RE: Re: nader/green party (political - duh)

[David Dean <David.Dean@asu.edu>]

Actually because of the Electoral College, candidates must campaign in every state.  Based on the current population distribution in the US, a president chosen by popular vote would only have to campaign in a hand full of states (e.g. California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois).  That means people in the Daktotas, Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Vermont, etc would never get to see the candidates nor would their vote "count" at all because ti would be dilluted against the more heavier concentrations of population.  Candidates would spend all of their time and money in the heavily populated states where more that 50% f the population resides.  To call the electoral college "silly and out dated" is to not fully understand the complexity and meaning behind it.


And as for the comment about the Supreme Court chose the last president, that is a bunch of horse manure.  The court ruling only prescibed rules for recount and deadlines for election results to be certified.  It was involved on appeal from the Florida courts and everything followed the rule of law.  The media and its scandalous "calling of the election" before polls in the west coast is another contributing factor to consider when trying to lay blame for Gore's defeat.  However, the most significant reason for Gore's defeat was Gore himself.  How does a candidate and vice president in one of the most popular administrations in recent history loose an election that should have been a gimmie?  Bush didn't steal that election and the Supreme Court didn't award it to him...Gore lost it the day he hit the campaign trail, claimed he invented the internet, and tried to distance himself from Clinton while trying to pass himself off as the image of the alpha male.  Gore lost the Whi!
 tehouse hands down because he was unable to capitalize on all of the advantages he had at the beginning of the race.

And to some extent Nader did take votes from Gore.  President Lincoln might not have been elected if the democrats had not had two candidates (a northerner and a southerner) in the 1860 election.  The point is that we indeed have an instiutionalized defacto two party system.  A third party only takes away votes from those two parties.  Unlike European and other systems where there are more than two viable parties (complete with organization and registrations at all levels) the American people have more-or-less moved away from that.  In the 1920s the Socialists picked up a number of votes based on an issue driven agenda (like the green party) and in the 1936 election, FDR had to broaden his appeal in order to incorporate criticisms of the New Deal from both the right and the left and win that election.  In the end, the major political parties will absorb other party issues if they feel it is necessary to win.  The result is, these other parties can never maintain enough momen!
 tum from election cycle to election cycle to actually change the political landscape away from a two-party system.  

Finally, Bill Maher may be funny, and he may fashion himself as a political commentator; but he is not the final authority on elections, or politics in the country.  It is everyone's duty as a ctizen to learn, understand, and question information they are fed by the media, comentators or any other source.  Thomas Jefferson said that a literate population prevents tyranny.  Don't let Maher and Miller think for you....think for yourself.

Respectfully,
David

*******************
David Dean
PhD Candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University





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