Posted by Editormum on 26 October 2004 in
News Commentary |
∞
Okay, I am officially sick fo the Presidential election and all the politicking surrounding it. Can we stop now? Can we have a few days of quiet and peace before next Tuesday?
Sadly, it ain’t gonna happen. And the saddest bit is, some wacky thing is liable to happen between now and then — just 8 days from now — that will alter the outcome. Remember the flap over Bush’s drunk driving conviction in the last week of campaign 2000? It very nearly cost him the election.
And then there’s the third-party candidates: the ubiquitous Ralph Nader (Reform Party/Independent), who, even after, what, THREE failed attempts cannot get it through his head that less than 5% of the population is interested in what he has to say; Michael Peroutka (Constitution Party); Gene Amondson (Prohibition Party); David Cobb (Green Party); Michael Badnarik (Libertarian Party); and numerous other parties (www.politics1.com lists 11 third parties plus some 38 independents and write-ins who have made it onto ballots in various states. Eight others have already withdrawn from the race.)
And people will vote for these fringe candidates. What most of them have told me is that they know their guy won’t win, but they want their “voice to be heard.” Okay, well, that’s their Constitutional right, but how many of them are simply ignorant of the effects of their vote? Acutally, a surprising number of the people I’ve talked to seem to have no idea of the power of 1 — whether that’s one vote of one percent of votes.
I can’t understand why those who vote for third-party candidates don’t understand the ramifications. History shows it over and over. The 2000 Florida vote count gave W the state’s electoral votes by only 575 individual votes. As 102 million votes were cast, that means that less than 5% of all voters was enough to swing the election for W. So if 3% of those voters (about 290 people) had cast a vote for Nader and another 3% cast their vote for Peroutka, BAM! Al Gore would now be President.
The same thing can happen this year. I know how appealing Peroutka is to the constitutionalist and to the hard-line conservative. I somewhat understand Nader’s appeal to the Independents. I’m not so sure about the other parties, but most people haven’t heard of the others anyway. And I understand the disillusionment and anger that many people of all parties feel toward W. But we already know that we are looking at a very close race. If the basic breakdown of voters goes as it did last election, then your vote for Peroutka or Nader may very well cost W the election.
Now we’ve already seen that a third-party guy is highly unlikely to win, so take him out of the race for a minute and assume that W and JK are your only choices. Which of the two do you think will make the better leader of a country at war, and which will be more likely to set policy along the lines that you, as a constitutionalist or independent, would support? See, constitutionalists and indies are generally (not always, but generally) conservative. So it’s the conservative vote that gets split. And splitting the conservative vote puts what is, to a conservative, the greater of two evils — a liberal — in the White House. The liberals know this little truth, and they count on it to help their candidate. (Remember Ross Perot, who split the conservative vote and helped put Bill Clinton in office?)
So when you vote for a third-party candidate, your voice isn’t heard — in fact, your voice gets more deeply drowned than it would have if you’d voted for the lesser of the two evils. While I strongly dislike this whole two-party system that our elections process has devolved into, it remains that this is the basic framework of the system now. And all the ruckus from the third parties makes the whole rodeo a noisier mess than it needs to be.
Tags: Politics
Sick and Tired of Politics! Especially the Third-Parties!
Okay, I am officially sick fo the Presidential election and all the politicking surrounding it. Can we stop now? Can we have a few days of quiet and peace before next Tuesday?
Sadly, it ain’t gonna happen. And the saddest bit is, some wacky thing is liable to happen between now and then — just 8 days from now — that will alter the outcome. Remember the flap over Bush’s drunk driving conviction in the last week of campaign 2000? It very nearly cost him the election.
And then there’s the third-party candidates: the ubiquitous Ralph Nader (Reform Party/Independent), who, even after, what, THREE failed attempts cannot get it through his head that less than 5% of the population is interested in what he has to say; Michael Peroutka (Constitution Party); Gene Amondson (Prohibition Party); David Cobb (Green Party); Michael Badnarik (Libertarian Party); and numerous other parties (www.politics1.com lists 11 third parties plus some 38 independents and write-ins who have made it onto ballots in various states. Eight others have already withdrawn from the race.)
And people will vote for these fringe candidates. What most of them have told me is that they know their guy won’t win, but they want their “voice to be heard.” Okay, well, that’s their Constitutional right, but how many of them are simply ignorant of the effects of their vote? Acutally, a surprising number of the people I’ve talked to seem to have no idea of the power of 1 — whether that’s one vote of one percent of votes.
I can’t understand why those who vote for third-party candidates don’t understand the ramifications. History shows it over and over. The 2000 Florida vote count gave W the state’s electoral votes by only 575 individual votes. As 102 million votes were cast, that means that less than 5% of all voters was enough to swing the election for W. So if 3% of those voters (about 290 people) had cast a vote for Nader and another 3% cast their vote for Peroutka, BAM! Al Gore would now be President.
The same thing can happen this year. I know how appealing Peroutka is to the constitutionalist and to the hard-line conservative. I somewhat understand Nader’s appeal to the Independents. I’m not so sure about the other parties, but most people haven’t heard of the others anyway. And I understand the disillusionment and anger that many people of all parties feel toward W. But we already know that we are looking at a very close race. If the basic breakdown of voters goes as it did last election, then your vote for Peroutka or Nader may very well cost W the election.
Now we’ve already seen that a third-party guy is highly unlikely to win, so take him out of the race for a minute and assume that W and JK are your only choices. Which of the two do you think will make the better leader of a country at war, and which will be more likely to set policy along the lines that you, as a constitutionalist or independent, would support? See, constitutionalists and indies are generally (not always, but generally) conservative. So it’s the conservative vote that gets split. And splitting the conservative vote puts what is, to a conservative, the greater of two evils — a liberal — in the White House. The liberals know this little truth, and they count on it to help their candidate. (Remember Ross Perot, who split the conservative vote and helped put Bill Clinton in office?)
So when you vote for a third-party candidate, your voice isn’t heard — in fact, your voice gets more deeply drowned than it would have if you’d voted for the lesser of the two evils. While I strongly dislike this whole two-party system that our elections process has devolved into, it remains that this is the basic framework of the system now. And all the ruckus from the third parties makes the whole rodeo a noisier mess than it needs to be.
Tags: Politics