstream candidates
-Candidates who can count on your unquestioning vote aren't very likely to do much to earn it.
-You vote is your statement to the politicians about the direction you want the country to go in. Do you want it to be a statement of your values or a statement of your ability to follow blindly. Where does following blindly get us?

People have lost their faith in the power of their own vote
- I grew up learning about the importance of voting in elections. It is important to vote, not for the winner, but for who you want to win. Who you want to be President is more important while you are in the voting booth than the person who is higher in the polls. Nearly 50% of the voting-age population do not vote, even in presidential elections***, and that is such a waste. If someone could get half of those people inspired, it would be revolutionary.

People are jealous that other people had the courage to vote for Nader
- Perhaps some people are just jealous that over 2.8 million people had the guts to vote for Ralph Nader( not to mention other non-major candidates ) and they didn't. Deep down they feel this somehow invalidates their political stubborness and right or wrong people hate being invalidated. This psychology is a stretch but it might fit some people.

The Spoiler Issue is a Smokescreen

There are 2 ways that Democrats( as a party ) could have responded
- The way the party did, which was to lay blame on Ralph Nader and thereby relieving themselves of any responsibility for losing the election.
- They could have seen that there is a large part of the population that would like a more progressive candidate. While many constituents are realizing this for themselves the party has shown( in 2004 and now in 2008 ) that they are not listening.

The Democrats are not Republican's - So What!
- This is the vote for the lesser evil argument. Voter's shouldn't be voting for someone because of who they aren't, they should be voting for someone because of who they are. One could state that Ralph Nader isn't George W. Bush, so you should vote for him.

* http://www.politics1.com/p2000a.htm
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan#2000_campaign
*** http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/prespop.htm

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Randomness Daryl Ducharme Randomness Daryl Ducharme

The spoiler question

My posts, as of late, have centered around the recent Green Party Debate in Alameda County, California. One of the questions at the discussion/debate was in regards to the "spoiler" question. Many of the responses reminded me of why I bought the domain name votedifferent.org. This got me thinking, what would my response be to the "spoiler" question? ...

First off, let me give you a little background on what the "spoiler" situation is. In the 2000 election for President, Ralph Nader ran as a Green Party candidate. Some of you may remember that the election was extremely close (537 votes) and came down to a series of recounts in the state of Florida. Many people, especially in the Democratic party, argue that people who voted for Ralph Nader in Florida ( over 93,000 ) would have voted for Al Gore. This same group of people blame Ralph Nader for costing Al Gore the election. So what do I think about the spoiler situation?

The fact that George W. Bush won the 2000 election made you angy. It made me angry too. Democracy is meant to allow the people of this nation to choose what is best for the country. A Democracy is often defined as majority rule. Majority can be defined as the number larger than half the total. In Florida, no candidate had a majority of the votes. George W. Bush had the plurality of votes but over half of that state voted against him. By law he gets to be President but if you believe in Democracy as majority rule you should feel that election law needs to change. You might say, “What other option is there?” You might even come up with the idea of, “Could we not proclaim a winner until someone gets a majority of the votes?” Then fear of the unknown creeps in and you might say, “But we might never choose a President!”

There are options to our electoral system and it comes down to this. In a Democracy where you can’t vote your conscious you might not vote at all. In our Democracy the majority do not vote. In a Democracy people are often willing to have their second choice count as long as their original choice is heard. There is a system that allows people to vote their conscious and ,at the same time, let their second( third, fourth, etc ) choice have weight. It is called runoff voting.

There are many different types of runoff voting systems but the most promising for the United States is instant runoff voting(IRV). Instant runoff voting allows people to rank their candidate preference. The system then takes these rankings into account, removing last place candidates until we finally get to a majority. Rather than explain it with words, here is a video explanation of the system.

If a system like this were in place, even just in the state of Florida, people might be thanking Ralph Nader instead of ostracizing him. They’d be thanking Nader for helping to get more people to vote and getting Al Gore elected. Of course, that would only be the case if indeed Nader candidates second choice would have been Al Gore( which I believe as well ).

More information about instant runoff voting and other election reform can be found at FairVote.org. You can find out what is happening around the country as well as find some ways that you can make a difference in your own community.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a video of the politician who got me excited about grass root politics talking about instant runoff voting.

PS-I just bought the domain name voteEqual.com

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